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.