In the Making...

I promised to show you my finished teaspoon stand from when we went mug painting . It was awhile ago but it had to be refired and then I started a mug with a similar design so thought I'd show you them together. Here's before firing:  And after. The colours become really vivid. I'm not as pleased with the mug, the shading wasn't dark enough so it doesn't have that 3D effect. If I do it again it will definitely have 3 coats of the grey. The mug is a Christmas present for a friend and the handle says "Hot and Dark", which is what he calls bad coffee.

Last night, a group of us from knitting went to the Paintbox Ceramic Cafe, Cleethorpes for mug painting. It was great fun and they all made some fantastic mugs. None of them are glazed yet, we'll get to pick them up next week.  I thought Charlotte's frog was brilliant! I normally go every week, so I just carried on what I'd been working on. Though it did happen to be a mug. Here's mine - I also did a little teaspoon stand, as well, which will be a present for Mr; done using my current zentangle obsession. I'll let you see them once they're fired, as the colours really brighten. Here's most of mugs by the end of the night. Julie and Stacey made the night great. Here's a few of the pieces in the shop, that Julie's painted, with some gorgeous tulips. It's was a fun night and hopefully everyone enjoyed it.

At my LYS, A Good Yarn , there was the New Launch sale last week (I bought too much and daren't blog about it). There were lots of lovely yarns in stock. I wanted to use the Bergeré de France, Coton Fifty  and the shop has had Mary Jane's Tearoom patterns in stock. They have been hugely popular in the shop, probably in part to the wonderful samples that have been knitted up. I always have a penchant for stranded colourwork and Bo Rabbit appealed to me the most. So I ended up sketching a Bo Rabbit to try out a different colour combination. Here's my "Bo in Blue": It would have been better if I'd used my sketchbook but it helped me make a decision. So here's the yarn I bought to make him. However, the side effect of the sketch was, I really wanted to draw again. Some of my friends had been pinning some " Zentangle " designs that caught my eye.  So a fair amount of research and many hours later. Here are the results. ...