Remerbering Durdle Door

testing testing

IT training . . . .

. . . with clever daughter, trying to remember what she told me yesterday, and succeeding a little!

 

 I have these pics saved in 'pictures' folder, but have nothing saying whose work they are.  I'm not going to pretend they are my work because they are not!  Unfortunately.

They need to be used as inspiration for some fresh work by me, I think that must be why I saved the pics.

Happy Christmas!

IT support from darling daughter number 2!  😁😎😎😎😎

Trying again . . .

. . . . to put something on this blog, but finding it a bit of a mystery.  How do I get pictures on in the way I want them?  I used to be able to do this with very little trouble, but something seems to have changed - my memory perhaps? : )
. . . . . . . . .
Have been trying to put pics on, but they just won't come.  I'll have to look for some help.  It is very frustrating!!!!!!!!!

Latest contributions, pictures with potential?

A frosty morning in February, expressed clearly on the car windows - how do we clean the car up in time to get somewhere?
Now how to express this - drawing? painting? stitching. Hmm, we'll see, I hope.

Holiday . . . .

    . . . . on Brownsea Island, in Poole harbour, this last August, Grand Family Gathering for a week in 2 National Trust cottages on the quayside.  Fabulous! Warm sunny weather all week, lots of interesting things to see and places to walk.  And natural items to play with artistically!

 





Lovely colours . . . .







Great accommodation . . . . .

I'm trying . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . . to get going regularly with this blog again, but it is so difficult!  It is driving me mad again, the pics won't go in the order I put them in, and there are some odd blue fullstops a at the beginning of the line above, underlined.  What made that happen?  I've not been such a nutter at writing this blog in the
past, so why is it behaving so oddly now?  Why has it put this last bit of sentence down after all the photos?
This is my second attempt, the first was lost and not published.  I'll be interested to see what does come up on the actual blog.
It won't let me write by each pic, so a summary - the dodecahedrons were made at Christmas, to sell at a stall, but only one went.  People don't realise what they are missing, interesting geometry , patterns and colours!
Then there is a sunrise, fascinating streaks of colour and the contrast of dark trees.
Then, some books I've made recently, simple down and up stitching, but variations in the stitching, making patterns on the spines.  The covers are made from cereal packets, with painted/printed paper stuck over to cover the pictures of bowls of branflakes.
That's it for this time.  I shall try again soon, take some more photos of my work and nature around us here where we live.

Visit to Dundee

. . .  but first a shot of a lovely Christmas cactus that is still flowering when I started writing this post.  I get fascinated by the shapes, of the flowers and the trails of connected leaf sections.  Need to do some drawing.

This is the River Tay and the bridge trains come over into the city.  The station is on the near side just a bit to the left of the photo

[I've not done a post for ages, and have forgotten the method, and am finding it very difficult!  How do you get pics where you  want them, and how do you start writing where you want?  I try what seems obvious, but it doesn't work!]

There is a high point in the city, the Law, which you can drive or walk up to enjoy a marvellous view over the city and along the Tay in both directions.

Time for some stitching - some of the latest work of our church stitching group, Threads of Faith, an altar frontal for the 'green' part of the  Church of England calendar.  We went out into the church grounds, collected leaves, then used them as patterns, cut from fabric and stitched them on painted strips.  I did have these 2 pics in the other order but for some reason the blog changed them round and won't let me change them back!  Frustrating.  There must be a simple answer.

It is such a long time . . . .

. . . . . since I put something on this blog .....  time I woke up again!
So here are some pics I find striking, in pattern, composition, line, texture, colour.

Sunrise, looking out of a front window of our house.


Family on the roof, helping sweep the chimney (!) and enjoying the view.



Textures of tree trunks in Kingston Lacy grounds (local National Trust estate) :









Plants in the orangerie in another such place (I've forgotten which!!!), intriguing shapes and line:







And ok, some stitching - a concertina book, each page a square padded piece, fixed together by stitching painted sticks on to the edges.



These two are the backs of the stitching, and they have come out as interesting as the fronts.



More to come.  And I need to start taking more photos again.

Notan . . . .

. . . .  that I didn't manage to do at the latest Dorset Contemporary Quilt group that met 2 days ago, because I couldn't attend.  But having read a report on the work on it at the meeting, and looked up some Youtube videos, I had a go, the first I've ever tried! It is certainly an interesting technique, and one I'd like to work on some more, probably only with paper, though there must be some way of doing it with fabric.  Or maybe just draw it and colour it in????

 

This one needed 2 sheets of paper but I stuck them together a bit crooked.  Oh dear!

Latest Infinity project . . .

. . .  an 18" square made of torn strips painted and printed on, plus couching in a zing colour.  The strips are all different fabrics, stitched together then painted with fabric paints.  I've not done any printing yet but will do.  I forgot it, so will see what I can fit in around the couching.

The colours are a bit stronger in reality than they look in the photos.

 

 

Books that the Dorset CQ group . . .

. . . may be making at the next meeting:

 

 

First 2 pics, a warm-up exercise and a chance to try out the basic things done when making a book.  Easy sizes clockwise from top left : A4 card - half A4 card - one quarter A4 (postcard here) and one third A4, and up to, say, 12 folded pieces of paper.

 

Moving on, using the basic technique, books with more than one 'signature' (folded bunches of pp.), - Another possibility:  use an old journal quilt (or other fabric piece) for the cover.

 

Basic cover - A4 card, (here printed on)

 

or measured and cut out of a side of a cereal box, cut to size and covered with painted paper.

4 - 5 signatures

each of which gets stitched in one at a time, and various straightforward patterns are possible. 

 

Some others are quite complicated and involve having more than one signature being stitched in at the same time.

If the book is to be fitted into a removeable fabric book cover, then the cereal packet doesn't need any paper or paint, and the stitching can be simple as it is invisible inside the cover.

So, hopefully this will help a bit in deciding whether to try making a book, and what sort of book to go for.