Belinda

At 7 o'clock this morning, there was frost on the roofs, and the most beautiful bright sunshine belting down.  Thanks to the quality of smart phone cameras, I was able to take some pictures of it.  I'm absolutely mad keen on my phone camera!  It's rather embarrassing.  Yesterday I shame-facedly took a picture of my lunch, which seemed to be looking particularly gorgeous.  Often, when I go into Dedham, I've got my phone in my hand as I walk up from the car park, and I've taken 20 pictures before I get to the Centre - not of anything interesting: just of the road, the hedges, the sky...  I'm hoping it's just the novelty of the thing, and that this madness will wear off soon, but it's showing no sign of doing so, so far.  There's something particularly clever about the camera phones that allow them to adapt to the changes in light, which my Nikon D300 just doesn't do very well - not in my inexpert hands anyway.

Anyway, this is a phone picture of my beautiful avocado plant (grown from a stone!) on the window sill this morning.

But this is what I really wanted to show you!  This is Belinda, the hedgehog...

I knew as I saw her unfinished face that what she really needed was eyebrows.  For most of her time on my little homemade production line, she had this note pinned to her...

Having painted in the eyebrows, I couldn't resist adding a little smile too!  Not very subtle, but never mind.

She looks wonderful sitting on my desk among piles of books (a paper-weight perhaps?) so I have styled her as my bookish hedgehog.  Here she is, almost finished Margaret Forster's fantastic book, Significant Sisters.

You can find Belinda in my Etsy shop.  

In the meantime, I am working towards the Bradfield fair next weekend, on 28th November.  I have another lot of 10 bears on the table, and it's touch and go whether they are going to be finished on time(!)  It does seem to take so long this way.  In spite of that though, there is something wonderful about watching them come together as a group, and I think I probably work harder on their individual personalities when I have several of them in front of me.

Anyway, must get to work - have a great day!