My favorite things

Hello out there. I have been really busy lately with big changes at my pretty shop and my blog has sadly slipped as a result so it has been ages since my last post and I have missed it. So today I thought I would share a few of my favorite things, starting with my kitchen and in particular my cooker. I should add that these favorites are in no particular order, just in case anyone should think that I love my kitchen and cooker more than my offspring, I don't, not really. But I do love this cooker, I'm not entirely sure why because it is a bit temperamental, the top is ace but the oven can be finicky. It doesn't really have much of a turn down facility and it is much hotter on the left of the oven than the right. But, it is very pretty and lovely and warm and I know it loves me back and it produces some wonderful food and gives my kitchen a real homely feel and I just do love it. So thats number one of my fave things (but in no particular order, honest.)

Number two on my list has to be my grandsons

They are both beautiful, bright, funny and very noisy. They bring chaos to my tidy(ish) house, fill it with toys, clothes, books, more questions than seems possible for ones so young and are completely knackering but absolutely adored, particularly if quiet, which is v rare whilst awake. They also took quite a shine to my sun hat which never fully recovered and now has that well lived in look.

Also at number two on my list is my granddaughter, now 16 months old she holds her own quite well amongst the chaos and next year looks like being even more knackering, but also even nicer for her presence.

This is her hanging on to Kitty who would much rather she didn't but is far too sweet natured to do anything other than run for it as soon as pos. It is nice to have a girl, even one covered in chocolate. I can buy cutesy pink things and revel in how pretty she is (which I must admit I did with the boys - not the pink stuff, just the reveling.) Before the eldest arrived I worried about having a grandchild, I wasn't really old enough (41 then) and although I loved my own I've never been a fan of babies, I prefer them when they know who you are and are a bit more interesting, but mostly I worried that my daughter (who loves all babies) would produce this child and I would feel no true love or connection and she would be able to tell how I felt and not like me for it. But that was just silly because I have adored each of them from the second I first saw them and I know its a cliche but you really can give them back when they're a pain. It's good.

Next is my house.

This pic was taken in winter, as you can see. But its gorgeous all the time, even covered in snow I still know what it is waiting for Spring underneath. I should tell you that its not all my house. I live in what was 3/4s of the old village pub, facing south with sheep over my garden fence and gorgeous views of Penn Hill and the dale. I am the 5th house from the left; there are 3 cottages and the first 1/4 of the pub, now another cottage, then me. In this pic I am the 5th and 6th chimneys on this roof line, with the rest of the village appearing further right but actually tucked away behind. We nestle in the dale sheltered by the fell on one side and Penn Hill on the other and is a lovely place to live.

After this, not including my two offspring and my lovely Jen I have many many other loved things but again its late and bed beckons. But I will just show you one last thing....

Holly. Because its coming....... Its a little way off yet, but it's definately on its way and I really love Christmas. This next part of the year is just fantastic, all the getting ready, the present buying and wrapping, the hiding it all away and thinking about trimmings and Christmas dinner and ooooo I just love it!

See you soon, Karen xx

My Pretty Shop now has its very own Blog

Hello everyone.

Today is just a quick post to let you know about the new blog I have just finished for my pretty shop, Milkchurn Cottage Interiors and Gifts. I would love you to pop over and have a look. It shows what I do and what I sell and I would really appreciate your thoughts on it. You can get there by clicking here or on the links in my sidebar. It is still in its baby stage and I hope to add lots more pictures to it, both of the shop and what I sell. It is a relatively new shop, I've only been open since April this year, so it's still developing and I am open to suggestions and really interested in all feedback.

And thank you for your comments on my scary scarecrow. She didn't win unfortunately. She was squarely beaten by Pigman and Batman - a tableau in which Batman rescued our village from an outbreak of Swineflu; both topical and relative to rural life, as well as being very funny. Never mind, better luck next year.

Bye for now, Karen x

Look, look, look.....

This is Little Bo Peep, isn't she ace? I have finally gotten around to making my scarecrow for our village's Feast Day on Saturday. My friends Karen & Gill came round tonight as my beloved is away so couldn't see the straw all over the kitchen floor. They hadn't done their scarecrow either. Apparently this last minute frenzy of activity is part of the Feast Day tradition and nothing is ever really achieved until the last 2 days. There's no wonder I feel so at home here. Karen and Gill decided on Little Bo Peep and Karen made some pigs out of cotton wool to go in the garden with her. (Yes I did say pigs. They look like pigs to me, to her brother James and to anyone else with an eye for bacon, but she says they're sheep and that its been a long day.) I have plumped for the Wicked Witch of the West wearing Dorothy's red shoes. She looks pretty Wicked too. I love her legs though. They are really wicked in the more modern sense of the word!

This is her waiting for Saturday, sitting in a quiet corner of my kitchen. I hope I remember she's there if I get up in the night. But just look at those legs!

Scary or what?

I've never made a scarecrow before so am really quite chuffed with her. I begged a sack of straw from my neighbours at the shop and lovely Fi produced the mask and cloak from her children's Halloween costumes and the rest was achieved with some twigs and a stick from the garden, a bit of rope, some thick winter tights stuffed with newspaper and my red suede sandals. With my beloved away til tomorrow I decided to have her sitting comfortably (no tricky frame to fix together) and tied her to her chair for safety. I'm so proud - I had to share her with someone. I shall send photo's to my children later, but they will raise their eyebrows in mild amusement so feel free to make more suitable noises (please.)

Little Bo Peep was trickier. Karen's dad had made a frame for her so we stuffed a carrier with straw for her head and wrapped an old white tea towel round it. Her hair is wool and I was voted best at drawing so I did her face in marker pens. She has my much used and very nearly knackered sun hat tied with a floaty scarf as a bonnet and we stuffed on old rugby shirt with straw for her body, giving her a shawl made from an old table cloth of mine which I died pink to cover a stubborn stain ages ago.

We attached Gill's green skirt with pins to her waist to cover the rest of the frame and popped Gill's sexy red lace up wellies underneath as the finishing flourish. She is quite a big girl but has a certain something, don't you think?

She wouldn't fit in the car so Karen and Gill walked her home in the moon light, so romantic.

Who says there's nothing to do in the country?

The Feast is on Saturday; country produce and children's entries first thing, followed by children's sports and stalls on the village green, a fell race for the fit and quoits for the men. Little Bo Peep and The WW of the West plus about 20 others are entered for the Treasure Hunt Scarecrow Trail which starts mid afternoon and then it's the Childrens Tea and Quiz followed by grown-ups Curry and Quiz (for which I have now done the questions, thank goodness.) All for £2. I know I'm biased but that really is amazing value!! Plus a booze licence. What more could you want? Except sun, hopefully.....

See you soon, Karen x

Happy days, learning to crochet, granny blankets, tractors and not being ready for the Feast

Hello wonderful world. Say hello to Sarah's (my daughter's) mad cat, she loves boxes. Isn't she cute? Ever since I got back from my dad's funeral, which was sad but really lovely, I have been on a high. I have no idea why this is and it does somehow feel a touch inappropriate, but the sun has shone, and I have driven to work every morning surrounded by beautiful Yorkshire feeling grateful that I am here. He will be missed, but on a day to day basis I live here, surrounded by perfection and the sun is shining. It is confusing, but I feel fab. I'm even contemplating a Diet, and I have to be in a really good mood to even think the big D word. (Please note that I am at this point in time still only thinking about it, but one has to take things carefully.)

Just before my dad died my friend the lovely Fiona at Marmalade Rose was successful in teaching me something that I have wanted to be able to do since I was six - something that a lot of you bloggers seem to be able to do lots of. It was making me quite jealous. But the lovely Fi has put this right and has taught me how to crochet. My nana almost taught me how to crochet, but we never progressed beyond a chain, so I could do great chains but nothing else.

Until now.

And just look at this........

This is my first ever granny square, isn't it ace? I'm so hooked (pardon the pun.) Yes I know the colours are a bit naff, they were whatever was in my knitting bag from ages back. And yes it did take me about a hundred attempts to make it into a square that actually looked square. I spent easily as much time taking it all out as I did actually crocheting, (I understand frogging is the term.) At one point I made a fairly adequate looking circle, but finally it did dawn on me where I was going wrong and I produced this. I'm so proud of it. I think I will just keep it forever. Anyway, just to prove I it wasn't a fluke I made another with equally naff colours.......

Am I good or what?? You must excuse my bragging but my lot here just don't seem to be able to grasp what a big deal this is. My daughter has been quite nice, but I can tell when she's humoring me, and my beloved is obviously amused by my enthusiasm for colouring in tiny squares of paper. He thinks I've cracked under the strain and is being patient. After my second naff coloured but successfully square square I was convinced I'd really got it so I bought some real wool, well its cotton actually, but you know what I mean.

'Cos my aim is to make a granny blanket - I'm a granny therefore I should have one (obvious, really, don't you think) and they are so gorgeous and I deserve one. My colours are really pretty, but I have decided against the cream. It seemed to look dirty against the other colours, so just 5 muted sort of sludgy gentle colours. So I got going, and it was going well. I'd just about finished my first granny blanket square when the phone rang. It was my mum, who was upset cos my brother was being a pratt and wasn't sure he could 'manage' to be at dad's funeral and I was sooooo mad with him but not able to tell him off in case I made him decide he really couldn't manage it that when I put the phone down I just kept crocheting, muttering to myself, which I found soothing, but my other half said was quite threatening. After an hour my beloved quietly asked if he could turn the TV back up (I'd turned the sound down so I could hear mum properly) and I realised I'd made a deep grove in my finger with the crochet hook and that my small granny square was enormous.

It is, isn't it? Its very big. It was 'sposed to be 6 rounds. It is 20. (Not bad for a first attempt) But not quite what I had planned. Anyway... I thought about pulling it out, but like the big D word, that was as far as it got. I did contemplate just continuing going round but I really wanted proper dinky little granny squares so I wondered what it would look like if I used this as the center and made squares to go round it. I thought about drawing it out on graph paper but Fi said squared paper would be better so I sent my beloved (poor man) to Staples in search of 'squared paper like you used to get in kid's maths books' and some coloured pencils. He questions my sanity sometimes, bless him, but he came back with the goods and here is my plan.

I think if I do a couple more rounds of the rust (looks red in my pics, but is softer in real life) The plan is to do 8 squares of each combination and go right round the big square. And if that works I can go on from there. And if it doesn't I'll have 24 squares and I might not feel quite so devastated about pulling the big one apart. It's a doddle this crocheting lark !!! (yeah, right.)

So, watch this space and wish me luck. (And yes, my brother did come to the funeral - he and my son carried my dad into church, my dad would have been very proud of that, so it turned out better than ever expected. Praps thats why I'm on a high.)

I still haven't done anything other than paint half of the nasty buckets yet, so they are still lingering in my kitchen, as yet still unsaleable. Next weekend is our village Feast Day so I can't see when I'll get around to them. Within 6 days ( 6 days in which I am working full time in my pretty shop) I have to make a scarecrow for outside my house for the Feast Day Scarecrow Trail, I have to do a tray of sarnis for the children's tea, I have to bake my allocation of baked potatoes for the adults' chilli supper and I have to produce a quiz for which almost every house in the village has entered despite there not being a single question yet written.

(Luckily they don't know this.)

3 weeks ago I had loads of time to do all this, but then dad died suddenly and everything else took over and now suddenly its less than a week away. Strangely I am not worried. I'm on a high, if I was less high I would be worried by my lack of worry, but now I'm just aware that I should be worried, but I'm just not. Today I could have made a scarecrow and written a quiz, but instead went up to Hawes where my pretty shop is. Not to work but to browse the other shops and look at the craft fair. (It wasn't on but even that didn't spoil my mood.) On the way back we stopped at Gunnerside to look at the Beck which is very pretty.

And to take pictures of the tractors, I love tractors, especially old ones, and this one is definitely old.

And I'm not sure what this is but I liked this too.

And just as we were leaving a couple of ladies and a man got into this gorgeous Riley (according to my beloved) and drove away. You should have heard the lovely solid clunks it made when they closed their doors. And it started first time. It purred more than Sarah's cat in a box and they glided away like royalty.

I love England.

Anyway, must go and at least think about the scarecrow.........and the quiz.

See you soon, Karen xx

PS Thank you so much to everyone who sent lovely comments to my last post. It was great that you bothered and I found it really comforting that people who don't even know me cared. It reassures you that the world might be going mad in parts but really we're doing fine. Thank you xx

My dad, friends, big thank yous and car boot finds

Hello again. I'm afraid I haven't got very much further with my nasty buckets just yet, although half of them have had a couple of coats of paint and I'll show you in a min. First of all, aren't my flowers lovely? Sadly my dad died very unexpectedly on Tuesday and I had to abandon my pretty shop to go and be at home with my mum. My lovely friend Gill dropped her life and took over the shop and when I finally returned after 3 days, she brushed my thanks aside and presented me with this gorgeous bouquet, roses and lilies. He'd have liked that. I shall have to return to mum's this coming week to deal with the coroner and all the arrangements and next week for the funeral and Gill will once again put her life second to mine. In the hardest of times true friends are angels and I can't thank her enough. And thank you too to Fiona at Marmalade Rose who phoned and listened to me wittering on for ages yesterday. I haven't known Fiona long but with some people you don't need long to know their worth. She's one of life's lovely people. Isn't it funny how a good natter makes the world feel softer somehow?

Anyway, as I said, I haven't done much to the buckets yet, but here are half of them painted up.

I think the red worked best, the yellow needs a 3rd coat (so I won't be doing any more yellow ones) and the pale green is sweet. I know its not much progress and will show you more when I finally get them finished and I have decided whether or not to fill them with goodies.

Today is our local annual car boot sale in aid of a local village sports pavillion. It's not very big because locally we don't have that many people really. I have been hankering after a two tier cake stand for ages and I thought I might just find one at the car boot, so my beloved and I got up early and tootled off.

On the first stall I found an open picnic basket with space for upright bottles and a fab old hamper type basket so I had to have those. And on the next stall I spied a huge (really big) oval basket perfect for fabric in the shop so I had to have that too, it was just too good to leave behind. A bit further on there was a dinky little modern trunk basket which is perfect for hiding bits in and then I found a nice chunky log basket which was an absolute steal. My poor beloved hiked back to the car at this point as we were getting a bit bulky. And then I found a pair of small raffia baskets which will be lovely in the shop for my bath potions (or something else). So all in all a bit of a basket fest really. They filled my kitchen sofa when we got home and spilled onto the rug.

And not a two tier cake stand in sight!

But I did find this....

A perfect glass cake stand for a pound!

Not the two tier china one I'd hoped for but a very satisfying second best. And just after I found a brass pan for another pound and a small metal bucket which I shall fill with bath bombs. These are on the sofa (or rug) with the baskets. One of the nice things about having a shop is being able to justify why you must have something. I sell handmade soaps and bath potions, sea salts and bath bombs in my pretty shop and display them in buckets and baskets on a big stripped pine table. They smell gently delicious as you walk in the door and the bucket will fit in nicely. The table looks a bit full but I like that you can pick the stuff up and feel and smell before I wrap it so my customers know what they're buying. And all handmade in Yorkshire. I'm getting very traditional as I get older and love to buy handmade where possible, especially locally produced stuff.

The bucket will find a home somewhere in this lot.

I love car boots.

Just one last close up of my lovely flowers

And I'll see you all again soon.

Karen x

Not so pretty buckets

Hi world. I think that I may have made a mistake. A while back I ordered what I thought were cute little buckets for my pretty shop. In the catalogue they looked to have that painted rusty finish that looks sort of soft and country and is 'in' at the moment. Well, they've arrived. 6 of them - each has 3 little buckets sitting in their own little tray - thats 18 buckets and 6 trays. And they're horrid. Just plain nasty. Battle ship grey - nothig soft or country about them, just very ugly and very, very dull. And they're s'posed to sell for £9.95 per set. Not a chance. So I have brought them home and they are now sitting on my kitchen table, looking at me. They know I don't like them. I have decamped to the sofa to think about how they can redeem themselves. I mean, 6 lots at £9.95; thats a lot of pennies. But, I have paint, lots of paint, red and yellow and green and some pink. And ribbon, I sell East of India ribbon in my shop (in theory anyway, I bring most of home, but if my customers are really quick I do sell it occasionally - Marmalade Rose is really canny, she must be psychic, she always manages to come in as I'm unpacking it and makes me sell it to her.) Anyway, I'm going to have a think so best go an put the kettle on.

This is my ribbon, isn't it lovely. Whenever I sell any I want to tell the new owner to look after it properly and not leave it hanging around, abandoned. It needs to be loved. Can you imagine what I'd be like if I sold puppies?

This one's full of pinks, and ric-rac. I love ric-rac too. (And my children, I love my children too.)

I brought these home tonight, to go with the red paint, maybe???

Right, the kettle has boiled and I must go and think. See you soon, Karen x

A Bit about my Shop

Hello and thank you to everyone who left those lovely comments. I don't have an on line shop at the moment, but I am happy to post most things to most places so feel free to ask if there's anything you really like. You can email or phone me 01969 667847. Tonight's blog is a little bit about my real life shop at Hawes in Wensleydale; Milkchurn Cottage Interiors and Gifts. I am open every day from 10am til 5pm and sell antique furniture, (mostly pine and country bits, some painted pieces and I have a weakness for chairs so I usually have a few of these) and other antiques like Victorian dinner services and prints, mixed with contemporary stuff like lamps, mirrors and soft furnishings - nothing over fussy, but things that make a house homely, like old embroidered linens and lovely hand stitched quilts - some new and made by a lovely lady called Anne further down the dale, and some old. I love the mix of old and new. The pretty dresser below is a Victorian Chiffonier made of pine but had been stained very badly so has now been painted in a soft eggshell and then lime-waxed. I think it looks lovely piled with modern lamps, a classic design Royal Worcester Tea Service and Marmalade Rose's perfect cupcakes and bunnies made them from vintage embroidered linens, so gorgeous. I liked her cupcakes so much and sell so many of them that I have now bought a glass cake dome to display them in.

Don't they look pretty under the glass? But they go so quickly, just like the real thing. And I love the crocheted flowers behind them. I'm still not too good at this (blogg stuff) but I think if you click on the picture it gets bigger. Well, some of them do but this one doesn't seem to. If any one knows why some of my pictures do get bigger and some don't please can you tell me ? Other pretty things include a lovely pine sideboard with a Victorian blue and white dinner service on top next to an amazing Peacock charger by Avis Murray, this picture does get bigger if you click on it. The charger is a one off piece and is gorgeous, my pictures don't pick up the depth of colour and it is so heavy, but quite pricey. And a dinky painted stool, lovely for a child or for reaching things when a stretch is just not enough.

And the stool, very girlie

It's getting late now so I'll tell you about the gift stuff next time (I love the gift stuff - its my excuse to buy lots and lots of nice things) but before I go lots of people made nice comments about the fabric shown on Marmaladerose's blog, which she bought from me, so I have just got time to show you my basket of fat 1/4s.

These are 100% cotton and measure 50cms square. I sell them individually at £3 each, including UK postage or in packs of 12 (like the pretty pinks in Marmalade Rose's picture) for £33, again including postage. The fabric is from Germany and is all natural, no bleaches or formaldehyde are used in the manufacturing process so it is very eco friendly.

The shop is open every day between 10am and 5pm so if you want to come and see me please feel free. I am there every day except Sunday and Tuesday, on these day's its a lovely lady called Kay who will serve you and answer the phone.

Please let me know if you find this blog interesting and worth reading because its nice to do and there's lots more I can show if I'm not boring you to bits. Bye for now, Karen