Merry Christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Who can't count then?

I missed two decorations from the last blog post! No-one (all two of you that read this blog!) seemed to notice. One of them is the snowman, as I forgot to take a photo of it and am waiting for one from my daughter. The other is:
Because I love beads, I think this might be my favourite so far (though the polar bear and Rudolph are awful cute too!).

Alan Dart's Advent Tree and decorations

I started on this a while ago for grandson Jamie. I managed to get the tree and a few decorations done for 1 December and have had to do catch up since! I've now done enough to see him through to 12th, which means 13 more to go (as Alan Dart has 25 decorations on his tree)!

Here they are in order of being knitted: All the above are Alan Dart patterns as given for the Advent Tree.
I adapted the candy cane based on Alan Dart's Advent Calendar, an older pattern.
Rudolph is an adaptation of Alan Dart's Advent Tree Straw Goat. I decided Jamie wasn't likely to know what that was so I used the basic pattern and changed it to Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. This tree is a half-size version of one given in a magazine pattern around 25 years ago. I've no idea what the magazine was but I've cherished these patterns all this time.
Alan Dart's own.
I was so unhappy with the final result of this little elf that I decided to add a parcel to soup it up a bit!
Another half-size version of that old knitting pattern.
Alan Dart's own.

Here's some inspiring photos

Ali the Artist is not coming up with the goods...

...Tuesday came and went in a blur of bus trips and shopping and doctor's appointments and a visit from my minister and dog walking and no artwork got done. What's new????
I'm watching a BBC4 tv programme called Picture Book, about childrens' book illustrations. My Diploma in Art (more or less the equivalent of the current BA) is in Illustration and Printmaking, and illustration has always been close to my heart. I'm contemplating an illustrated story of my grandson's adventures on Hallowe'en (assuming he had any; and, if not, I can "talk it up"!).
Please note I said "contemplating"...
The only free time I'll have this week is on Sunday and, as I'm hopefully (if they get the numbers) teaching a knitting class starting next Tuesday, I will need to use Sunday for that. Ho hum. Life always gets in the way. It didn't when I was a teenager and drew every spare minute of my time. I guess that was in the days before responsibilities.
I'm still struggling greatly with energy, bad sleep, aches and PAINS in my legs and feet... I'm so bloomin' tired all the time, I am greatly fed up with it! So there!