Tree Fall

Studio

 

After almost a year of living here, I finally built the studio in my back garden last summer. I'd ordered the log cabin kit back in February of last year, intending to get it built by March. But one thing led to another and before I knew it, the timber had been sitting outside, not really protected from the elements, for 6 months!

It took another few months to build it, have the electrics put in and insulate the entire thing, but I've now been in for 4 months, and it's really almost finished (but not quite!).

 

I keep intending to take some proper photo's for a studio tour, but still haven't got it exactly how I want it. In the meantime though I thought I'd share a couple of photo's of this corner, taken in a brief moment of tidiness!

 

 

It's amazing having my own space like this, especially now we share our home with my Dad, which means that the house is rarely empty (which I find essential for working from home). Although I do find that I don't disappear into my studio as readily as I used to, or stay in it as late as I did when it was in the actual house (back in Leeds), but that's probably not a bad thing.

I'll make sure I take proper photo's as soon as I've tidied up (again) and talk more about how I got it built and what's good to think about if you have a garden studio. But right now I'm going to drink my cup of tea, watch Pottery Throw Down and do some work!

A trip to the launderette...

 

Until I was 6 I lived in Aldershot, the Home of the British Army. We lived in a ground floor flat on a huge estate of army flats. I played in a brutalist playground of concrete tunnels and slides, with concrete climbing blocks and walls. Almost all the photo's of us from that time are of the carpark outside our flat, where we rode our bikes and push along toys. I remember the dark concrete stairwells that we ran up and down, and I still distinctly remember my worst ever nightmare as a child, that featured those stairs and the horrors that hid in it's shadows. I don't remember much grass and I don't remember many trees, other than the crab apple trees of my infant school playground.

When I was 6 we moved to Mudeford, in Dorset. A small coastal village, where we had a house with a garden, surrounded by trees, with a stream running through it. I remember pondskaters, voles, sticklebacks and a huge oak tree that I was utterly convinced was the Faraway Tree. I spent most of my time at Mudeford Quay and Stanpit Marsh. I messed around in row boats and went mackerel fishing, collected stamps, drew trees and flowers and kept notebooks full of car number plates. I walked a neighbours' golden retriever called Honey, on the beach by myself, occasionally letting her off the lead and then panicking that she wouldnt come back. I saw an episode of The Famous Five being filmed and wanted to be an ornithologist who solved crimes. My best friends were Andrew and Justin and I had a guinea pig called Julie.

 

 

 

When I was 8 we moved to Woolwich in London and back to a brutalist playground.

 

 

Those two years (and every single Christmas, Easter and Summer holiday that we spent at my Grandparent's house by the sea, next to Dungeness) created a need in me to be by the sea and in the countryside. They are the two most important years of my childhood, and when I remember them, I remember feeling like me. Not feeling like a new kid, not feeling like I had the wrong accent, not feeling transient.

 

Yesterday I went for a walk, while waiting for my washing to finish in the Harbour launderette (our washing machine has died), and I looked across the water at Mudeford.

 

 

It took me 37 years, but here I am (albeit across the water). Back where I know I belong. Where the annoyance of having to use a launderette is more than tempered by being able to take photo's of lapwings and walk along a beach path. Where this is my every day. And even more importantly, where this is my childrens every day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is where I was this morning, right down there, in the sea trying to catch those waves....

Today though was one of those sessions that was challenging and humbling for me. I had a fantastic surf on Sunday and allowed myself to think that after only 6 months, I was really getting somewhere. But today, while all the real surfers were out there surfing, I struggled to even get out back, yet alone catch any decent waves (and they were there to be caught). So after an hour of fighting, I stumbled out of the sea, exhausted and dejected and wholly aware that I still have a LOT to learn.

This evening though, I went skateboarding (having started again a few months ago after a 36 year break!!) and had a fantastic time! It was the complete opposite to surfing this morning. I pushed myself harder tonight, determined to make up for the failures of the morning, and it paid off. I left feeling that I've really turned a corner (quite literally as it turns out) and that I'm starting to get somewhere with skating. It's totally one step forward, two back, with surfing and skating (and running and designing and parenting!!) but tonight I felt like I definitely took that one step forward.

And you know, this isn't really about surfing or skating (or the midlife crisis that I'm sure some people think I'm having!), but about learning and challenging and taking control. For me, challenging myself helps to quieten the doubts and fears about life that often threaten to drown out all the good stuff. Learning and improving means that I'm moving forward and taking control. I may never be particularly good at surfing or skateboarding, and it may seem insane to take both up when I'm 47 this year, but it's not about being really good, it's about refusing to give in. Whether it's not giving in to growing older, or the pain in my hips or societies expections of me, or all of the above, it doesn't matter. All that matters is feeling that you're rising to that challenge.

Plus I really, really LOVE to skate and surf!!

 

 

Mornings

 

 

 

 

I love mornings here. I love this view across the fields, from my bedroom window. I love how the light changes throughout the seasons. It makes me smile every single day.

(for now, until I'm back in to the swing of it - will I get back in to the swing of it??? - mainly pictures and a few words).

 

 

Blinkered

When I stand right here, I can almost pretend that our sittingroom is finished. If I ignore the fact that there's still expanding foam around our 'new' (7 month old) windows. And as long as I don't look down and see the bare concrete floor (filthy and covered in cracks). Or look at the walls that haven't been replastered even though we had to have the room rewired and huge lines were gouged out of all 4 walls for the cable trunking (and we can still see all the trunking (which may not even be safe) and the brick walls). And as long as no one stands on the slate (they're really ceramic) tiles that we've been using as a temporary (for 9 months) hearth, that sounds like it's going to break every. single. time someone does stand on them. But you know, if I ignore all of that (and I do continue to ignore it all) and just stand right here, in the doorway, it really does look like we're getting there (we're not).

A favourite...

 

This is one of my favourite spots on the Island. We found it by accident on our first trip here from Leeds, but it took me ages to work out where it was again when we moved here.

It's where I run most days and I absolutely love it. Over the months I've been in heaven watching it all come to life as we finally moved from Winter in to Spring and now Summer (it is summer, right?).

 

 

Most days I say hello to a Jay that flies from one side of the track to the other, as I'm running. I say " hello Mum" as I run past it which makes me smile. And as it often swoops past me just at the point in my run where I'm starting to struggle and slow down, I like to tell myself that my mum has sent it to me to let me know that I just have to keep going.

 

The girls both like to cycle while I run and Lily in particular likes to come and walk along the track, looking for birds and dandelion clocks. When we moved here she realised very quickly that getting outside always makes her feel better if she's feeling low, so we spend a lot of time bird watching together and just walking and talking.

 

 

 

And twirling....

 

 

And swinging....

 

 

 

I haven't seen a wild rabbit with this colouring or size before, but there were about 10 of them in the field one evening. Lily and I, and another couple (that we didn't know) ended up just standing and watching them for ages.

 

 

After spending a major part of my childhood living by the sea and having had grandparents that always lived on the beach, I am still drawn to coastal plants more than any other. They take me straight back to the happiest parts of my childhood. I keep wondering if it would be weird to fill my garden with them, when we live in a country village rather than a coastal village (albeit a mile from the sea)? I'm completely torn between a wildflower garden and one filled with coastal succulents.

 

 

The bird life on this route also gets me every day! I grew up wanting to be an ornathologist, and never lost my love for all things feathered. So seeing so many birds that I've never seen before has made me almost embarrassingly happy! This is a Blacktailed Godwitt. Crazy stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's the most stunning place to run and manages to distract me from the fact that I'm still sooo slow (or maybe it causes it!). I also run along the cliffs and around the village - both of which are incredible (and very different) but this is my favourite place.

Back at it...

 

 

After a loooong break from all things Treefall and sewing, I'm finally back at it. I had originally only intended to take 6 months off, but before I knew it, it was over a year and I had the deadline of this years Contemporary Craft Festival in Bovey Tracey suddenly looming. With no studio (yet!) and all of my fabric etc in storage on the other side of the Island, it was pretty much only going to be an (expensive) deadline that was going to force me back in to it.

One of the ways to get back to it for me, has always been to turn to something tried and tested. But to be honest I was worried that I wouldn't remember how to make badgers and foxes after all this time! So for once it seemed safer to try a whole new design, and as I've been soooo inspired by my surroundings here on the Island I've been brimming with ideas.

It was the swans though,  that I've watched over the last few months while on my running route, that had really gotten in to my head. So when I pulled out a bolt of white, printed fabric that was perfect,  I knew that I had to give it a go. And then, well it just had to have velvet cygnets. Of course.

 

So I'm back working and sewing (and hoping my studio will be built soon!) and trying to work out how to turn all the ideas/inspiration that are buzzing around in my head, into actual designs! (And I'm relieved to say that I'm back making foxes and badgers and red squirrels!).

 

 

 

 

 

Save

2015

january

 

 

February

 

 

March

 

 

April

 

 

 

May

 

 

 

June

 

 

 

July

 

 

August

 

 

 

September

 

 

 

October

 

 

 

 

 

November

 

 

 

December

 

That was it. 2015. The year of change. For the first time in years I'm not scared to look ahead. Here we go...

2016

Newness

 

 

 

 

We're slowly working out a new routine in this new life of ours. There are moments when it's a fairly steep learning curve, with 3 generations in a home that's not quite big enough yet, but in general and on a day to day basis, it's all starting to fall in to place.

The biggest and possibly only thing I miss from our previous home is my kitchen. Anyone that's read this blog for a while will know how much I loved my last kitchen. It was where Jim and I spent most of our time, and it allowed us all to come together without getting on top of eachother.

When our house was in the Ikea Family Live Magazine, I was asked what my favourite piece of furniture was in our home, and the answer was my kitchen table. It allowed us all to eat together, play together and create together. We only ever socialised in our kitchen around that table and many of my happiest memories in Leeds were right there - the last Christmas dinner we had with my mum, breakfast with my brother and his family, Sunday get togethers with friends, our Halloween parties - all of it right there in our kitchen.

At the moment we don't have much of a kitchen. When we moved in the only thing that actually defined the room as a kitchen was the butler sink, set under the window, lower than normal, with a rotten wooden draining board (and a million spiders).

 

 

At not much more than 2.5 metres squared, the kitchen is a far cry from our previous one, with absolutely no possibility of having even a reduced size table in it. Obviously we bought it aware that it was never going to work for us, even more so now that we're a 3 generational household, so our plan is to build an extension across the back of the house, to include a new kitchen, a living room for my Dad and (if we can finagle it) a studio for me. But in the meantime and probably for the next 6 months at least, we're making the best of what we've got.

The one thing that the kitchen has that allows it to work for us until I get my new one, is the fact that there are two original pantries, providing lots of much needed storage space while allowing us to forgo the kitchen cabinets that would only make the room look even smaller.

 

The fact that the kitchen is temporary has meant that we don't want to be spending a lot of money on it, but that doesn't mean that we don't want it to look good. The main improvement we've made so far is to install a 3m long, solid oak worktop, with a matching 3m piece below it, to create even more storage space. We've also installed a fairly huge dual fuel cooker, working on the assumption that if we can cook an entire Christmas meal in one go, using all 3 ovens and all 7 burners, the lack of actual space won't be as noticeable.

There's still a long way to go (painting, tiling, more shelving) and we're still getting used to the fact that our fridge and washing machine are out the back door, in the utility room, but although I do still miss my old kitchen (I've just looked back at some photo's while writing this and there's now a slight lump in my throat) I've still found myself starting to love this little temporary one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After school

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After school yesterday Lily and I spent a very happy hour or two at the beach, drawing and skimming stones while watching the sun slowly slip behind the horizon. I'm not sure how many more chances we'll get at the beach (in a t shirt!) this year, but we're going to take every opportunity that we can.