Where are all the Pumpkins?

I'm the first person to admit it - I am not a very well organised mother. I've missed non-uniform days, turned up on wrong days to wrong parent evenings, and will never forget the time that my older son told the school nurse he'd had Wotsits and a chocolate croissant for breakfast. (Well, we were late...) But Halloween is something I've always made an effort for. I always get in lots of sweets for trick or Treaters, decorate my window, make a spooky tea for the kids (with the tomato sauce labelled "blood") and most important of all, get a pumpkin to carve. So imagine my distress when I discovered that Somerfield, the greengrocers, Asda, and the Co-op were all out of pumpkins! Even Sainsburys could only supply this pathetic excuse for a pumpkin... (photographed with the cat for scale purposes!)


I've had bigger oranges! I will check my mum's Daily Mail...it's bound to tell me that there's some sort of EU rule stating the maximum size of a pumpkin, or it will say that illegal immigrants have taken all the big ones. I had to buy a butternut squash as well, I mean what is the world coming to!?

New Doll

This is my latest creation - it sprang from the Mossycoat story. I thought I would try and make Mossycoat as a baby with her mother. I had in mind a textile competition when I made it - the theme is "magic", and I thought it fitted in nicely. I might still enter; the closing date is tomorrow. I have had terrible trouble with the photographs though. To be more precise, I've had terrible trouble with the photographer. (Me). Click to "enbiggen"!

I went to look at some studios last week and I was very nonchalant about it, until I found out there is still a waiting list for one...and now I really want one! We haven't eaten at a table at home for almost a year because of my art and textile antics.

I think I miss going out to work every day. I mean, I could work naked if I wanted and no-one would know. (I don't, by the way). (Well, I suppose when an exhibition is close and I am really pushed for time...) But I think having a studio might make me a bit more professional, and less inclined to watch Jeremy Kyle and eat an entire packet of Hobnobs before I even start on my artwork.

Oh, the doll is all cloth, with painted silk and machine embroidery.

Testing!

After many weeks of angst and stress I now have a new computer. Just wanted to test out putting an image on here with it.



Mmm...seemed to work OK! (By the way this is just a monoprint I did the other day. Remember the charity collector I sketched a few months back? I turned her into an angel for a bit of fun.)

Just waiting for my lovely friend Sandie to arrive for a day of painting. Happy Sunday everyone.

Quiet

Hello everyone. Just thought I would dash off a hasty post to explain why I've neglected my blog lately.

My computer evidently didn't accept my decision to get Sky broadband, and did not have an appropriate hole to put a Sky shaped plug into. I'm currently shopping for a computer, and as so many members of my family are completing uni applications, writing personal statements and other Important Things, I need to hurry up. Tomorrow I am having to venture into the land of the shiny suit, the hair gel, the jargon...the hideousness that is PC World. Pray for me. Believe me, they don't want to try any of those flirtatious little dances or cheeky comments they do on the advert. I've already slammed the phone down on Dell and wept over the Apple website. I'm a woman on the edge and not in the mood for jolly banter about ethernet ports or gigs of RAM. They can just get me a computer that works and let me out. OK?

Have finished a new doll which I'll put on here when I can. I've been working on it, and started three more, plus done a monoprint, pretty much solidly this week whenever not doing child related stuff. I felt a bit isolated to be honest. Going to look at a studio next week, in the hope of making a decision about my future career.