Tulip time, hooray . . .

. . . . because I do love tulips! And irises and bluebells and quite a few other things! It's a wonderful journey of discovery finding out what is there in our garden as things begin to show themselves now. Our friend who lived here before us had some lovely ideas about planting. Having only been here since June we keep having nice surprises.

These pix will have to keep you going for the next 2 weeks as we are off to Scotland and the Lake District.

Loose ends . . .

Another sort of kantha stitching, each line of stitches shifted slightly to the side of the one above. And what to do with the loose ends, the bits of thread left over. It's getting a bit obsessional I fear, but I keep all these bits, (generally not shorter than 4" though) and do something with them. Here its running stitch lines. Its the sort of doodling I like.

What I've done with it . . .

Granddaughter number 3 painted herself a couple of bits of fabric - paw prints were what she wanted. She added some stripes with an oilbar, and I managed to get her to stitch a few lines with purple thread. Then it was left to me to turn it all into a bag. The shadow appliqué piece done at Beverley Wood's workshop with WCE has been turned into a bag too, for me this time, though it may get given away somewhen.

Close up of the centre - the appliquéd shape and some beads.

Happy Christmas, no, April

Yes, well, no wonder the English are always talking about the weather, there's always something to say! Last Sunday, just before 8am there was a bit of a blizzard.
Doesn't look quite right with the azalea and next door's mimosa tree in bloom.
Ah well, it looks quite pretty, for an hour or two.

Postcards, latest . . .

We did a mini workshop at Crooked Boro' Quilters last month, making fabric postcards. I focussed on 2 kinds, the strippy ones (see earlier posts for pix) and an appliqué one (see below). Both ideas were tried. The idea in this one is to use a print strip and pick up the colours in it for the other pieces - thus yellowy top strip, purples for flowers, green stems, couched thread and stitching. Its a way of linking it all together, promotes a pleasing feel.
I also did this one, another in the 'palm tree' series, as a demo, and some made this design. I finished it off yesterday. Hopefully there will be a nice show n' tell at a future meeting!
When Beverley Wood (see earlier post) came to WCE in Feb. we made a piece of crazy-like patchwork by piecing, cutting up and joining, stitching and embellishing, and eventually I turned my bit into 3 postcards.

Not sure what the excuse for this one was - it's not very inspiring. It was probably random leftovers. Well, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

Reviewing . . .

Linda at Occasional Jottings was reviewing the other day how she is getting on with her alternative to new year resolutions, it makes interesting reading - go and have a look at March 27th.
My own goal of blogging more regularly has not been met. Although starting well in January I have slipped back into leaving it for a week or more then putting lots of posts up at once. Must try harder.
It often is to do with pictures. Because this is a blog where I want the pictures to say as much as the words (probably more, most times!) I find I'm short of pix because I forget to keep up with taking them. Then I don't do much stitching for a bit so have no fresh work to show. Then the flowers and scenery pix outnumber the work pix . . . and so it goes on. Well, perhaps I should get out more, not take it all too seriously, this blog is not a masterpiece for all time after all! (Now there's a goal and a half!)

Last Month at West Country Embroiderers . . .

. . . some interesting free canvaswork embroidery, on single canvas that we painted first with fabric paints. Bit late showing it because Of the technology - I wanted to crop my pix to cut out expanses of unstitched (though nicely painted) canvas and just show the variety of stitches and the lovely colours. I also wanted to try making one of these collages that I admire on other blogs. Hurray, done it! Thank you Picasa!