They grow up so fast

I spotted a pair of new goslings by the river this week

and realised just how much the other goslings have grown in the two and a half weeks since I first saw them at that size –

They were really close because a woman and her toddler daughter were feeding bread to ‘the ducks’ (I feel a strong desire to say loudly to myself – ‘hello GEESE’ !)

They really do look like gangly youngsters rather than cute, fluffy babies now – although still cute when they huddle up together

The cygnets are still around too and there are still 7 of them

and I often see all the families together – I assume for safety

I haven’t suddenly grown tall, nor have I taken to carrying a ladder or long camera pole – there is a handy pedestrian bridge over the bank where they tend to hang out.

Zoom out on the kelpies

for my birthday outing we visited the fabulous new kelpie sculptures near Falkirk

2 wonderful horse heads (kelpies are water horses from traditional stories) that are an engineering marvel as well as a splendid, imposing public sculpture.  The park is not completed yet, with the visitor centre and cafe still to be built and some planting and path making still in progress.  But there were lots of people there eager to see the new kelpies (it was a public holiday) despite frequent showers

and couldn't resist the chance to feed the kelpies !

looking forward to discovering other wonders in your zoom in, zoom out pairings

teenage patchwork

I made this patchwork when I was a teenager, during the summer school holidays.  All of the fabrics were from the scrap pile – yellows and browns were prominent in my wardrobe then – funny remembering the different items these fabrics were used for.  I never backed it so you can still see my construction when you turn it over

each piece of fabric was folded over a piece of card and then tacked to shape and then I hand sewed the pieces together – lots of small over stitch while sitting in the garden enjoying the sun.

During the sorting of stuff Mum found a patchwork piece I made for my sister’s doll bed – I think at about the same time

again all the fabric is from the scrap pile.  One piece has rotted away (or eater my moths or mice – that one piece must have tasted particularly good).

busy crochet month

most of my crochet this month has been charity related.  A group of us from our weekly coffee group have started a craft for charity coffee group – the same coffee, cake and chat but with added crochet and knitting for various charities

most to the time we make 20 cm squares for either KAS who provide blankets for children in need in south Africa or LILY who are providing blankets for Syrian refugees.

recently we found out about a new campaign to raise awareness of being an organ donor – the idea is to leave yellow ducks in public places with a tag that encourages a visit to the website.  I’ve made some ducks but haven’t decided where to leave them yet

we have also been talking about raising money to help cover the postage of our squares and to raise awareness and hopefully recruit more members.  We thought we would go for lots of small items so I tried out some ami ideas and came up with this set of prototypes

I still need to work on some of the faces but am pleased overall and think they will work for pocket money buys – we are thinking £2 each ($3.30).  I will add elastic to the spiders so they can be hung up and some of the little hearts will have a broach fastener on the back.  The heart’ spider and monster patterns are from craftyiscool and I created the other animals using the same body shape as the alien and adding ears, tails etc inspired by a scroll through lots of ami images on Google.

The other thing I crocheted at the weekend was a mandala for the great mandala collection at Yarndale – the aim is to cover a wall with masses of colourful mandalas – they are collecting until June if you fancy contributing to this fun artwork.

Loving that I can amuse myself with a crochet hook, lovely colours and fun animals and have happy recipients so I don’t need to find a place for them all around my house.