And yet more . . .

Daughter's latest, made for a friend's birthday. Two recent ones, need their edges doing. Not my usual colour choice, but I do like these fabrics, which include 3 African ones, 2 from Uganda and one from Togo.

These are quite old now - some embroidery over printed images, a metal piece marked with a flower, the finished 'wild' Dorset feather stitch card the beginnings of which appeared ina blog post last year, and a piece of felt covered randomly with running stitches, using up all those small(ish) offcuts of thread left in the needle when stitching things.

Clockwise - A finished horizontal strips landscape, machine stitching of scraps under net, sweet wrappers under sheer strips, and trimmings left from my daughter's efforts under net.

Sort of crazy patchwork, uses up scraps not long enough for the strip approach. The bue one is machine stitched, the others hand work. The pale one is unusual for me too. Postcards are very useful for trying something a bit different.

And that's it. I have got 3 or 4 more partly made, but will save those for another time!

Postcard fest continued . . .

Some I did a while ago but haven't photographed till now - small square scraps zigzagged down, under the sea - couched threads with beads and shells and a couched thread for the edging, scraps machine stitched over beneath net plus couched yarns and beads. Funny, in the pic you can see a shape like a mountain, I've not noticed that in the actual card! Some of the palm tree series - sounds grand!

More strips, can't leave them alone. Horizontal makes a change though, they are mostly vertical. On the right is an abstract impresion of Dorset, where I live. Sky, sea, sand, fields, woods mostly. Oversimplified of course, the Poole/Bournemouth conurbation where I live is huge, typical urban sprawl and the rest!

Some leftovers of nice rich colours and experiments with thread colour choices. E.g. bottom left uses only green and red threads, and bottom right the same variegated pink/green one.

Some cards have not had their edges done yet. I like to leave a few as when I am teaching people how to make them it helps to have something at all the stages to show.

Postcard fest . . .

I've just joined stitchinfingers started by Sharon Boggon. Its one of those forum things, with groups for different specific interests, and I always find it hard to describe them. Look it up and see! So I've linked up to hand embroidery and fabric postcard groups and thought I'd better update my postcard photos.
Here's a tip to start with - usually I find that when I have first laid out the bits of fabric I want to use it is all a bit confusing, hard to see what it will look like as a card. So I made a frame/window the exact finished size (mostly 6" x 4" for me) with the side of a cereal packet and I now lay this over what I am working on and it gives me a much better view of how the finished piece will be.
This is a card our 10 year old granddaughter is making: Here's one with just the fabric strips laid out:

And one that needs a bit more hand stitching and beads, and some of the orangey colour added to the right-hand side for balance, looking at it like this tells me.

Latest postcards

Made by daughter Claire on a family holiday last week, under my tuition! Star pupil!

I have made some more myself, but no pix yet.

St Hubert's altar cloth

In our parish there are two church buildings, one about 10 year's old, modern, light, beautiful space, and a small, very old one, a real traditional English country church. A group of ladies got together to make new altar cloths for the latter, St Hubert's. We made one for weddings, (pix on church website) and now this one for everyday use. Its design stimulus are the colours and some of the shapes in the roof bosses. 9 of us made one or two strips each, duplicated in mirror image, in techniques we chose. The whole thing was put together, stretched on a wooden frame, and hung on the front of the altar. Here some detail:

The three interlinked hares boss is of rather special interest. See the Friends of St Hubert's website for details and more about the building and the bosses.

Feeling lonely. . . .?

. . . and a bit skew-whiff? Nothing in sight but this pair of rubbish bins, the blue one for recycled items and the other for the more fragrant offerings. Whiff is probably right!

We had the use again this year, by the kindness of friends, of a beach hut at Sandbanks on Tuesdays in September. One of them was too wet to go there but the rest were pleasant. Its a shame the council has sited these bins right in the middle of the view from the huts, but they do have a certain charm.

There were some people about, to be honest, para-surfing from the beach, getting into difficulties with the high wind and being rescued by the lifeguards.

And of course, the Barfleur, on its way to France.

One out of three for level horizons!