the pine-scented air

How cute is this? I wonder what other poems he knows...

william morris

A while ago The Textile Blog posted some of William Morris' original artwork, and I just can't get enough...

Jasmine 1872

Acanthus 1874

Honeysuckle 1883

Rose 1883

I think these illustrations are almost even more beautiful than the finished pieces of fabric and wallpaper themselves. I wonder if there are any prints of these to hang on walls?

P.S. Yesterday they posted a great entry on William Morris' Holland Park Carpet

bunny of the week 51

fairy tale living

Lately I've really been liking these alternative quirky homes, I think mainly because they remind me of fairy tales and children's books I read when I was younger (and not so younger).

Can you imagine living in a house in a hill (literally) or dug in like a cave or sandwiched between rocks? I can :)

Stone House in Portugal

Rogner Bad Blumau in Austria

'Villa Vals' in Switzerland

all seen on Black*Eiffel

bunny of the week 50

courtesy of CJ and mydeco

apologies for the delays in service

Last weekend I stopped into Liberty (surprise, surprise), mainly to see their newest fabric collection. I was excited to see that they have expanded the fabric section and have added a lot more Liberty of London lines using both old and new fabric patterns.

teapots and toiletry bags and coasters etc

cutting fabric

new season fabrics

jackson pollack -style prints

rich coloured florals

the fishes

beautiful shawl (a mere £295 or so...)

Zucchini pancakes for Sunday lunch!

mm mmmm

Girls' night on Wednesday :)

Last night's Dark and Stormy

(yummy- I'm not a rum person really, but this is rum, ginger beer and lime, and it's good)

:)

morning components for today's breakfast biscuits

I couldn't resist the new LIberty fabrics, so I got a meter each of these three :)

And, last but not least, my newest tile addition-

Sherwin & Cotton circa 1900, I think it's reminiscent of a seahorse...

google

I went on Google this morning and it seems that they are celebrating the 71st anniversary of the Wizard of Oz :)

I really like that movie a lot, even today it seems magical to me when it switches from black and white into vibrant color. I can't believe the film is 71 years old. It will never date for me, and one day I hope my children feel the same :)

We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz, because because because because becausssseeeeee....

:)

northwest coast jewelry

Both my Mom and I really appreciate are from the Pacific Northwest, especially the beautiful silver jewelry made by the Tlingit and Tsimshian. When we went to Alaska when I was in High School my Mom got me a beautiful silver ring with a raven around it, which I still wear often today. I'm very glad I had some sense of style (or at least what was pretty) in High School and my Mom was willing to see the ring as an investment piece for me :)

I did do some searching recently and found some people selling online...

Native Spirit Jewelry Ltd ebay

Sa-Cinn Native Ent Ltd

Art from Above etsy

I think they're all wonderful, impossible to choose a favorite!!!

bunny of the week 49

j.crew

I've been window shopping again at J.Crew...

I really like their earthy fall palette they have been adding new items to recently.

My favourites are below:

top: alpaca long cardigan, softspun sunrise dress, dixon short boots, skinny jeans

middle: ruffled jersey dress, Minnetonka fringed moccasin boots, toothpick cord, cotton tunic

bottom: linen detache cardigan, suede macalister boots, tote

I especially like the alpaca cardigan, sunrise dress, dixon boots and minnetonka boots, but if someone wanted to treat me to all of them I wouldn't complain ;)

They have also posted some of their fall 'looks'. They're not all for me, but I like elements of these...

I like the different furry vests, denims, and that coat in the last look.

What do you think?

camping

So then we went camping, not too far out of London.

And camped in a farmer's field, the farmer had not been letting people camp on his farm very long so he was a bit eccentric but very nice and gave us a raised fire pit to use at night.

tent view

morning chicken inspection

wheat field

We went for a long walk on the Saturday along a bit of the Ridgeway (an 85 mile path that has been around for ages), and then along the Grand Union Canal (the same canal that cuts through London)

the gang

horses!

The wind caught our map and plopped it in the canal so Ste had to borrow a fisherman's net to fish it out. The fisherman commented that "I hope that's not the only thing I catch today!"

Cool camouflaged house

Then on the Sunday we went to see the nearby windmill, which was the oldest windmill in England, built inn 1695, until it was a bit destroyed in the 70s, but now it has been restored and is owned by the National Trust.

Puussssshhhhhhhhh!

(you can see who is making the most mock-effort)

And then we went to a Pick Your Own farm, where we did our weekly vegetable shopping

Yum yum!

What a wonderful and exhausting week!!!!

some photos from away

Day 1: We started the journey like last time, train ride from London to Oxenholme Lake District, second train to Windermere, then with a bike ride from Windermere to the cottage, about 8 miles, which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't put lots of hills in between :)

we stopped in Ambleside to sit by the lake for a bit before continuing on to the cottage and the hilly part of the ride

Day 2: after a good night's sleep we dragged ourselves out of bed on a rainy morning to start a walk. We began by staying in the valley near the cottage (mistyness=rainyness)

But then we decided to go farther afield, and we saw a lake on the map called Stickle Tarn, so we decided to head for this. One wet hike up a steep mountainside later :) and we came to this...

A beautiful, peaceful lake where we could stop to have some well-earned lunch.

We decided that instead of heading back down the way we came up, we might as well continue along the tops of the mountains until we get to our village and then work our way down from there. I really like the tops of the mountains up there.

Ste spotted this dragonfly so we stopped to photo it.

Our first sighting of where we need to be. The tops of the mountains are very barren, with only some random scrubs, ferns, or knarled trees, and lots of sheep. To entertain us on our walk we made up random poems about sheep and told stories to each other (Ste's was an account of an old fisherman to a young boy about the Loch Ness monster, and mine was about a princess who was trapped in a secret clearing on a mountaintop).

The sun began to disappear so we attempted to half successfully find our way down. Successful in that we got down, unsuccessful in that we ended up on about 5 different 'paths' (possibly just sheep paths) and scaling down rocks at one point. But 6.5 hours later we had some well earned kip.

Day 3: Ste's Mum came up to visit us and we drove over to Coniston and went on a walk a bit up Coniston Old Man. There was a copper mine nearby which you can kind of see.

We found this little cottage, which I will still pretend is called 'Bend or Bump', though others think otherwise...

Ste and his Mum

We also went down by the lake in Coniston, and there were lots and lots of female ducks, two swans, a signet, and a tiny baby duck

I thought this baby was small and then I spotted....

this teeny tiny fellow! This mother was very protective (rightly so!) and herded all other ducks away from her baby if they got too close.

Later we retired back to the cottage for some tea and cake :)

Day 4: We slept in a bit and then biked into Ambleside to check out boat time tables and then parked our bikes to go for a walk in the hills behind the village.

And we spotted a wee bunny! (can you see him?)

Looking back into Ambleside.

A pretty mountain stream

We biked back to the cottage after our walk (2 hours) and had well-earned food. We cooked every day while up there. There is a pub in the village where we had some good beers, but it just serves typical pub food so we stuck to making our own. I am slightly ashamed to say we got through about a dozen potatoes, a block of butter, a bag of pasta, 4 chunks of local cheese, a dozen eggs, and of course lots of veggies during our stay :)

Day 5: I convinced Ste it would be a good idea to go up and over the mountain behind the cottage to Grasmere, the next village over, separated by the mountain.

We did stop in the church near the cottage before going on the walk as Ste noticed they would be selling cakes, so we bought some homemade flapjack and a chocolate peppermint slice and a puzzle to play later, then started on our walk.

This photo was to remind us how to get back down on the easy path instead of having to scramble like we usually do...

Once in Grasmere we walked around the lake and decided to explore the village. Ste contemplated that Wordsworth might be buried here, so after going a bit further, seeing there was a museum dedicated to Wordsworth in Grasmere, and yes, his grave was here, we went back to the cemetary and found his grave. We also sat on the bench nearby and had a sandwich.

We then continued on to Dove Cottage, where Wordsworth spent 8 years, first as a bachelor living with his sister, then as a married man, and then with his three children and random family relations and friends! (like Coleridge)

There was also a good museum there with lots of original paintings from British artists, and we went on a very informative tour around the house. Dove Cottage was the third house to become a museum in Britain, after Shakespeare's and Milton's!

When we were done we decided to continue around Lake Grasmere until we could go sit by it and we found a pleasant spot to do so, we had the rest of our lunch and I sketched a little picture of the view, and then we hiked back up and down the mountain without a hitch (I dubbed this walk 'The Ups and the Downs')

The next day we packed up, biked to Ambleside and got a boat up to Bowness and then biked from there to Windermere and then got the trains back to London and biked back home.

AND THEN, we got picked up to go camping for the weekend...........