Slow Weekend !

Well the first news is there will be no photos today ... The camera ran out of battery but I only noticed on Sunday afternoon. So its now charging. Not that there is much to photograph !

Next week is the Pre-Assessments at OPUS, so I spent some of my weekend gathering sketch books and samples to take over there. Eeek ....... The sketch books fill a suitcase. I am glad I did not go for posting this lot !! The resolved samples caused me a small problem. The Corset light sculpture is very tall ..... in fact I spent most of Saturday doing my Blue Peter badge by making a travel box from a number of smaller boxes and a real of duck tape !!! The advanage is the other smaller resolved samples also fit into the same box ! Although my tutor sent an information sheet to go over, this did not allow me to reduce the pile as if kind of showed just how much still needs to be done !!!!

Saturday was quite pleasant (as long as you were not outside) ... I was in the Community Centre on a beading day course. Good fun trying something a little different. The tutor is great lady who has joined us before for courses... In the morning a photographer from the local paper arrived to take a few shots of us working plus we had all the squares created by the members for the Embroiderers Guild rainbow project. Thus I ended up with the tutor and another lady holding the squares up for the photo !

Sunday - Finally got back to doing some C&G work. As everything else was packed - started to look back at the Arts and Craft essay. Dug out the pile of books from the library and started to make more notes to use later for writing the text, plus studied the photos and started makeing sketches of different items.

Design Weekend

During last week an idea for the seasonal hanging started to form. Grabbed a sketch book and started making notes and pen sketches on the train to and from work.

So here is the idea. Each panel has an element on it which represents the season in a stylised form. Although not sure that the snow flakes are simple enough. I may just turn them into squares.

On Saturday I created a few colour versions using torn paper. This time tried out holly for the Winter panel. The thinking was to have a cyle of colour too, so one colour off each panel was then used on the next. Just not happy with the holly. So after a weekend of playing with the images I have returned to the snowflakes. After playing with different shapes for each panel, I keep coming back to four even sized long rectangles. Must be the influence of all the Arts and Craft work in the rest of module 5.

While playing with the images I also created a version on assatate as the sketches gave the feel of stain glass windows. Using this as a concept tryed creating a few samples using layers of sheers. To make this simple there is just some bond-a-web holding the layers together. The pictures below show the samples against the window in my studio along with my cat Pippi, who was more interested in the intruder in the garden than my samples, thankfully. Saturday the weather was quite good which meant I was able to capture the cloud images too =)
I also create a few samples on calico too. These turned out more towards what I was hoping for. The colours are stronger and you can still hng them at a window for the stain galss effect. Photos to come next week.

Spent Sunday morning creating two fabric postcards - sorry no photos for now as these are for a C&G class exchange. In between times carried on making stitch Yule gifts for the familly.

Butterflies in November

While outside taking pictures for my patterns in nature module work, saw this little guy on the roses. Feels really strange to see a butterfly at this time of the year.

Spent much of Saturday working on the nature as design part of module 5. First completing the drawings of the leaves. Here are a few more of them.

Next had to create collage with eyes, both human(shown) and animal. Not 100% sure if this is what they expected. There was not much guidance on this bit ! I used up by pile of old mags to cut out eyes !
Then started to layout and stitck down the different photo collections I have been making. This one show plants which a '5' of something. Like a grouping of five leaves, five petals etc etc ... I also started the collection showing patterns in nature. I have a few photos and my friend L has sent me a couple of autumn photos she has taken while walking her dog =)


So now I am trying to work on the Resolved Sample for this section. In fact they are only asking you to design the work. But we'll see about that. So what am I looking at ??

Need to make 4 panels all a minimum of A4 size which represent the four seasons in an abstact form.

I am now starting on a brain storm sheet to get ideas & making a list of the colours which represent the seasons. The obverous way to go is to create four sets of the colours squares i did a couple of weeks ago for the colour sampling task. Not sure about doing that. Been toying with doing that but using a different method on each panel, so the Spring one if squares and the autumn one looks like tree rings, summer one has sun rays and winter has snow flakes. as you can see needs some work doing on it.

UFO Round Robin - Happy Dance !

Well yesterday finished off the next UFO (That is an Unfinished Object ) RR. This month I had M's Teresa Wentler Flower bell pull.

This is a picture of how the piece looked as it arrived from S.

Now below is where I have left it. The next image on the bell pull were sweetpeas which I love. Although I was only aiming at completing 20hrs it was going so well I carried on so that I could finish the image.

Meanwhile over in the states my Permin Sheep Sampler had a small hic-up when the current lady stitching it found herself running out of thread. EEeek ! I had sent along a kit so we would not have this kind of problem. Luckly the kit listed the DMC numbers and G has bought two skiens to add to the pack =)

I have 98% finished stitching the latest Halloween Orniment RR piece. Sorry - no photos as the group agreed not to show until the end. Just need to do a inch on the border and add the charm. Mass photo shot at the end of the RR !

THEN I am back Yuletide Ornies !! I have a few made but need a few more. Been thinking about designing one for my friend DG, but have to work out if will have time to stitch it!!?!?!

Frogging on the Wall Hanging

Put more work into sampling for the Arts and Craft wall hanging. This time looked at the frogs. Again been using the piece and machine quilt method.

The machine embroidery extended the toes and metalic thread create the highlights on the frogs back and legs.

At the moment I am not sure about the background. To try and match the original designs I tried painting the calcio with a brown wash.

As I am still trying to source the more green fabric to create the full hanging.


Started to work on the next part of module 5 working in a new Sketch Book. This part of the module is all about design and colour in nature.

This meant taking images of flowers (thank goodness for gardening magazines) and creating a colour breakdown. I used threads rather than paint as I could sit with the DMC collection matching colours.

Next the module ask for natural designs to be created. These coloured squares were created by using pictures of tree branches, then marking a sheet of paper where the branches come off the branch. These branch measurements were used to mark off the grid. The colours from the flower break down above were used to fill in the squares. The exercise was repeated by measuring a human arm, then the measurements used to draw concentric circles. I need to collect a few photos of tree rings to compare the drawing with.


After completing three of the natural designs moved onto movement. First you are ask to create a smoke image. The paper is held about 2 cm above a candle so that the smoke marked the paper. The smoke images have a plastic sheet over them when added to the sketch book. Then I created drawings of the smoke pictures (not shown).

While looking a movement, from smoke moved to hair. Made sketches of human hair and animals hair.

Next the module moved on to patterns in nature. This next section will need a lot of photos and drawing. To start with you had to find a twig with about 10 leaves. These you had to layout and draw. I took this photo of my leaves as they were already dry. DH and I both like the look of this photo.

Now I am taking each leaf in turn to make a drawing in b/w and colour. Each leaf is the stuck on the same sheet as the drawing with aclear sheet over themfor protection.

Pay It Forward

I saw Coffee Cup Chris post this on her blog. It sounded a little bit of fun, so I signed up with her list and now offering this to my friends too !

The first five people to respond to this post (via the comments section) will get some form of "art" made by me.

An original hand crafted item, made with one of the many mediums I use - stitching, yarn, painting, mixture etch. I

I hope to tailor this to you - so tell me your favourite colour. After you comment, please add your e-mail address so I can contact you for your snail mail address.

Think of it as something to look forward to getting in the mail.

There is a catch, of course, the way this works is that if you sign up, you have to blog this as well and continue sharing.