Durham!

So better late than never! Here are some of the photos I took of Durham. It really is a very picturesque place with a lovely vibe about it.

One of the problems I found was that it was quite a bright day which made photo taking a bit tricky at times. Still, enough of the ramblings, have a look!



No, this isn't her Halloween costume!



Ellen's made the place a lot more like home since I last saw it.





Looked round Hogwarts, I mean Durham Cathedral!





You've got to take a picture of people rowing in Durham!





I always keep my eyes peeled for street art wherever I go. I love this one!!





I wonder if Ellen wrote this?!





Poster in Ellen's room





We went to see this awesome guy playing called Sam Brookes.

 So that was a little glimpse of Durham through the eyes of me there! I took so many more photos but these are definitely my favourites and what I think sum up my stay.

Granny Square Bunting

I went to Durham in my half term from college to visit my twin at uni!! I took lots of photos of Durham but I'll show them in another post. This post, I decided should be all about The Bunting!

As every good visitor should, I came bearing a little gift for her. A few weeks ago Ellen asked if I could make her some bunting for her room.

Well, of course I said yes, no problem. What size? I asked her. I'll admit that her reply of two and a half metres threw me off guard a bit but nevertheless, I got it done and I'm pretty sure she was happy with it.

This I found was the perfect project to do you're a bit busy with other things, as it was just so flexible to make. By this I mean that I could do little bits here and there, quickly whip up a triangle and block it whenever I had a bit of spare time.

Yes, this project involved me trying out the art of blocking for the first time. I wanted the triangle to look more, well triangular so I read up on how to block yarn. Turns out it's incredibly easy being that you only need to soak them in luke warm water and pin them to the shape you want on a board. Leave to completely dry then viola! Done!

Once measured and the requested size of 2.5m, I folded it all up ready to give to my sister.

Just thought I'd show you the little pile of work I created. It might not look like much, but a fair amount of work went into that!

And so here it is in it's new home in Durham! Ellen had obviously told her friends on the same floor as her about this bunting so I think that they were just as excited as she was to see this much awaited bunting.

Show and tell time!

Thought I'd show you a couple of the things I've been up to in college these past few weeks.

Our assignment this half term has been about working with 3D materials. It's been so cool the amount of the things we've been allowed to try out. Wood work, different types of printing, wire and plaster are just some of the mediums I've been giving a go.

Working on a theme of objects that inspire creativity for our design with wood, I created this clapperboard mounted on a background of words from the acting world.

Working with wire, we were allowed to do anything we wanted for our theme. Inspired by my travels, I created a wire globe all about the favourite country Ellen and I visited, New Zealand. It's really hard to take a good picture of wire I've found but you can probably just make out the countries on the outside of the globe with some Maori pendants hanging inside. 

As we're now coming near to the half term holidays, we're now in the process of finishing up this assignment. For this, we have to create a final piece by creating a sculpture out of any of the materials we've worked with.

I haven't got a finished piece to show you yet, but here's a sneaky glimpse of the final design for you to look at:

I'm also still doing a bit of knitting and crocheting whenever I have the time. I think me knitting and crocheting is like me with reading. I've always got to have some form of wooly craft on the go just like I've always got to have a book to read!

I'm currently crocheting some bunting for Ellen to go in her uni room. I've asked her how long she wants the bunting to be in which she replied, 2.5 metres! I've got to get cracking then! I'd say I've got about a metre done and the first five triangles are now in the process of being blocked to give them more of a triangled shape.

It's a shame I can't show you them but I can't risk my sister seeing them as I want them to be a surprise. But to give you an idea, they're going to look a bit like the bunting below.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little show and tell post! I'm now off to make some more triangles I think whilst my Dad's downstairs watching Wales play rugby. I can't hear any shouting at the telly going on which he is often prone to doing when watching Wales, so I'm not sure if that's a good sign or not!

Oh I tell a lie, Dad's just given a few gruffly shouted words of encouragement to Wales as I was typing!

My twin goes to Uni!

It was a big day in the Funning household today! My twin went to Durham University and so it was a whole family day out to settle her in. 

Though I think she was pretty nervous when we drove her there, once we'd arrived, she seemed fine. Her room is HUGE which my Mum being mum was very relieved about.

So when Ellen was settling in, Dad, my little sister Megan and I went into the town to get a few last minute stuff and to have a look round. Durham, from what I've briefly seen of it is a lovely little place. It's got a really nice historic feel. I think Ellen will like it there.

Her room overlooks the river and just in front of her building is where the boating house is. Even today, we saw a few people out training on the water. All very cool.



Do you remember this little knitted elephant?



Moving in



View from her college, St hild and St Bede

So now my twin lives in Durham whilst I'm still here in little old Kendal. Will I miss her? Of course!! But I don't really feel sad today that she's gone because it's not a sad occasion to go to Uni. But I'll look forward to staying with her definitely!! 

Still here, still knitting!

Yes yes, I know I'm starting to make a habit of saying this in all of my few and far between posts but it really is true!

It's been a whirlwind of busyness and I feel like a parent who's just had another child, spending more time with the new one compared to the older child in terms of now running two blogs. I've been putting so much onto my blog for college that I have rather neglected this one haven't I.

Well, I thought I'd make up for it by putting a post on about knitting; just like the old times!!

Having college going on full time, my knitted projects aren't growing as insanely quick as they used to but I'm still chipping away at it whenever I can. I even take it into college with me just in case I get a spare few minutes! It's certainly a good conversation starter I can tell you.

So my current knitted creation is this owl from one of my pattern books:

So cute isn't it! I thought I'd knit this up because I had the perfect wool in my wool hamper and I've had my eye on making this owl ever since I got the book. I've not got anyone in mind to knit it for but if you want it, it's yours once I've finished it!

Other news, I've finally gotten round to buying myself a new camera after dropping my old one in a lake somewhere in New Zealand. It's a Fujifilm camera which is very different for me as my last one was a canon powershot which I got on very well with.

Though I haven't learnt my way properly around the camera yet, it's serving me well so far. I use it a lot for college actually. I take pictures of whatever we're doing so I can put them on my college blog.

My singing at church is still going well. I even got asked to perform at someone's wedding last week as part of the worship band so that was pretty cool.

Well that's me for now. Do keep following my blog if you're one of my few regulars. I may be busier now and not posting as much as I used to but I will always get round to posting my news in the end even if it does take a bit of time.

If you get fed up in the mean time, you can always have a look at my college blog www.funningr11.tumblr.com.

College begins!

I can't believe that it's been almost a month since I last put a post on this blog. That is just not on. I'll try and be more up to date in the future.
Still, I've been busy here, there and everywhere so it's not as if I've not been bothered to post, it's just that I've struggled to find the time.

It's been a nice few weeks visiting various members of family in different parts of the country and trying to make the most of the summer days when they choose to shine. The pictures in this post are just some of the photos I took of my trip down to Norfolk staying with my grandparents. Looking at these, it's hard to believe that these were taken such a short time ago. As I write this, the weather and fewer light hours really proves that summer doesn't last long and is rapidly drawing to a close.

But anyways, as my blog title says, some things do begin! It's official, I am now an art student!! Ok, so I've only attended two days of college so far but it all counts.

So far it's going really well and although I have been fairly nervous, I'm really enjoying my first week. I'm so excited at the prospect of things I might create. With amazing facilities there, chances are that I'm going to get to do make things way beyond what I could achieve at home!

Another exciting thing is that this year, they are introducing to their students blogging. The plan is to use them as an online portfolio so that people can easily access my work.

You can have a look at my blog if you want. Unfortunately, you won't be able to comment on it but if you do have any questions, then you can just ask me on this blog!


http://funningr11.tumblr.com/

Illustration work!

Thought I'd show you a bit of what I've mostly been up to these past few weeks:

My Dad is currently writing his own book about leadership and has asked me to do some illustrations to go with it.

I'm really enjoying doing this work. It's been interesting working for someone and trying to get the drawing how they pictured it in their heads.

I've also learnt a lot with these drawings so in a way, it's a great sort of preparation for college which starts on the 5 September eepp!!

Above, are just a selection of the work I've been doing for my Dad. So far I've done over ten illustrations for him and the orders are still coming in. The most recent request involves me having to draw an Englishman and a Frenchman together. I'll show you how it turns out once I've drawn it shall I?

We've got a little system set up and everything! What usually happens is Dad's working downstairs and then it's me upstairs at my desk. Occasionally, he'll come up the stairs and hand me a post-it note with the next thing he wants me to draw. I then draw it up on my computer art tablet and then email him it. A reply email of thanks then completes the process. Job done! A slightly odd set up perhaps but it works!  

And no, my Dad isn't paying me to do this. But I have been promised a 10 percent cut of the profits if it ever gets published. 10 percent?? Yeah, I'll have to work on that figure!

crochet spelling

Making some crocheted letters to go on Jenna's crate is one of those projects I've had in my mind for a while to do.

My thinking behind the idea was that if I have to have a big dog crate in my room then I can at least make it prettier to look at!!

The letters and colours came out just as I had envisaged them which is always very satisfying! The plan next in my new found career as a doggy interior designer is to make her a dog bed with the colours I used for the lettering. I haven't made Jenna one before now because she used to always chew up her bedding so there didn't seem to be much point. Now though, she's all grown up and doesn't do that sort of thing anymore.

I think Jenna likes her new lettering's. She just wasn't too happy at the time of taking these pictures because I shut her in the crate when it wasn't bedtime! I tried to make her look happy in the picture for you but she kept giving me the doggy evils. Yes, my dog actually does this!

busy bees

Hi again!

Well I'm posting on here after a longer gap since the last post than I had intended. Sorry about that! I've got so many ideas and projects buzzing around my head at the moment that I feel it's left me rather scatterbrained.

If I do manage to get my rambling ideas into a physical form of some kind then you'll know where to find them...here of course!

Another thing that's quite exciting at the moment is that even though music is a big part of my life already, in the last month, I've been even more involved in it.

I'm now an alto in the Lakes Gospel Choir and also part of the worship team at my church acting as a backing singer doing harmonies. All very exciting and I'm enjoying these new ventures a lot.

And of course, I'm still playing my guitar every day in the hope that I'll become good at it and I've also written a few more songs that I haven't put on t'internet yet.

After that current news, I thought I'd show you something I did in the past. This is going back a couple of months now as I made this mobile all the way in New Zealand. Yes that's right, even on the other side of the world I was still knitting!

I made this bee mobile for my little cousin (I think he's actually my 3rd cousin or something) who we stayed with. They live in Christchurch but thankfully, their house wasn't really damaged in the earthquakes. Even so, it's still pretty scary for them as they still feel the earthquakes.

The reason I made a bee mobile was mainly because the family actually runs a honey making business. So I thought these cute little bees would be rather fitting in their home!

That sort of sums up my last couple of weeks really. I hope you've had a good couple of weeks too!

Wow! It feels a long time since I last posted on here... Well I suppose it has been.
Let me tell you, travelling around the world really does play havoc with your sense of time.
I know a lot of you followers already know a fair bit about my travels, but my plan is to update our travelling blog just incase you guys are interested in hearing more, ergo the link below:


http://travellingtwins.blogspot.com/


I've not been suffering too badly from the post holiday blues. One of the reasons for that is because I've been fairly busy getting an art portfolio together for an interview that I had yesterday to get into art college. 
The interview went really well. The college has quite an impressive reputation and is one of the top three art colleges in the country. 
They seemed to love my work and offered me an unconditional place so that's pretty exciting! I start in September.
I would show you pictures of my portfolio but at present, I have no camera. Correction. I have a camera but one that had a very close encounter with a New Zealand lake, so is now on the blink. But as soon as I get a chance, I'll show you what I presented to the college.


So just a quick little post today to touch base and let you know that Bekah's Corner is up and running again. Also, keep your eyes peeled on the travelling blog too.