And now for something woody . . . .

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 . . . .

. . . . 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 . . .

 .. . . . .  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 . . .

. . . 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 . . . .

. . . 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

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 . . .

. . .  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

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.