Two more current projects . . .

Part of a 27" long strip 3" wide being made for a group entry for a Quilters Guild challenge. Infinity, the local Comtemporary Quilt group I belong to, gave itself 3 ideas as inspiration - India, folded fabric and equilateral triangle. One of the granddaughters did some nice handprints for me, 7 year old Hannah. She enjoyed getting paint all over herself and chose her own colours after I'd got her to do the white ones. It will be one of my entries for the Inconvenient Truths exhibition (see previous post when I couldn't remember the actual title of it), and also one of the CQ journal quilts for this year.

Battlestar . . . .

. . . . Galactica. Stupid, I didn't ever watch many episodes, was more into Babylon 5, butwhen playing with this lovely glitter stuff (see previouspost) at West Country Embroiderers I couldn't help putting the 2 words together! These were my pieces, not snapped till today, and apart from the round stencilled shapes I didn't get on so well with stencils. Painting off a cut or torn edge of paper suited me better - less precise. The flower shapes were printed with interference acrylic and a blob of glitter put on with a plastic knife.
Using a bit of velvet as a paint rag gave quite a nice glittery result too.

Where's the stitching then?

West Country Embroiderers this month had a workshop with Becca Belazs using Stewart Gill Galactica paints - well glitter really in a glue base that dries clear - and stencils on velvet.

We all had a lot of fun trying out different coloured glitter. It is made to a special formula and is quite amazing stuff. Costs a lot though, I couldn't afford to buy any, and however would you choose, from a dozen at least different hues, if you only bought one?

These 2 quilts ( 2' square and 2'x about 4') are what has been keeping me busy lately. I've made them for an exhibition being held at our church in March on the theme of third world problems, trade justice, helping etc. I haven't made 'message' quilts before, but got interested in the idea of hands, and all the prepositions that can be added to the word - hand over, hand out, hand back, hand round, a hand up, a hand with etc etc. So one uses an African fabric and stitched eyelets as found on Nigerian traditional robes, and the other recycles bits of indian fabric using a kantha-type running stitch.

The amaryllis are back!

Spectacular flowers. These are the first to flower of 9 bulbs lined up on the windowsill. Apple blossom, these are called. (I must say I don't remember buying more than one of these, and a third is opening! I don't understand it.)

About time . . .

. . . this blog became active again. Neglecting it so long is very bad, especially as I did say at New year that I wanted to blog more regularly this year. Ah well, here we go again with another walk on Upton heath.

I love the textury quality of this heathland, spiny green gorse, faded brown heather and broken rusty bracken, and the misty quality of the leafless birches in the background. Silver birches and rusty bracken.

It is a site of special scientific interest where sand lizards may be found. Next time we go to where this metal plate is I must do a rubbing!!!!!

Rhubarb update

Compare this with pix on Jan 18th - I promise regular progress reports and a pic of the first rhubarb crumble!

You really want to know this, don't you.

The flowers on this bush have turned out much less exciting than I expected. With that lovely deep pink on the buds at least a lovely deep pink flower could have followed?

Spring is coming too early, the pundits say, and insects and other small wild creatures are in danger from cold snaps yet to come. An amazing sight here is the mimosa tree in next door's garden, right by our fence. I've never seen one before, and have always associated mimosa with the mediterranean, and Australia. What is it doing flowering here in chilly England, in January?

On the heath . . .

. . . just up the road. Upton heath is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Poole harbour can just be seen in the distance to the right.

There's a small part looks like this, heath fires are common round this area, and there are houses just the other side of the path I took this from. On the other side of the heathland is a landfill site! A bit smelly when we were there yesterday! But it has recently been covered over and smoothed down as if it is to be landscaped or something.

Maybe after they have drilled for oil????? Don't know what this is, sitting on the top of the mound! There is a small oilfield under the harbour, being drilled inconspicuously in a couple of places, so that is not so far-fetched!

But you can forget about the landfill, oilwells and houses when walking along a path like this, flanked by birches,
the emerging brilliant yellow of gorse,and the rust of crushed bracken.