Snippets from the web...

You have probably long since realised that I spend quite a lot of time just browsing the internet ~ there is an infinite amount of lovely stuff available out there for plenty of serious online eye-feasting!  I have so many images tucked away in various folders in my documents that every so often I have to have a serious cull!  I find so much to look at that I thought it would be nice to share some of it with you, so I've decided to do just that 😉  

All sorts of things catch my eye ~ crochet (naturally!), dolls' house ideas (obviously!), blue and white china (of course!), pretty rooms, garden ideas, all-kinds-of-people for all-kinds-of-reasons, ideas for things to make (you have no idea how many of those I have tucked away!), scrumptious-sounding recipes, "green" ideas and recycling.....the list goes on and on and on!  The title of my blog rather gives the game away, doesn't it ~ I have the proverbial butterfly mind 😉 I don't suppose I shall post things every day.....but on the other hand, some weeks I may do just that LOL  I will try my best to add the link back to the original source, but with some of the images I come across on Pinterest that can be surprisingly difficult!

So, in no particular order, here are a few images that have caught my eye recently:

Source?

Source?

Anderson + Grant

Carina's Craftblog

Hometalk

Source?

This Ivy House

Our evening walks

We always follow much the same route when we take Matty out for his evening constitutional: turn right out the garden gate, amble down our road, turn left at the war memorial, amble back up the road running parallel with ours, another left turn to cut through between the houses and arrive back in our garden 😏 Sounds like it must be pretty boring, I know, but there is always something new to see, or someone to say hello to, and of course Matty never runs out of things to sniff!

Just a man and a dog ~ my man and our dog 😊

On the grassed area by the war memorial are a few trees and this one always catches my eye when we take Matty out.  After six months living here, I finally remembered to take my camera out with me to take some photos!

There are lots of patches of lichen and moss all over the tree's trunk.....

.....it looks so pretty, a patchwork of different colours and shapes.  I think of it as "the lichen tree".

It's not that easy to get a good photo of the war memorial as to get it all in the photo, you have to step back from it and then you are lower down!  Would be much easier to take a photo from the back, of course, but then you would be looking at the rear of the statue on top.

We walked past these chaps for quite a few weeks, up 'til Thursday.

They were such curious creatures, especially if they saw a dog.  Matty was rather nervous of them, so we didn't take him near the fence!

They were curious about humans, too, and would sniff my hand ~ then try to lick it!

The field was empty when we went by on Thursday, so I guess the guys have now gone off to market.

Just a gull, sitting on it's lamppost 😏

A little edit to this post: the bullocks are still around after all!  We spotted them last night, in the next field back ~ no idea why we hadn't noticed them before LOL

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

WW1 Hearts

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been working on a contribution to an art project ~ my very first one!  It is to commemorate the centenary of Armistice Day, and also to help raise funds for Combat Stress who are a charity for veterans' mental health issues.

Untangled Threads have made sawdust-filled calico hearts ~ 1,568 in fact, which represent one heart for each day of the war ~ which are replicas of those made in WW1.  During WW1 thousands of these kits were commercially produced and distributed to both soldiers and civilians. 

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I have been strangely nervous about taking part in this exhibition, and put off actually doing anything with the pincushion right up to the last minute, bearing in mind it had to be back in Scarborough by the 31st July!  In the end I decided that the best way forward was to stop procrastinating, make something simple, and stick with what I know, hence the yarn 😉  It made it into the post on Thursday, so hopefully it'll be at its destination in time to meet the deadline!

I trawled online for a simple but effective crocheted poppy pattern, and changed it slightly by working the centre in black rather than red as in the original; I also made a black crochet granny heart.

I poked about on ebay and found some rather lovely vintage black buttons for the centre of the poppy.

In honour of the fact that this is a pincushion, I attached the heart and three poppies using black glass-headed pins.....

.....and added the date using the pins supplied with the kit.

As I say, in the end I made something very simple but nevertheless I'm still very pleased with the end result 😊

A handful of crochet ~ and a moth!

I'm currently working on an actual piece to be added to an actual artwork ~ my first ever 😲 Well, when I say working I think it would be fairer to say I've been procrastinating somewhat but I've got to get a wiggle on now as it's due in Scarborough by the 31st July!  I'll be sharing photos of my very simple offering shortly 😊 

I have done some crochet, though, since we moved up in January:

I finally got round to making another tissue-box cover for Beverly, in colours that she wanted to go with her decor.  I rather think she had decided that I would never actually it done LOL

I've had these three crochet squares kicking around for ages and since I didn't think that I would actually ever get round to making a whole blanket's worth of 'em, I decided to join them together and give them a decorative edge to make the "creation" a little larger.

It's made a practical mat to protect my dining table.  The cheese dish sits nicely on the centre square, and the other two are still on full display.

I've been using up odds 'n' sods of yarn from my stash to make another chevron blanket.  I love this pattern, it's so simple and every blanket I've made using it looks different because of the infinite variety of colours used.  This one now lives on the arm of our sofa, and is mostly made good use of by Beverly when she has a snooze!

More dishcloths, again with yarn from my stash.  The waffle pattern is one that I've never tried before and I like it very much.  So much so, in fact, that I'm thinking of making a blanket using it.  Again, it's very simple ~ and I really like "simple" LOL  

The Orkney Islands Cat Protection have just put out a plea for blankets for their cats and kittens, so I will make some for them using the waffle stitch pattern and yet more yarn from my stash.

And here is the moth, a magpie moth so I am reliably informed by folk in the Orkney Wildlife group 😊  Isn't it beautiful!  It was just sitting on the concrete path in our front garden the other week.  It was very obliging and posed for ages so I could have a good crack at taking a half-decent picture!

Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings

I was listening to Suzi Klein on Radio 3 this morning and she played this piece of music.  

Each time I hear it I get a lump in my throat, especially as the sound of the strings swells ~ I want to sit in a corner and quietly weep.....

Stromness Shopping Week fancy dress parade

At the end of Shopping Week there is a fancy dress parade, which is a lot of fun!  Very conveniently for me the parade passed right by the end of our road, so on Saturday I met up with friends to watch the floats go past.  Sadly, the weather had changed from glorious to definitely-not-so-glorious by Saturday so we got rather wet and cold whilst we were standing about waiting.  Still, I'm glad we made the effort to go ~ it's good to support one's local community and you do have to be prepared to brave the weather up here, be it rain, wind or shine.....or all three in one day LOL

Here are a few photos of the parade.  I should think the folk taking part were pretty damp and cold at times, but even so they all seemed to enjoy themselves 😊