embroidery overlaps

And now for something woody . . . .

2012-02-02T11:02:00.000Z

We had Christmas in Germany, near Munich, and one of our trips was to a Wildpark at Poing. A delightful bird feeder caught the eye and gave Derek inspirsation . . .

. . . so far so good . . .

Success!, but so far only a robin and two blue tits have dropped by, oh, and a squirrel. But I don't think we'll ever get a nuthatch, not being in a forest like the inspiration source.

And sawing up salvaged timber for the woodburner yields some interesting results:

Turn it round:-

I think I should have rotated this one.

Valentine's Day coming up.

And the next project . . . . trouble is, builders round here don't have discarded bits of log, onlly pallets and unwanted roof beams and bits.

Signs of Spring . . . .

2012-02-02T10:46:00.000Z

. . . . but a big freeze is on its way from Finland. Nice of them to share it!

First, a Christmas rose . . .

. . .or two (or three) . . .

. . . food for the blackbirds (these apples are all very small, that's why they didn't get eaten by the local humans) . . .

. . .touch of purple . . .

. . . and of white . . .

. . . and two nice smelly ones, a sweet shrub . . ( I can't remember the name of this one, though a kind blog reader told me it last year when I asked if anyone knew it. Are you still there?)

. . . and a rose.

The story of the Bible in 12 words . . .

2011-11-29T21:01:00.002Z

.. . . . . sounds impossible, but it can be done. See here , at the SGM Lifewords site for more information.

Each word takes you further along the chronological journey of the Bible, and also sums up big themes that crop up all through the book.

I did the first word, LIGHT , using felt tip pens and acrylic paints, on ordinary printer paper, not realising at the time that I'd start getting ideas coming into my head for all the others too as time went by. We've had talks and studies on them all at church now and found it really satisfying and stimulating stuff!

Sometimes the word is hard to read, so I'll label them. The idea was to do the word in a way that expressed the theme, rather than simply adding it to some other sort of images.

TREES

NOMAD

TRIBES

SCATTERLINGS

PROMISES

EARTHED

SACRIFICE

UNBREAKABLE

WILDFIRE

SALT

HOME

Sketchbook pages . . .

2011-08-22T20:07:00.000+01:00

. . . trying out various paint techniques.

blogger being useless tonight. Will juat save it as it is and come back and edit somewhen.

Fruit and veg . . . .

2011-08-14T20:46:00.000+01:00

. . . from the greenhouse. Elegant green bits! Bit small though, they aren't doing as well as they might.

Plus some peas, beans and courgettes though they make a bit of a show. Mr. and . . .

. . . Mrs.

And these came from wild plum trees up the lane at the end of the road. They are very tasty, small, just a little bigger than damsons. There are yellow ones there as well, all now settled in our freezer for winter crumbles.

Feb - May journal quilts

2011-08-14T15:35:00.000+01:00

I decided to go back to doing Contemporary Quilt Group journal quilts again this year. They are 10" square this time and have an additional aspect which must be included. in this set it was circles. The next four need some lettering in, and the final 4 buttons.
Some people have tried to hide a very small or not at all obvious circle somewhere but I tried to put as many circles in this one as I could. There are circles of sweet wrappers under strips of organza, machine stitched down with more circles and circular scribbles.

This one has circles printed over it using things like a cork, an empty party popper, thread reel, pencil end, card tube. The concentric circles are done using a drawing pin stuck upside down with masking tape on the sewing machine. The sandwich is pressed onto the pin and revolves neatly with the stitching. Shift the pin across for the different sizes. A bit cheaper than those gadgets you can buy. I started cutting back layers (there are fabric scraps trapped under rusty calico), but found it really hard to cut away my nice printed circles, so stopped!

This one has transfer painted circles applied with zigzags and swirly background quilting.

This has more choc wrappers flattened and stitched. The main circle has some foiling across it and black net, with patches of purple net under, cover the whole

Weaving . . .

2011-08-13T11:10:00.001+01:00

. . . inspired by some lovely stuff seen at the Dorset Arts and Crafts Association show at Bovington last week, done by the Dorset Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. It pushed me to find a couple of articles in past copies of the magazine Stitch with the Embroiderers' Guild about doing small tapestry-type weaving (the second photo) and a kind of darning - first photo.

Although it is not crochet I am a bit hooked on it at the moment, the latest thing to drive me to stitch.

Journey to Jerusalem

2011-08-12T09:22:00.000+01:00

Well, in spirit not in fact. With the help of a few other people I got these painted for use at our church during the week before Easter, for reflecting on the events of that week, leading up to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 7' x 3'6" each, quite a task, but one I found really satisfying. They are painted on medium weight calico, using household emulsion paints, mostly leftovers from people's home decorating. I call it the feeding the 5,000 principle - collect the bits you've got and do something interesting with them! See John's gospel chapter 6.
I used photographs as source material.

An olive tree in the garden of Gethsemane. This one is still out, in a corner of the church.

One of the gateways, rather simplified version!

They did have to be simplified versions, I'm not skilled enough to do anything more precise and accurate.

The view over the city from the Dominus flevit church, up on a hill. And the garden tomb.

Just a bit more creativity . . .

2011-05-04T20:36:00.000+01:00

. . .from DGD 5, a cupcake cushion cover, all done by her except the free machining on the icing. I'm not letting her loose on my machine to that extent yet I'm afraid.

. . . from me - one of 6 paintings 7' x 3'6" of places on Jerusalem, for use in our church over the Easter period. I'll put pix of the others in somewhen. Done on calico using remnants of household paint. This one is part of the view over the city from the Dominus flevit church, commemorating the place where Jesus Christ is thought to have wept over Jerusalem a few days before the crucifixion.

. . . and from God - lichen or fungus of some other sort forms on offcuts and remnants of wood DH collects around the neighbourhood, saving people dumping it in landfill. These shapes and textures are so extraordinary!

Books again - exploring covers

2011-05-04T20:19:00.001+01:00

Looking for something a bit different from the painted and printed papers I've mostly been using for covers, folded over padded card and stuck down. I'm interested in stitching on fabric, here filling the space with lines of running, back, chain stitches and whipping or lacing them, then patching in couched cords or extra stem or herringbone lines to fill any gaps. The stitching is done here on a sort of muslin plus wadding, and i've laced the pieces over the card. Now why didn't I take a photo of the back!

The text block is stitched over tapes - ribbons here, plus endpapers of folded card, which will be stuck to the boards.

This is paper again, but it is torn bits overlapped and machine stitched down to a piece of brown paper - recycling envelopes. The painted bits are brown paper too. The signatures lined up all have a painted folio on the outside. No tapes for this one, so the painted folds will be visible under and between the stitched lines joining the signatures.

Talking of grandchildren . . .

2011-05-03T20:06:00.000+01:00

. . . here's what the 3 eldest ones in Scotland made with mum's birthday sewing machine, on a recent visit of grandparents carrying supplies of fabric bits. Amazing!

And what DD had wanted the machine for - making some cushions. I showed her how to do appliqué with bondaweb and zigzag stitching round, and free machining for the flower centres. Also how to put a zip in. She and her eldest DD have since made annother, with one big flower, all by themselves! Clever girls.

Giving up apologising . . .

2011-05-03T19:49:00.000+01:00

. . . for not putting any new posts up for ages. I just don't want to spend as much time at the computer these days, and something has to go. But maybe I just need some new ideas for the blog, a different approach. Well, not today anyway, but I'll think about it.

The latest craze is making these felt brooches. Very simple, just felt, some buttonhole stitch and beads, and a bit of organza and / or net, and a safety pin stitched on behind. I've been doing some with the grandchildren and at the birthday party of one of them (11 year olds), where they all made one, and some even two, with hair grips instead of safety pins.

Now to make up for lost time . . .

2011-02-03T10:29:00.000Z

. . . post a pic or two . .

. . . of a quick visit to Munich via Heathrow just before Christmas to visit DD3 and some Christmas markets, for which Germany is famous.

Sun going down over southern England ... and beyond.

Willkommen in Bayern . . . with a speciality or two.

The view out the back. Why the view of this field beyond the garden fence to the Stadtbahn rails by the line of trees fascinated me I don't know, but I had to keep looking at it!

Visit to the Christkindlmarkt in Regensburg - angels in the arty section . . .

. . . nice blue house, one of the oldest in town . . .

. . . a bit of snow . . . and more nice coloured houses . . .

. . . a bit of Glühwein . .

. . . off to the oldest Wurst restaurant in the world, by the Danube, which was looking a bit generous . . .

. . . and on the way home, a queue on the motorway. I know its blurred, but its an interesting image! Try clicking on it.

Next day, into central Munich, and the Viktualienmarkt for fabulous piles of food . . .

It was a rather chilli day, minus about 5 degrees.

Down in the Ubahn, lovely curved roof.

Waiting for the train to the airport, orderly graffitti.

And auf Wiedersehen snowy Munich.

And hallo London, with the Thames looping away and the millenium dome visible in the first curve.

Back home, now to try out these lovely Valdani quilting threads bought in the quilt shop I found right in the centre, behind the Stadmuseum - Quilt und Textilkunst. They had a small Quilt Art exhibit there, some of the pieces that had been at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham back in August, and a lovely stock of fabrics. Pity the euro was so high!

Has it really been so long . . .

2011-02-02T11:33:00.000Z

. . . since I put anything on this blog? I've been a bit preoccupied with too many other things, that's the trouble. Anyway, this mixture of photos will maybe get me going again.

Its going back a bit now, but here is a very brave little summer marigold, surviving in the December snow and ice. (The eyes behind the glass are on a paper plane DH made - supposed to be the best flyer of all paper planes. Didn't notice it when taking the pic. It looks as surprised to see the flower as I am, considering how cold its been!)

And this is Alvin, made and names by daughter and grandchildren.

.. and a winter moon, nice and atmospheric . . .

. . . lovely frosty edges . . .

. . . and patterns of crystals . . .

. . . and a nice little snowman story, bonded appliqué, started at a Quilters' Guild workshop day in November and finished at home in time for Christmas.

He came to the same end as Alvin, sad to say.

And we also made this cute bag on that day, from the Omiyage book by Kumiko Sudo.

And after some talk about couching on the CQ group list I had to have a go. If only I'd made it bigger i could have used it for a book cover, but I just wanted to get stitching, not spend time thinking! I never learn. That's why there are so many bits of samples around that it is hard to find something to do with.

This collection of hearts and hand-embroidered bags sat waiting to be posted to people for #christmas presents.

Yes I did paint it . . .

2010-12-02T14:58:00.000Z

. . . and here it is, and I think, much better. . . .. . . or does it still look like butterflies?

But this is what the little plants were based on, marigold seedlings in pots.

The idea in the jq was plants coming up in rows in fields. We tried out a technique at Infinity, our local CQ group, using fused appliqué, including cutting straight strips on the bias and making them curve as you iron them down. It came from a book I can't remember but will post title and link when I can find it out. Pix below of the piece worked on, which I finished and can hang, wow.

(Should have cropped it and tidied it up) And I now realise I've not taken a photo of the square top left, which has the best curved strips , aargh. Never mind, here are some others.

Beaded edges, as in a video on the Kemshalls' Design Matters TV, link in previous post.

Journal Quilts

2010-11-26T17:00:00.000Z

I didn't join in with the official Contemporary Quilt Group journal quilts challenge this year, just wanted a break from it. The local CQ group i go to, Infinity, encourages the jq thing by picking a theme every 2 months for us to work to. Last year i used the themes and did 2 quilts for each. this time I wasn't going to do even those, but, ideas started arriving, so i did something for all 6 themes in the end. Guess which is which. No prizes. Emotions, birds, jewellery, pockets, doors, plants. They are 7" x 10"

I wanted to try out the narrow strippy lines, with something shiny, and used lamé, which is a pig to stitch, especially such narrow bits:

Woven strips with some sides left open to insert something:

Pieced, quilted and painted. Acknowledgements to Margaret Ramsay for her articles in Workshop on the Web:

Bondawebbed straight strips, curved as you press them down. We had marigolds growing in pots and the early shoots looked rather like this. Though DH said the plants look like butterflies, so i am thinking of painting them, a la Linda Kemshall and will put another pic up if i do.

new books

2010-11-13T10:26:00.000Z

The need to produce a requirements list for a workshop I've just been booked for with West Country Embroiderers next year sent me back to the book making. I've not done any for a while so it was good to have a reason for doing it again. The idea is to make one nice book in the day, so i had to make one or two, .. or three .. or even four... We'll do the stitching the spine over tapes variety and I've devised an easier and quicker cover using painted paper and a trickier and longer stitched fabric version.

These have signatures with coloured outer pages and i didn't want to cover them up so I've done them this way, with alots of lines across so the threads are a feature. The top one uses stitched pieces i had about the place, and the bottom row is a pamphlet style, with the cover a quilted and painted piece, another sample/UFO.

Lake District Weekend

2010-10-09T17:00:00.001+01:00

The Big White House, Greengill, near Cockermouth in Cumbria, where DH and i have just spent a great weekend with church friends from where we used to live.

The view from our window . . . (something about the colours and the arrangement appeals to me)

. . .but not the only view around! Off on a scenic drive . . .

. . . in among the fells . . .

(amazing colours)

. . . . and lakes . . .

. . . Crummock Water . . .

. . . and Buttermere . . .

. . . and up to the Honister Pass . . .

. . .and down again . . .

Aerial view of Derwent Water near Keswick.

And we couldn't stay away from the beach, up the coast from Maryport . . .

. . . with views over the sea, no, not to Skye, but across the Solway Firth to Dumfries and Galloway.

The last of the black tomatoes!

2010-10-09T16:40:00.000+01:00

Last ones picked, plant cleared away. There were 10 altogether, all big like beefsteak tomatoes. They do look a bit offputting, being sort of dingy rather than bright rich red but they taste delicious. So next year, two plants perhaps. I hope they will have them at our local nursery again!

Couching

2010-10-08T21:17:00.000+01:00

On the Contemporary Quilt Group's yahoo list recently there was quite a bit of posting about couching threads down, with ideas and advice given about different stitches, machine feet, and methods. I had a go, producing this sampler. On my fairly humble Pfaff I don't have to much choice, and find that the piping foot, which has several channels underneath it, big enough for a thread about the size of double knitting yarn to pass through, is the best for stitching down a single thread at a time. I can use zigzag, triple zigzag, and another stitch which does several running stitches on one side then zigzags across once then back to the running stitches. Only one thread can be used as none of my stitches will spread across enough.

I like doing the rows close together, and find that I just love the feel of the whole piece.
The ladder-like yarns at either side of the work are stitched with the normal foot and a feather stitch, which just catches the side threads in and gives a nice fancy line up the centre.
Another foot I have, which has a bit sticking out forward on one side and a bar across on the other, with 2 notches beneath it, can be used with a thread in each notch, and if I am lucky, one in between them (but no notch), and a wide stitch, like the mesh-like one, or the wide W shape made up of small stitches. It is hard to control though, not sure what it is really for.
There are gaps of course where I have not steered straight, but I'm in the process of filling them in with fat stem stitch and knots. With the gadgets I have I shall have to stick to straight or curved lines, and dream about the couching foot with a special thread feed which will take your thread anywhere you choose, and which I can't afford!

Bags

2010-09-10T16:07:00.000+01:00

Time for some more sewing - Japanese bag, from Kumiko Sudi's book Omiyage. Various views, 36 strips had to be sewn together, gathered at the base, and lining and casings added.

This is one bought as a kit at the Festival of Quilts, from a stand called the Gourmet Quilter - everything packaged in appetising looking ways! This isn't the actual kit, I just used it as a pattern for my own fabrics. It has proved very popular and 2 granddaughters have now made one each and their mum has made about 3 or 4 by now! I've done a second one without the little tag things.

And I can't resist posting this, a fuchsia with giant flowers!

Flowery fancies.

2010-09-06T20:25:00.000+01:00

Abbotsbury main street, from my post on the door at the West Coutnry Embroiderers Dorset Groups Exhibition, in August. Bit wet at the start of the day,but it cheered up around midday and a sunny afternoon brought in a few more tourists in the street and visitors to the hall.

Various groups did communal pieces. Ours in the Poole group was making the centres of the flowers. Committee members cut out the petals and assembled the flower bed. No two centres are alike. It's amazing how these things turn out!

The butterflies had been made at a workshop several months ago.

My effort is in the bottom left corner. I filled the circle with a dense chainstitch spiral in various odds and ends of colours.

At Witchampton, another small Dorset village, there was a flower festival a week ago in the church, on the theme of Creation.

These are such a gorgeous rich colour.

And children made this banner.

Black tomato . . .

2010-08-13T10:24:00.000+01:00

. . . grown this year for the first time. haven't tasted it yet. It weighs 9 1/2 ounces! Red underneath, black on top, light variations in the photos. There are a few more on the plant, still normal tomato size and very green yet, but this baby is enormous! Move over Jamie Oliver (which is where I first saw them).

Doodling the summer away

2010-08-09T10:14:00.000+01:00

At the moment I only seem to be happy with a pen and a bit of paper in my hand. Exaggeration, but pen and paper do seem to have replaced needle and thread for a bit. So far I've used one and a half small homemade books, pages in a 23p from Tesco lined notebook, various bits of paper that happen to be lying about, including this brown A5 (or is it 6) envelope that arrived with a Quilters' Guild regional newsletter in it!

The photos are in the wrong order. I did the b/w one first, setting out simply to try drawing the circle things, but then just having to create a whole page design. Then i found my stash of gel pens and had to try them out, to see if there were empty ones to throw away, and that turned into another design, on the other side of the envelope. More fun at the breakfast table that failing to complete the sudoku. And 3 pens got weeded out.

Like the zentangle people say (link in previous post, from which you can get onto an endless chain of other 'tanglers') this kind of drawing activity does seem to have effects that you might not expect, like a general loosening up and growth of confidence where drawing is concerned. I guess that these things might occur whatever it was you were drawing, if you started doing it a lot. But with these doodles you don't have the pressure of trying to make the drawing look like something and losing confidence when it doesn't.

I like the idea of doodling on spare scraps, which in my mind links the somewhat structured, rather more considered and deliberate art of the zentangle style with those mindless scribbles on the phone pad, the back of an envelope or the Co op till receipt.

Cooking, painting, doodling . . .

2010-07-27T14:40:00.000+01:00

. . . in the second half of July. A visit to the local farmers' market yielded the colourful caulis (tasty, too) and the yellow courgettes. The round one, the beans, the basil and the tomatoes are all DH's work, well, with me as advisor, as in, couldn't we try a different kind of courgette this year as well as the normal ones? We had them all for Sunday lunch on my birthday weekend.

The tomtoes are beginning to ripen and deserve a shot or two to themselves. DD2 takes very arty pix of veg, flowers etc and I am trying to emulate her.

Well, i keep trying.

Painting at church again, on the glass wall on one side of the main church bit, looking into the hallway. We had a Dreamday i.e. family fun day, about Bugs, Bats and Dragonflies. See the fat black spider on its web, in the hallway, not the painting!

I really enjoyed doing that. Not sure how it will be cleaned up eventually!

But my own work lately has been taken over by a somewhat obsessional doodling. Look here for the source of it all, zentangles. I'm not into the 'zen' bit, and prefer to call thm 'doodles' than 'tangles', but the claim that 'It increases focus and creativity' I find to be true for me. I don't think the zentangle people intend it to become obsessional though! The first has a seaside theme, because the frame turned out rather like cliffs, but the second has no special theme, just patterns. I enjoy creating the 3D effect in some patterns.

Harvest time . .

2010-07-14T12:01:00.000+01:00

. . . for the gooseberries. 11 lbs of jam and another 4lbs of fruit waiting. Anyone have a nice recipe for gooseberry chutney?

Last year was a great success for courgettes. This year they are struggling because there's been practically no rain. Trying another kind this year to keep the usual long green ones company and this is the first one, which DH says is just a bit bigger than a cricket ball.

He says I should have taken a photo of him bowling with it.

Actually I was expecting them to be dark green, not this interesting pale textury colour.

West Country Embroiderers in July

2010-07-14T11:44:00.016+01:00

We had a very enjoyable workshop with Lyn Prosser doing an informal kind of mola, involving layers of fabric, stitching a design and cutting back parts of it. Letters proved to be a very effective design idea. Some of us whizzed along with our machines, others worked more slowly by hand., both methods equally effective.

My bit, solo. Not finished yet. It uses a letter from the Tamil alphabet.

More wrapping . . .

2010-06-30T16:41:00.000+01:00

. . . of fabric round something cylindrical. a real bit of drainpipe this time. It is quite a fine cotton, and the colour has mostly gone right through it, so I must have applied it a bit unevenly to get those irregular blotches.

The wet one from the previous post now nicely ironed. A bit less colour on this one, so I should have applied a bit more.

And the last one, just scrunched down in a plastic tray in the ordinary way.

Using paint, the runny silk paint variety, is easier to manage than dye, because of not having to mix up salt, soda etc, but you do have to iron to fix the colour. Those darkest lines seem to come when applying paint but not with dye. Interesting.

Colouring fabric . . .

2010-06-30T10:45:00.000+01:00

. . . by wrapping it round a cylindrical thing and squashing it down in pleats, then painting it. I used an old wine bottle as my fabric bits were not large, but scrappy leftovers, and the intention was to experiment as I haven't done this for some time. It was mentioned on the Contemporary Quilt Group yahoo list and a link given, which spurred this activity.

Finished result, ironed, and looking a lot paler in this photo that in real life!

And here is piece 2, still damp and unironed

Why not do a bit of stitched resist while the paints are out? Scraps again, and set in motion by meeting a Dorset shibori artist, Annabel Wilson, and seeing her lovely meticulous work, see here, at an art and crafts fair at which our church stitching group had a stand last week. Some bits have worked better than others, depending on the type of cloth, and there is a mix here. I don't know what they are, being unmethodical. Also I have difficulty pullling the stitches up tight enough to resist enough often. But again, the pieces all have more marks on them that this photo seems to show.

Garden update.

2010-06-28T09:34:00.000+01:00

In spite of the absence of rain things are taking off a bit, though slowly. Clockwise from top left: great colours in a hanging basket - thank you B&Q; potato plant flowering - one of last year's that stayed behind in the ground; a variety of tomato that isn't moneymaker; a courgette plant producing flowers but I can't see if there is anything more than flowers there yet; more B&Q trailers, though not trailing much yet; a self-sown opium poppy plus bumble bee; swelling peapods; the first red raspberry; and my black tomato plant has a tomato on it!!! Move over Jamie Oliver!

Under the sea . . .

2010-06-27T18:03:00.000+01:00

. . . with West Country Embroiderers this month. or some of them at least, I don't seem to have managed to get photos of all the pieces of work. Apologies to those i missed:/

They are very pretty little pieces, intended to be stuck over a stone, or used on a box lid, or the front of a book cover, or . . . ? We ruched up fabric, covered rings and beads with thread, couched hairy yarn, made 'rocks' with padded fabric circles.

Homework . . .

2010-06-25T20:26:00.001+01:00

. . . last Saturday for one of the DGDs, was to make a picture of a monster with a collage of food pictures. Grandad suggested she took photos of as many food plants as she could find growing in the garden and make her monster from them. So here are some of them.
Clockwise from top left - strawberry, rhubarb, spinach, oregano, tomatoes, grapes, lollo rosso lettuce, baby cabbage plants, oats (spilled from the bird feeders, not for us!)

And from top left again - shallots, curly lettuce, blueberries, strawberries, potatoes, peas.

Layer upon Layer . . .

2010-06-18T19:25:00.000+01:00

. . . in the mountain views in the south of Bavaria.

Nice picnic spot. Thanks to DD3 again for the pix.

Coloured houses . . .

2010-06-16T10:14:00.000+01:00

. . . in Freising, near Munich.

I'm borrowing some of DD3's photos again.

Tidying up . . .

2010-06-14T21:11:00.000+01:00

. . . bits and pieces after my book making classes, I just had to use up some cover bits and pages that were left over.

A slightly different treatment of the long stitches - wrapping the outer ones - and some bead dangles.

While painting a cover I like to paint an A4 sheet or two as well to use in the book, generally as the outer page of signatures.

A different stitching style, going over the spine edge to get into the next signature. Buttonhole stitch over those stitches turned them into curly squiggles, to match the oil pastel squiggles on the cover (inadvertently!).

Plain stitches in matching threads. I was trying to copy a stitch design I'd seen somewhere, but just couldn't work out how to get smoothly into the next signature with this pattern so did a lot of fiddling about and improvising.

Printing with interference paints on black painted card, and a button sewn on the front to wind a cord round for a closure.

Another button plus cord. I need a few more ideas for closures.

The background is some paper DD3 and i printed up to make something to wrap a present for DD2. We made the big butterfly print blocks and the small butterflies and flower shapes came from a stick on set of bits in the children's craft sectin at Tesco.

I feel . . .

2010-06-13T15:41:00.000+01:00

. . . another study in red and green coming on!

The strawberry harvest looks very promising at the moment in spite of a lack of rain here on the east Dorset coast!

Seen in our garden pond . . .

2010-06-09T16:00:00.000+01:00

. . . this afternoon.

In der Konditorei . . .

2010-06-09T10:30:00.000+01:00

. . . ein Stück Schokoladetorte, bitte. DD3 was in Munich last week and took this photo of cakes in a coffee shop where she went for breakfast one day. I said, surely not chocolate gateau for breakfast and she said, no, they had had more normal breakfast stuff!

Swallowtail . . .

2010-06-07T20:39:00.000+01:00

. . . butterfly, photo taken by dd3 in the mountains in the south of Germany a couple of days ago.

Introducing fabric . . .

2010-06-02T20:31:00.000+01:00

. . . . at last. Having stuck with paper and card up to now for making book covers I have started experimenting with fabric in some form. What has held me back from this is wondering what glue to use and how to make the holes needed for attaching signatures and covers. This one has 2 panels of free machine embroidery using a sandwich of foundation fabric, bits and pieces and organza . I then stuck a piece of card, which itself was backed with painted paper, on the back with PVA glue. Then i poked measured holes all round the edge, and worked buttonhole stitch with perlé threads

Then I worked buttonhole again with a finer thread, putting beads on. I then stitched the whole book together in the coptic style, with a lot of rows of the little chain stitches you get when linking back to the previous signature.

Then finally the bead dangles were made and attached.

This one has a piece of free machined sandwich, backing, wadding, bits and organza, cut to the size needed to cover signatures 1/4 A4. I put 5 signatures in, with a separate thread for each, starting and ending at the top, then tied the ends in a couple of knots to form a tassel. Then wove through the long stitches.

You can't see the colours in the cover well in these photos, but the threads pick out 2 of them, the pinks and green.

This one is different again. Using up thread leftovers i worked running stitch through 2 layers - a wadding and a piece of cotton coloured with watercolour pencils. Edges were oversewn, and a piece of card stuck on the back. The book was then stitched together in the coptic style. Two bits of twisted cord were stitched to the covers and tied in a bow to close. It is another small. 1/4 A4 size book.

Finishing off

2010-06-01T16:02:00.000+01:00

Books that i had in various states of unfinishedness during the classes i've been running, have now been completed. One with pages half A5 folded, with painted paper stuck to card covers, longstitch binding over ribbons, and a large silver brad to wind a cord round for a closure.

Longstitch again, with the long stitches linked into each other to form a herringbone stitch effect. As usual the cover is cereal packet with oil pastels, and in this case, a wash of coloured inks over.

While painting the cover, instead of washing leftover colour from the brush I painted it out onto a sheet of paper. This was then torn up to form the outer folio of three of the signatures (the pages in this book are one third A4). I like the look of the coloured pages here and there in the book.

Another painted paper stuck to card cover and stitching over tapes, in this case plain white cotton tape painted to go with the book. The lesson to be learned with this one was not to leave the covers in the hot sun, even though they had been left to dry under weights, because they bent a bit.

In the kitchen garden . . .

2010-05-26T12:31:00.000+01:00

. . . so far this year, the strawberries are looking promising . . .

. . . and the shallots . . .

. . . one of the blueberry bushes (the other two not doing so well) . .

. . . a nice little row of peas . . .

The focus is generally on stuff that is expensive or hard to come by in the shops. So though DH is always keen to grow the perfect carrot, and keeps trying, the main effort goes into things like peas, runner beans, soft fruit, spring cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli / brocolli / broccolli (spelling???) Our front garden conversion into growing beds instead of unused lawn is working well for us.

Study in Blues . . .

2010-05-24T09:34:00.000+01:00

. . . cooling down after the excitement of the pinks and reds, green and orange. Clockwise from top left - a member of the forgetmenot family whose name i can't remember(!), ceanothus, fading bluebells, meconopsis (my special plant, eaten by slugs last year, but making a show this year!), lilac, rosemary, thyme, aquilegia, proper forgetmenots.

Colour . . .

2010-05-24T09:26:00.000+01:00

. . inspiration in the kitchen. Leftovers the other day . . .

. . . and yesterday's pudding, gooseberry and blueberry crumble (last season's soft fruit harvest from the garden). Green and red again, with a more harmonious effect in the blue bowl and a stronger element of contrast in the green one.

Carrot and potato mash with green bits in (fresh chives and oregano), orange, cream and green again.

Colour collections . . .

2010-05-13T11:12:00.000+01:00

. . . always interest me, so here are a couple from the garden, the ever intriguing red and green first - clockwise from top left: a 4 or 5 year old oak tree; a ragged tulip; peony buds; red onions and celery in the frying pan (oops, sorry, from the co-op, not our garden, but the colours interested me); strawberries, ok, from last year, but I needed a 9th pic to make the collage grid; a pelargonium; roses (last year too0; chives; frilly lettuce (that IS this year's!)

And pretty pink - apple blossom 1 and 2; a perennial plant, the grandaughters call it bleeding hearts, but I'm not sure it's right; another pelargonium; clematis; an azalea; a peachy pelargonium; a rhododendron; an anonymous flower.

What to do with cards . . .

2010-05-06T12:14:00.000+01:00

. . . like greetings or thank you cards that you don't want to throw away -----

stitch a signature in them and do something decorative with the ends of the threads. You may have to trim the cards down a little to fit the paper, or cut paper to fit. I was able to use half A4 by cutting the cards a bit.

Buttonhole stitch along the spine stitches. Blue and red threads to match the design.

The leftover threads were made into twisted cords and knotted, and the ends frayed into spiky tassels.

. . . and a few more . . .

2010-05-01T08:55:00.000+01:00

. . .of the photos from our Upton Heath walk - pussy willow . . .

.. . nice and furry . . .

Why do dandelions count as weeds? In colour, shape and construction they are just as spectacular as many recognised cultivated flowers.

Celandines need to be in big clumps really but this is the best I could do for now.

And on the way home I snapped this. We have no idea what was going on here, there's been nothing in the news, but I liked the row of police cars with the repetition of the patterns and colours!

Its a long time . . .

2010-04-30T21:55:00.000+01:00

. . . since I've been on Upton Heath, but the other Sunday we had a New Zealand couple who had been teaching the day before at our church at our home to lunch, and afterwards, in the sunshine, we went for a walk. it was hazy, butin the distance you could see the Poole harbour entrance, just, and the isle of Purbeck to the west.

Some of the gorse was out, the rich yellow always amazes me, all that enticing colour on a bush with fierce thorns that repel you.

But there were more delicate beauties - tiny birch leaves unfolding themselves and catkins . . .

. . . and more in the next instalment. I'm posting from picasa and it is not letting me have all the pix I selected in one shot.

Flowers and butterflies . . .

2010-04-29T11:15:00.000+01:00

. . . on the book some of whose pix got lost while uploading yesterday. What a contrived link! Sorry. Here's the stitching on the spine, using a fine perlé thread.

And now the flowers, that have grown a bit since the last Spring pix. I've arranged them in a sort of sequence of colour. It is quite amazing how many gradations there are in colours. I suppose really it just goes in a continuous shading, not in separatable steps!

I like the shadows on the wall

and the shape of these pointy tulips

contrasted with the blunt curves of these primroses

and the small round bell-shaped blobs of the grape hyacinths.

This horse chestnut has been growing for 4 years, I think. It needs a proper home somewhere, out of its pot.

Breadmaking

2010-04-28T15:16:00.000+01:00

With reference to my wail at the end of the previous post I seem to have discovered how to add pix here using the new system. it isn't too ad, but why, oh why did it change? Perhaps tomorrow it will all be back to normal.

Anyway, in between making books i am making bread, using the sort of yeast you have to activate with warm water and sugar. Actually a pic if that would be interesting, i must see what I can do. i am a bit proud of these.

A book for a graddaughter.

2010-04-28T15:04:00.001+01:00

This is the book I mentioned in the previous post, that was sent as a birthday present. Same size, 1/4 A4, same method, coptic binding. The butterflies are cut with one of those punches and stuck on.

The cover paper, stuck over card, is coloured by doing a rough rubbing with wax crayons, and a black ink wash over.

Posting is very odd today. When i try in the usual way to get photos on the window that comes up is one I've never seen before and i have no idea how to find the pix i want with it. It's not the new blogger system that I had just got used to and used with success. It seems to keep asking me to choose pix that are already on the blog. Wierd. So For this and the previous post I've gone from Picasa, selecting pix there and clicking on 'Blog this'. But it has lost some of the pix I chose!! What is going on???

I'm giving up on capital I's btw. They nearly always come out wrong and i'm tired of changing them.

Another book . . .

2010-04-28T14:50:00.000+01:00

. . . a small one, 1/4 of A4 size, with codex binding. I made one like this and sent it to a granddaughter for her birthday, so made one in the same way to keep for myself. Samples of various types are handy for my classes.

The cord is attached through a hole poked in the cover, and is threaded through the button. It wraps round the book and round the button to keep the book shut.

With this style you get the chain stitches where the signatures are linked to each other. If thick thread is used it tends to make a gap between signatures where the thread loops round, so I thought what if I use a fine thread? But I like lots of visible stitching, and fine thread would be a bit insignificant. So, solution, have lots of holes, thus lots of lines of stitching. Result - smaller gaps (though still some space) and lots of nice stitching to be seen. Success!

I find too, that stitches should not be pulled up as tight as with some other sorts of binding. You would think that to pull the thread up would help with the gap problem. But it also scrunches the spine so the signatures bunch untidily and the book will not close. So some careful judgement is needed. Not straightforward! It is a nice compact little book.

Cornwall holiday

2010-04-26T17:33:00.000+01:00

We went to the same place as last year, Porthcothan, along the coast from Padstow, in the same self-catering bungalow, 2 minutes walk from the beach. On the way we stopped off at Cowslip workshops at Launceston and I bought some fat quarters for the granddaughter who wants to make herself a quilt, with Grandma's help of course. Its a very cute place, with nice cafe, tempting shop, and lambs in the field just now.

Extra family members joined us for the weekend and we all went to Bedruthan Steps, a national Trust place a few minutes drive away. Well, DH and I drove and had a coffee in the NT cafe while the other 8 walked there along the cliff path! Interesting vegetation on the cliff top, some kind of lichen I guess, with design possibilities?

But I do take proper holiday snaps too, so here's the beach at Bedruthan, from above.

And down on it, some more design ideas!

We didn't get off all the walking, there are about 10,000 steep concrete steps (wet ones that day!) to get down and then up again! I was wondering on the way down how you got to book a helicopter to get back up again.

Looking down from about a quarter of the way up . . .

. . . and with some relief, from the top again.

Back to Porthcothan, a nice level walk, the bay at half past eight, on the way to get the newspaper from the shop

Strange rock sculptures, when the tide is out . . .

. . .and 3 daughters enjoying the view.

Amazing sunsets.

Comments

2010-04-21T09:18:00.000+01:00

I've been getting a strange mix of comments lately to the blog. Some are very encouraging, and I do thank the writers of those. Others unfortunately have included a lot of commercial fishing and a couple of porn sites from China!!! (I got a translation from Google). So I'm reluctantly giving the comment facility a rest for the time being, hoping this will break those links. I'll enable it again in a while.

Holiday reading . . .

2010-04-21T09:09:00.000+01:00

. . .on a cold day. The next best thing to reading books is to make them! These two were made by eldest daughter Claire and granddaughter Rebecca at one of a series of 'informal book making' classes I'm running at home at the moment, and were finished off on holiday in Cornwall last week (pix to come).

I'd made this one earlier, using Inktense pencils to colour the cover . . .

. . .and this one on holiday, printing the pattern in acrylic paint with a wine bottle cork, and putting a watercolour wash over.

Hannah made this one, a concertina fold with pamphlet stitched pages in the valley folds.

Then Claire made this one . . .

. . . and this one.

. . . and this one!

Hannah (left) and Rebecca (right) made these, using the cork.

And here's the class ones again, closeup of the stitching, to which Claire added some beads and a twisted place marker looped into one of the stitches at the top.

The covers are all made from corn flakes packet card. Those that aren't printed with the cork have been coloured by drawing on the inside, the uncoloured side, using oil pastels, including metallic ones, then putting a watercolour wash over. The coloured side of this cereal packet card I have found needs to be painted over with black acrylic paint to hide the colour, but the other side does take the other mediums pretty well.

Blues and the water of life. . .

2010-04-19T16:21:00.000+01:00

. . . . were the ideas behind a new altar frontal at our church, St Nicholas. Plus, we had to use a piece of a holographic sort of lamé somewhere. Eight of us in the church stitching group, Threads of Faith, did a strip each (ah, so you can count, yes one person did 2 while another member made the 3 strips for the Bible stand). They are not joined together, but attached individually by press studs to a piece of cloth that goes across the table and is held by a counterweight (plastic pipe filled with sand!) in a sleeve on the other side. We each chose the sort of pattern or technique we wanted to do and worked individually, showing each other as we went along what we were doing and getting support and suggestions when needed. It was agreed that any sort of blue could be used and it is most interesting to see the range, from greeny blues to purply ones. Here's the Bible stand one . . .

. . . the whole piece of work . . .

. . . and three closer views of parts of it.

Of the making of many books there is no end . . .

2010-04-08T17:08:00.000+01:00

. . . and much study is a weariness of spirit. That's what it says in Ecclesiastes 12: 12 in the Bible, and it means writing books, not constructing them. Studying the construction of books is no weariness to me, completely the opposite in fact. It lifts my spirits pretty high! But there has been a making of many, as the following pix show! My favourite bit is the stitching, but of course there is a lot to do before that, deciding on size, sorting pages and how to do the cover, cutting or tearing all that to suit. I like to do my own colouring of materials, and for all these books have used cereal packet card, either painted directly or covered with painted paper. I've sliced up A4 sheets of paper for the signatures, in half lengthwise for the first one. The black acrylic paint covers the printed side of the card, and the flower is printed on with interference paint, which shows its colour nicely on the black. The spine has slits, and each signature is stitched to the cover individually.

This one has painted card for the cover and is stitched like the first one, but with holes, not slits. The beads were added separately using buttonhole stitch. It is A5 size.

Another A5, typical longstitch, using perlé thread, with a painted paper glued over the card cover.

These 2 and the small orange one following, use the side strips of a large corn flakes packet. waste not, want not. I usually discard these, or cut them up to wrap threads round, but had the sudden idea to use them for covers. I had to trim the paper to fit for the pages, so wasted a small amount there. Until I realised the offcuts could be used to make templates for punching holes!

These covers are all coloured by scribbling on oil pastel, including metallic ones, then putting a watercolour wash over.

For a contrast, this pale cover is the backing board of a pad of handmade Indian paper, bought from Oxfam long ago. It has a sort of purple middle, with paper backing, which split on the folds. Which proved interesting as there are glimpses of the purple in the cracks! Thick linen thread for stitching.

In the previous 3 pix I've experimented with the stitching, working out different patterns, using cross stitch and sort of herringbone. Below is another basic longstitch, with added beads and a paper lined cover with linocut prints in acrylic with an ink wash over.

Here's another cover waiting for some pages, but not the painted signatures. Those will go for an open spine book so the colours can be seen.

So that has kept me out of mischief. I have in fact started a series of workshops in my home, with up to 6 people coming for two and a half hour sessions fortnightly. I cal it 'informal book making' as a prpoer bookbinder would probably have a fit at the lack of precision. But that's my style, and I am happy with the huge enjoyment I get from doing it, and sharing it with other people.

A bit more . . .

2010-04-06T09:32:00.000+01:00

. . . about the home-made coloured paper in the last post. This first one is more of a brown than the grey it looks here. Then there's black, blue and green. I started by putting unwanted paper through a shredder. These shreddings were separated into the colours and soaked in water for a bit, some of it overnight. Then I whizzed it in my blender (one of those vase/jug-like things that you have to hold on the base with the motor in - not used in the kitchen these days I hasten to add). This produced a pulp of uneven consistency, depending on how much whizzing was done, a mixture pf nice pulp and small fragments of the papers. This worked well I thought, as the small bits make the paper interesting and varied. A mixture of red, green and blue shreddings produced a pulp that looked like brown sick, so you are warned, but the paper it made is interesting!

I made a few sheets of each colour, then started mixing them, a scoop of this in here and of that in there . . .

I tried black with each colour and got some nice darker tone versions.

Fuller instructions for making sheets of paper can be easily found by googling. There are a lot of variations in method and equipment. Briefly, I had a wood frame with synthetic net curtaining stapled onto it and a washing up bowl with pulp and water in. I dipped the frame into the bowl, slid it horizontal under the water and lifted it out, with a pulp layer trapped on the net. I then turned this onto a j cloth on a folded towel, sponged and pressed as much water out as I could and lifted the frame, leaving the pulp, now compressed into a sheet, on the cloth. I doubled the cloth over, pressed it some more, and pegged it up on my airer, where it dried in a few hours in a warm place or overnight. The cloth was peeled off when dry and lo and behold, a sheet of paper! This is all I'm going to explain as the tutorials you will find are very long and detailed, and I haven't time!

A very big thank you . . .

2010-04-04T18:18:00.000+01:00

. . . . to everyone who has left a comment in recent weeks. My apologies for not being able to cope with thanking each of you individually which I am sure I should really. Thanks especially to 'Cat', who has given me a sunshine award, but I've not been able to get to your blog, Cat, I get a page saying access is restricted. People have said some very nice things. I feel rather humble! Unfortunately I've also had some very dubious links arrive, which have been rejected, and 2 in Chinese, which might have been interesting to put on, but Google translator didn't give me anything I could make sense of, so I am sorry, they do not appear.
I've been taking and uploading pictures lately, so will be doing a bit of catchup.
So some signs of spring to lift our spirits - things are alive out there, and trying to catch up the 2 weeks that they are behind apparently, compared to other years, because of all the cold weather the UK has been having.

This bush smells absolutely beautiful. I don't know what it is called. I've put some in the bathroom!

Next door's mimosa tree that hangs nicely over our garden and makes us believe it is ours.

And to feed the body as well as the soul - the rhubarb is looking promising!

After the paper making at the craft activities at our church I had a bit of pulp left over - only enough to make about 90 A5 sheets!!!!

Why can I not manage regular blog postings?

2010-03-27T12:54:00.000Z

Because I can't get my photos sorted out, that's why. I don't want to post without pictures. And I don't manage to keep up to date with taking photos of recent work and uploading them to the pc. Then there is the problem of finding them in the files. Sometimes the most recent are not where I expect and that frustrates me and I haven't time to hunt, and if this is going to take ages there is something else I need to be doing . . . . and so on. What a tale of woe! All rubbish really.

There's a lot of work stacking up to be photographed. I will get to it any minute now. I will! But we just have to have lunch . . . . .

But thanks to 2 blogging friends i have cracked and implemented the new way of posting photos - much better than the old system, so that is a plus.

Well, here's a scary pic to be going on with - an Egyptian pharaoh. We had a family day at our church the other Saturday, with craft activities, painting, model making, drumming, singing etc, and this guy emerged. He's huge! Some of us detected a resemblance to a certain top politician ????

This is one of my efforts, big drawings for people to paint - the Israelites crossing the Red Sea escaping from slavery in Egypt. See the book of Exodus. The purple mountains are the promised land.

My job this time was making paper - nearest thing to papyrus - and here are the sheets, sandwiched in J cloths, drying on my airer.

Then the next week we had Haiti Day, with a cafe doing coffees, lunches, cream teas in aid of the relief fund - here are some of the goodies - home made cakes and the most delicious lemon pudding you have ever tasted!

Lumps and Bumps . . .

2010-02-16T09:51:00.000Z

. . . workshop for West Country Embroiderers. Not a very elegant title! I can't remember now if it was my creation or our programme secretary's when we were discussing what I was going to do! Also known as 'calico gardens' or just textured stitches. Traditionally it is done all in creams, on calico . . .

(no prizes for composition for the above, but it does include a lot of different ways of doing this work)

. . .but I thought - why not colour? and stitched a red tree . . .

. . .closely followed by an undersea sort of scene in blues . . .

. . . and a doodle in greens and pinks.

Another element I like to include in this is doing 'normal' stitches, like cross stitch, herringbone, and then wrapping them, buttonholing along them or weaving across them.

Oversewing objects that don't generally get included in embroidery is another option. Guess the objects. No prizes!

Varying thick /thin threads is rather fun too. (Knotted cretan stitch)

Unfortunately I didn't get to take photos of people's work this time. Sorry everyone!

Sunshine . . .

2010-02-13T16:25:00.000Z

. . . in the sky again, thank goodness, and in a cyberfriend's generosity. Mandy of Crazy Daisy blog has given me, along with 11 others, a Sunshine Award! Read all about it on her blog, February 6th and the previous post. Mandy is a great knitter and also does some unusual bits of embroidery. And she has a nice cat! Thank you very much, Mandy!

And at long last I am getting together a patchwork quilt for a granddaughter, and you could say there is something sunshiney about the middle section. She likes yellow apparently. Ok, I'm stretching things a bit!

It is pegged up on curtains over the shelves in my workroom. It is quite a while since I did some straightforward patchwork, or made something bed-sized.

Today I got a border round it, made the backing, layered it all up on the table (useful 5 foot square, made by DH from 2 old doors) and tacked it. So just the quilting to do now (by machine), and some edging which will probably be some facing strips.

Book making addiction strikes again . . .

2010-02-02T20:16:00.000Z

. . . after seeing one of the Design Matters TV workshops showing how to stitch up a book using

tapes across the spine. I have made books before but not for a long time, and didn't get to try this method then. So I looked in my books drawer and found signatures and cover boards left unused from previously, hunted out some ribbons and got cracking. I used to think it would be rather difficult using tapes, but actually, once you get a couple of signatures stitched together and no longer feel you need 2 more hands, it all goes very smoothly. Two of these 3 books are not done with tapes, but one has the signatures stitched together with a chain line top and bottom and long stitches in the middle. These were then woven together using up the long end of thread.

The next has one chain and 3 groups of long stitches which were linked together to produce something that looks like herringbone. Both these books have a place marker made by twisting the leftover ends of thread together and adding beads.

These three have ribbons stitched across and the stitches linked to each other. And in two the ribbons have also been used to tie the book

As I only had these rather glitzy ribbons I've bought some plain white tape now and painted some of it, so that should be interesting. It gives a bit more scope. I also want to try using strips of fabric, and thick cord. I'd also like to start using fabric on the book boards but am not sure how to fix it. Is there anyone out there who can advise on a good sort of glue to use with fabric? A brand available in the UK preferably.

Autumn leaves and transfer paints . . .

2010-01-30T12:36:00.000Z

. . but a nice wintry sunrise to get the colour appreciation going, taken from our front door steps, about 8.30 - ? -ish. This beech tree supplied the leaves that appear in some of the postcards that follow.

This idea of printing with real leaves is always around in my head. It was revived recently because one of my Christmas presents was a subscription to Design Matters TV, run by Linda and Laura Kemshall. I'm really enjoying looking at all the video workshops provided. One of them is on using transfer paints / disperse dyes. These are the ones you paint on to paper, then when it is dry you can iron the colour off onto fabric. These dyes are picked up primarily by polyester, so a polycotton mix, or any true polyester fabric are the sorts to use. The colour comes out the strongest on the latter.

I laid the leaves down as a mask, and ironed colour over. Some colour comes off on the leaf, so that can also be transferred. I had painted my papers with a mix of colours, using a sponge often to get a textural look. Then it was a question of thinking of different ways to free machine stitch the backgrounds after outlining the leaves and veins, then make them up into postcards.

Finished something . . .

2010-01-12T14:40:00.002Z

. . . that has been on the go for a long while, a Doodlesquare this time (the others of this kind were doodlestrips). I've put the pix in backwards as usual, so first, some details -

At first I was mostly trying out stitch variations in various publications of Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn, especially the book Stitch Magic, and then just worked on filling in the gaps between those areas with whatever I fancied.

Here's the whole piece, quite random, no plan, just doodling, like you do with a biro on the telephone pad.

A Stitch in time (just) for Christmas . . .

2010-01-11T09:47:00.002Z

What can Gap do that Grandma can't? Well, probably stop the edges rolling up! This is my version of a stripy scarf sold in the aforementioned establishment. I think the mistake was just doing it in one layer of stocking stitch, which always rolls itself up, doesn't it? But a tube, in DK wool would be too thick . . . so, dilemma. Well granddaughter has a small neck so it works ok for her. A puffy heart stocking filler each for the daughters and grandaughters who were here at Christmas. I have 4 more to do for those who weren't. If they are reading this, hey, you are not forgotten, I will make some more, for you! One side . . . .

. . . the other side . . .

Mostly not my work. . .

2009-12-16T11:15:00.003Z

. . . like a Bethlehem scene, drawn out for people to paint, who came to the Christmas Fun Day our church had this month, which included also crafts and a performance of Sheila Wilson's Hosanna Rock. And on my table, stencilling and nice choice of colours produced some tasteful bits of wrapping paper.

A similar exercise at a similar Day focussing on Africa had a village landscape to paint and . . .

. . . . some Mali mudcloth patterns to play with, not using fermented mud, but freezer paper masking and black and blue acrylic paint!

And going back a bit further still to the . . .

. . . Quilters' Guild 3 Corners Day in October, 3 workshops to circulate round, of which i did one (in the exalted company of Kate Dowty and Carol Dowsett!) In my workshop we made small purses, from 5 x 5" fabric squares. It is one of these random things that comes out with unexpected charm.

But this is all my own work, and not in a breadmaker either! Not sure why it comes out all craggy, but DH says it gives it a nice rustic look.

Wild weather inspirations

2009-12-16T10:52:00.004Z

I wanted to put these first two pix at the end but blogger is being contrary about arranging photos, sorry about that. Sunset, seen from the back of our house. Sun heading down, Poole harbour, Brownsea island across the water.

Another winter day at Sandbanks, with wild waves and kite surfers, and sun. Great for November.

And at Upton Country park, some autumn colour, quite spectacular.

More wild waves, at Bournemouth beach this time, on the windiest day of the year. We went with family to the Oceanarium down by the beach, and the grandchildren were leaning on the wind. But then the peaceful moments come, to our road anyway!

Hello, I'm still here . . .

2009-12-12T13:36:00.003Z

. . . and will try to stay this time, a reformed character, keeping my blog more up to date with pix of visual interest and inspiration . . . I very much hope so anyhow. So here are some things I have been making lately - beads, from coloured magazine pages. There is nothing complicated about them, you simply cut long strips of paper, roll them up round a knitting needle or similar rounded stick thing, and apply glue to the last bit of the strip so that it sticks itself to the roll. If you want cylindrical beads you cut a straight strip. If you want a more rounded effect you cut a wedge shaped strip. You start rolling at the wide end, keep the narrowing strip in the centre as you roll, and it builds up a more rounded shape.

I made a book cover from nappy liners. There was a workshop online using dryer sheets and not knowing quite what they were I decided to try nappy liners, which I thought might be similar. They aren't really, but they gave a nice result.

I put 3 liners together, having printed and painted some colour on them. They don't take colour so very well, but enough for the purpose. I then stitched them together onto a piece of felt, with free machine stitching all over. Then a little zap with a heat gun and a bit more stitching.
Then I neatened the edges, wrapped some cord by zigzagging over threads, and couched that down, leaving ends to wrap round a button to fasten and threaded on some of my paper beads to look decorative.The piece was just the size of the book opened out, so I had to attach separate panels to each side to make pockets into which the book covers could be pushed. The book happened to be one I had made, A5 size, but any could be used.
It feels nice to handle, and was easy to stitch, so is on the list of 'Try that again sometime' ideas.

Next batch of journal quilts

2009-09-12T16:38:00.002+01:00

4 quilts on 2 themes, bottles and boats. The 'bottles' are made with clingfilm with threads etc trapped between layers and ironed (don't forget to iron over baking parchment).

'Boats' involved colouring the base fabric with oilbars/paintsticks, some layered strips, and free machine stitching. One has felt boats and the other various sayings about boats ('Don't rock the boat', 'all in the same boat' etc, that kind of thing) stitched over.

Holiday time . . .

2009-08-21T11:56:00.008+01:00

. . . in the Peak District of Derbyshire. [I started this message ages ago, and gave up because it wouldn't let me move the pics around. Coming back to have another go today, 12 Sept, I still can't do it and have decided to post anyway. So they are a bit muddled! But hopefully nice to look at!]
Well dressings are a feature of summer life in the Peak villages and this was one of 3 in Bradwell, neat Great Hucklow where we had a cottage. The pictures are made with flower petals, leaves, seeds, all sorts of plant pieces. Another place we visited is Eyam, a village famous for cutting itself off during the Plague in 1665 so that the infection wouldn't spread. Nice Celtic design cross in the churchyard.

Now this is in the gardens at Chatsworth! Talk about dodging around! Its a viewpoint

from which you can lock down over the rock garden.
This isn't a stately home but the cottage we stayed in, at least, the lefthand end of it is!

Flowers at Chatsworth.

WE had the use of the patio at our cottage and very nice it was in the sun, though here it was raining!

Here's a nice old stone house, typical of the area, local stone. It is in Eyam, one of a number of cottages where the plague victims who died in the house are listed on a board outside. So many from each family, so sad.

. . . and the famous fountain at Chatsworth.

We were there with grandchildren so a visit to the farm was obligatory, and most entertaining with these little rascals wriggling and sucking.

Another visit was to Caudwell's Mill where they have examples of different sorts of grain growing and sell lovely flower ground on the premises in the historic mill.

And up on Baslow Edge we did some kite flying with grandson, sharing the space with . . .

. . . some not-so-local looking inhabitants! (The grandchildren had come all the way from Scotland to find highland cattle here.) . . .

. . . and some radio-controlled planes.

A brilliant view . . .

. . . in all directions.

It was well worth . . .

2009-07-18T11:38:00.003+01:00

. . . digging up the front garden. It is a riot of green at the moment . . .

. . . outdoors. . .

. . . and indoors . . . yummy yummyBut where these (below) came from we have no idea! Funny, times when I think out carefully what to grow where, go and buy it, get it planted in just the right place etc etc, the stuff doesn't always grow. Other times things just appear, don't know where from, in places you would never choose, and flourish amazingly. Is there a life message there somewhere??? If you think you know what it is, please tell me! Meanwhile they brighten up the bed with the brussel sprout plants in.I'd like really to have these poppies in the back garden alongside these . . . a pink geranium that survived from last year, an unusual geranium-type plant from the local garden centre and fuchsias bought at a sales table at church.
If your local allotment waiting list is too long, an alternative is to find an elderly person who is willing for you tidy a bit of their garden by digging a veg patch in return for some of the produce. Derek has been able to do this and as well as strawberries, peas and broad beans we have had these . . .
. . . and these come from our own greenhouse, doing a bit better than last year. Red and green again, but perhaps a bit more attention to the background when taking pix might be a good idea!

Nice printed batik though, from Togo in West Africa, bought at a craft village when we visited friends doing linguistic, literacy and Bible translation work there, in 1994.

Fabric salvage now . . .

2009-06-29T20:39:00.007+01:00

. . . bits and pieces not much use for anything else, sometimes rescued from other people's bins at workshops (how sad is that?).
This is one of the first set of postcards I ever made, discovered tucked away somewhere when having a workroom clearout recently.
I think it is the colour grouping that makes these interesting.

The compulsion to make these strip things seems to go on for ever, but at last I am moving on a bit . . .

. . . though not for long. Back to strips, but thinner, even more likely to be in the bin, and running stitch all over them . . .

These bags also use up all sorts of offcuts - strips, trimmings and tiny scraps any normal person would just throw away. Lay them out on a piece of fabric cut to the size required for what you want to make. Cover with organza (stripy bag) or net (blue/red bag), pin everywhere then machine stitch all over, handling carefully so bits don't escape. Of course you could use fusible web but I hate the stuff. This bag is done with straight stitch, to show that you don't have to be able to do free machining to use this method of creating fabric.

And this one used up a lot of tiny scraps and bits of thread, and has been free machined with scribbles and zigzaggy lines.

Not just me . . .

2009-06-29T20:22:00.003+01:00

. . . doing creative things . . . e.g. making racks for our patio pots.Since we moved back here to Dorset Derek has been salvaging pallets from houses locally where some building work is being done (with permission of all concerned of course). He was horrified to discover that pallets on which various building materials were delivered just got taken to the local landfill, not returned to anyone for reuse. People seem very happy for him to take them, it saves them a job dumping them.

Small garden tables/stands, large table, benches, a picnic table we haven't got a photo of, doors, fences, duckboards, garden gates, a woodstore shed . . .

And when they do a roof conversion round here in a very bungalow-rich neighbourhood, all the old roof timbers seem to be discarded too. So guess what is filling up our back yard!

I'm glad we are having the benefit of this, but, oh what a waste!

Colour sequence in the garden . . .

2009-06-20T19:58:00.004+01:00

WCE June Exhibition

2009-06-20T15:40:00.003+01:00

On the transfer paints day an exhibition was set up of work from the Poole branch of WCE at Upton House, a local council owned manor house plus grounds which is a great place for a day out. Years ago Prince Carel of Rumania was living there, and got behind with his rent I believe. The most upmarket council house in the country we used to joke among ourselves. There is a small gallery above the cofee shop which has regular exhibitions of various kinds. This was the first time the group had exhibited, and there was a lot of impressive work to look at. The pix can be clicked on for a larger version, where the separate elements of the collages can be seen more clearly. There were framed pictures, cushions, bags, boxes, pin cushions, book covers, small hangings, postcards, journal quilts. To hang things on the walls you have to knock nails in, then fill in the holes afterwards and restore it to its previous condition. We didn't want to cope with that so we had mostly smaller items, the sort of things embroiderers tend to make compared with quilters.

Readers of Stitch magazine may spot a few things made from articles in that. And a surprising number of items from our monthly workshops turned up, finished and looking smart. We all made items for the sales tables, top pic bottom left, to raise a bit of money. General consensus seems to be that it was a very successful event, and it has given us confidence for another one in the future.

Exciting stuff at WCE . . .

2009-06-20T15:22:00.002+01:00

. . . in June. Eileen Pugh, one of our members, gave us a great workshop on using fabric transfer paints. She showed us 2 lovely pieces her sister had done in the past, colouring her fabric and then adding stitching.

With this to inspire us we painted away, on paper, using drawings Eileen provided of flowers and butterflies. The iris one was popular. The idea is then, when the paint is dry (a hairdryer helps speed things up. I seldom use mine for drying hair!), you lay the painted paper down on fabric and iron it carefully. The heat releases the colour. Polyester absorbs it very efficiently, so we tried out pure polyester and polycottons. Colour does come off on natural fibres alone but needs special treatment to fix it.

As we loosened up we tried other effects, splodgy backgrounds, tearing strips, sponging.

And you can also print one image over another.There was so much to show at the end I've had to make 2 collages to display it all.

Two UFO's done, 999+ to go . . .

2009-06-17T10:19:00.004+01:00

A few months back we did this Banjara-style stitching with Tiggy Rawling at West Country Embroiderers. I've now finished my bit and have made it into this bag, with dangling elephants and cords made of twisted sari threads. And these are my folder covers, not given pages yet (I'm still figuring out how to organise the holes), done with Wendy Jackson.

The outer fabric is a piece of batik done at a workshop at Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire several years ago. The inside fabric was done one day dyeing with a friend. It is a bog standard Dylon dye, bronze rose, and has separated out into interesting bits of colour, adding nicely and unexpectedly to the intended splodgy effect of crumpling into a jar.

The embroidery is a slip that was added on. It has knotted cretan stitch, wrapped to make more textural.

Studies in red and green . . .

2009-06-17T10:05:00.004+01:00

. . . our first efforts at growing chard. Is it meant to shoot up like this? There never seemed to be enough pickable leaves on it to make a decent helping. But it is very sculptural! Flowers are simpler ... last year's birthday present survives. This year's geraniums . . .

. . . and the poppies have x3 more flowers this year.

Chard detail - looks like something from the jungle.

I shall enjoy studying these . . .

. . . and these . . .

. . . not to mention these . . .

creative stuff at church . .

2009-06-07T18:20:00.003+01:00

. . . just over life-size figures, the Rhythm of Life band, made by weaving strips of fabric, plastic, paper in and out of chicken wire moulded over a wooden armature. The instruments are constructed out of card covered with paper, painted gold. This was a project lots of people had a go with, anyone who was in the church building for whatever purpose was encouraged to put some strips in, and they did. There's a guitarist, drummer . . . . . trumpeter, saxophone player (well, nearest we could get to a saxophone!) . . and a violinist. Interesting mixture. I wonder what that would sound like if they all came alive one time and started to play?

The figures were constructed and the work facilitated by Jacqi Lea, a community artist from Southampton.

Then this is done by a group of us who've been involved in making altar covers. See same link as the band (above). We made a strip each,using a drawing of an idea one of us had, relating to the Hard Rain exhibition we have at the church till October. There is a lot of detail in the embroidery, worth a click to see a bigger picture.

This was on the lable that went with it.
The Hard Rain pictures are mostly pretty bleak and that is how our ‘story’ begins. But stubborn little green shoots eventually penetrate the dark landscape and expand into green places where the rhythm of growth takes over , producing fruit that continues the cycle of new life. And the tree spreads out across all of it.

West Country Embroiderers in May

2009-06-06T11:14:00.000+01:00

We made folder covers with Wendy Jackson, the 'proper' sort where you cover mount board with fabric, lace it on the back, and then handstitch a lighter weight, similarly covered card to it as a 'lining'. The folders have side pieces, through which holes are punched and cords threaded to hold pages in place. Soft hinges attach the side pieces to the main piece.

It is the same method for covering board with fabric that is used for boxes. I have only ever made 'soft' boxes, with pelmet vilene, and have avoided this lacing method, thinking it was too difficult. Well, it is fiddly, and awkward stitching the pieces together. I tried a curved needle, recommended as helpful, but it kept twisting round in my fingers and I couldn't hold it. In the end I found a long milliner's needle (straw) worked well as I could then get it into the fabric at the awkward angle needed and still have some of it to hold on to!

I know a lot of people are completely addicted to making boxes by this method, and Wendy had a lot of folders, some really big, for City & Guilds stuff, and my hat goes off to them all! They are much to be admired for their skill in this! As for me, I finished my cover, probably won't make another, but as usual, was glad of the opportunity to try it out. That's the interesting thing about groups like WCE where there is a day's workshop every month, topics chosen to give something for a wide range of interest, might not suit you every time, but it makes you have a try at techniques you wouldn't choose yourself to do. I find that enriching, in spite of myself!

Pic of my effort next time, not photographed yet, I keep forgetting.

Bit more stitching . .

2009-05-31T17:42:00.003+01:00

Rust seems to be all the rage these days so I thought I'd have a go. DH has been making items of garden furniture out of reclaimed wood and had a lot of rusty nails lying around. I wrappedsome up in a piece of calico and left it in a wet heap in the garden. Then promptly forgot about it. Eventually I had a look at it and this is the result.

These two pieces are indulging my delight in running stitch and fragments of fabric.

2 small needle books and 2 notebooks, using up some of my stash of free machine embroidery samples.

Ditto, 2 postcards . .

. . . and 2 more postcards. Straight stitching this time, on left, appliqué, on right disguising an 'ugly' fabric.

And a notebook cover. Very cheap notebook from Tesco. When I went to get some more, thinking, a good fundraiser here, there hadn't any!

Seen this year at Chelsea . . .

2009-05-28T17:09:00.004+01:00

(RHS Chelsea Flower Show, just finished last week). . . herbs . . . . . . grasses and aquilegia . . .
. . . hardy geraniums . . .

. . . dark version of elder . .

. . . california poppies . . .

. . . butterfly lavender . . .

. . . scupture.

Yes, well, I did see them all there, but on the telly. These pix are all in our garden, I must confess!!! Nice to be at the cutting edge of garden design without even trying!

Front garden veggies

2009-05-28T17:03:00.003+01:00

This idea was promoted at Chelsea this year too . . . . . . . .but we were there first! Spring cabbages . . . that reminds me, we'll have one tonight. Strawberries and lettuce . . .

. . . rocket and strawberries

. . . more strawberries and rocket.

Cornwall holiday part 2

2009-05-28T16:49:00.002+01:00

An image for embroiderers . . . . . . then you add a bit of stitching . . . Tide's out, suddenly the bay doubles in size, there's a bit round the corner we didn't know was there. Rugged north cornish coast

In Padstow there is a lobster hatchery (if anyone saw the BBC Coast programme about the relevant bit of coastline, it was featured) and this is a prize specimen lurking in its tank, very rare colouring.

Off to the beach at Porthcothan, 2 minutes, down the lane, cross the road by the white houses and you are there.Most evenings there was an amazing sunset, right in the bay.Going, going . . .

Cornwall holiday

2009-05-27T14:16:00.005+01:00

. . . . Easter week this year. And at that time our front garden, dug up to grow more edible things, looked like this -----

We had a self catering bungalow at Porthcothan, a small settlement by this lovely bay westwards along the coast from Padstow . . . . . . where cute fishing boats like this were at be seen, that don't look quite real.

On the journey there we stopped off to eat our sandwiches at a National Trust property near Okehampton, Finch Foundry, a 19th century water-powered forge. Read about it here.
Here's some of the tools they made there, about 400 pieces a day, with a local workforce of 25.
Then we went on to Padstow for a quick look before going to the cottage, oh, and a cup of tea, and, well, why not an icecream too.
Next instalment later.

Genesis 1, seven days of creation

2009-05-03T15:35:00.006+01:00

These are seven paintings 6' x 3', on calico, using household acrylics, illustrating the account of creation as given in the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible. They were done when we were looking at the story in the all-age services we have at our church (St. Nicholas, Corfe Mullen, in Dorset), mostly by me, with input from the vicar and several children and adults who come to those services. I didn't really know I could paint like that till I tried! Big and messy, like my stitching! The first one has pieces of paper stuck on, painted over words using oilbars, - "In the beginning . . . The earth was formless and void. . . . God said, 'Let there be light'"
For this one, dry land emerging and plant life developing, I looked up prehistoric plants and found photos of fossils of some very early plants and trees, and some reconstructions drawn from fossil evidence. Interesting!
The constellations Ursa Major, Orion and Cassiopeia have stars/planets made with large holographic discs stuck on. The sun and moon are photos with some additional paint effects.
For this one, birds and fish, I didn't really want to divide the canvas into two, with birds at the top and fish in water below, so hit on the idea of painting just water, with fish suspended over it, and a mobile for the birds to 'fly' around. This was partly with an eye to the practicalities of storage - they are all going to be rolled up when taken down.The creation of humans and animals has an abstract treatment. the hands represent response to the breath of God giving life, response upwards to God and outwards to each other.
And the last one, God resting, has a spiral which symbolises God moving out from a still centre to us, or us moving in towards God. Written on it using a felt tip pen are various words from the Bible about rest, stillness and peace.

They have been used a lot, as backdrops for various activities, and are proving to be very useful and quite inspiring for many people.

Phew! There's sometimes more to what we do than we realise when we are doing it.

Banjara embroidery . .

2009-05-03T15:30:00.001+01:00

. . . at West Country Embroiderers last month. All the horizontal stitches were done beforehand at home, then on the day we enjoyed playing with the interlacing, making pretty patterns. The tutor was Tig Rawling, see I'd rather be in India blog.

New season's journal quilts . . .

2009-05-01T11:47:00.002+01:00

These have uploaded in reverse order - April, March, February and January, but never mind! I've never done a JQ so fast, discovering at 5pm yesterday, with an evening out ahead of me, that the pix and some blurb about them had to be with the challenge organiser that day! Well, I did it, finished off the last one, and emailed everything off, with 10 minutes to spare. The local group, Infinity, that I belong to, makes a JQ every 2 months, picking a theme from ideas we have put in a box. I decided to do 2 per theme, thus having one a month for the Quilters' Guild Contemporary Quilt group challenge. March and April are Monuments, and I had great difficulty thinking of something. It even got me started mind-mapping, which I hadn't done before, so that was a good thing! The idea of gravestones and remembrance struck me, carved monumental lettering, and crosses in war cemeteries in Normandy came to mind. Then poppies of course. So, painted and printed calico, a fibre tip pen, free motion machine stitching, thick thread on the bobbin, came into use.

The first theme of the year was glass, and I have wanted to try windows for a while now. The 'glass' in them is 3 layers of organza (you have to have 3 layers in a quilt!). And I also wanted to try out the chain stitch effect on a finished piece, so a creeper is beginning to push out a few buds (this is for February after all).

Glass 1 is shards of broken glass, organza pieces bonded on with fusible web, and straight lines of machine quilting. Doesn't show up too well in the photo but the real thing catches the light interestingly.

Fabrics for bags

2009-03-12T10:53:00.000Z

And a selection of different ways of creating a piece of fabric for a bag. (Or book cover come to that!) Large fragments or small, regular or random, free machine stitching or simply straight stitch and zigzag. Hand stitching would probably be rather hard work and take a long time so for a workshop machine stitching is better.

Make a fabric, make a bag . .

2009-03-12T10:43:00.000Z

I do a workshop/dayschool making bags and this post is really to show what sort of bags! It involves creating a fabric first, basically with a background fabric, lots of bits of varying kinds, an overlay and plenty of stitching. You decide forst what kind of bag you want to make and create a piece the appropriate size and shape for it.

February West Country Embroiderers .. .

2009-02-19T09:40:00.000Z

. . . . had a fabric postcards workshop taught by me! The first all day one I've done since moving back here toDorset. I enjoyed it very much and they produced some lovely cards, of which here is a selection. We looked at my strips design, doing something with circles, and trapping fragments under net or a sheer fabric, and used hand or machine stitching. The odd brown borders in the pix are from the way Picasa cropped them in making the collage, not part of the postcards!

Wintry seascape . . .

2009-01-19T17:17:00.002Z

The tide racing out of Poole harbour entrance, looking across where the ferry goes. And Brownsea Island across the harbour from Evening Hill. Same day, changeable skies.

Back stitch postcard

2009-01-19T17:13:00.002Z

More experiments with back stitch, plus 2 sorts of whipping, one of which turns it into pekinese stitch.

Last 2008 journal quilts . . .

2009-01-19T16:53:00.003Z

. . . for the Contemporary Quilt group challenge. This is for November, though it has no significant link with the month. It is the last theme too from the Infinity group JQs which we have been making bi-monthly - Buildings. Picking up on something I did for some of the 2007 JQs, I found a UFO and made part of it into this.Now this is December, and thereby hangs a tale, nearly of woe. I have this recipe for the most fantastic, succulent Christmas pudding you have ever tasted. And I couldn't find it! Disaster! Put Christmas on hold! Then I thought of asking a daughter to whom I'd given it 2 years ago. She had it still pinned up in her kitchen! A very narrow escape. So then the idea came to me - put it on the journal quilt, then at least I'd know where it was. So here we are. If you can read it you can try it out, with the compliments of my family. It is done with free machine stitching and felt tip pen, the last, and rather hasty, of my trying out different ways of colouring fabrics on the JQs this year.

Back stitch . . .

2008-12-22T16:32:00.002Z

. . . for the Stitchin fingers stitchalong.

If you follow the link above you will understand what this is all about. I'm very keen on this business of exploring surface stitches, and get on better with doing it in some kind of organised challenge type of thing. This stitchalong is ideal. A list of stitches is provided, there is free choice of stitch to work with and no deadline except the expectation of other participants that there will be regular examples to look at. So here is my first effort. I decided to work through the list picking a stitch from each letter of the alphabet. And have immediately broken my 'rule' by starting with B! Ok, ok.

I couldn't think of many really different things to do with back stitch, but tried varying length and thread, and also featuring the back of the stitch on the right side as it is rather interesting, like an untidy stem stitch. I've also done back stitch along chain stitch, and whipped and threaded lines of stitching, and put beads on. Haven't tried pekinese lacing yet. In the top pic I was seeing what it looked like working a lot of lines of stitching close together to cover the ground. I did one like this with running stitch (in an earlier post) and wanted to compare the effect. Some is a kind of semi-back stitch, taking the backwards stitch and then bringing the needle out at the end of the stitch instead of ahead of it. This has a slightly different look, kind of alternate bumpy and flat. (And saves thread of course. Back stitch does use a lot more thread than shows on the surface).

The second pic has a row of zigzags, still backstitches, but angled. I could pursue this to see how it covers an area.

I also decided to do these samples in postcard format. That gives the option of perhaps making them into some kind of book, or stringing them together in some way.