Shapes I like to use

Carol of A Stitch in Time asked this question today. "Do you have a symbol or design that crops up regularly in your work?"
It made me think about the shapes that crop up fairly regularly in my work and I went to have a look in some of my old sketchbooks.
I do like curvy shapes and like to draw an amoeba like shape which is quick and easy. A flower shape which is also quick and easy and the wavy shapes which I have loved since City and Guilds days.

Plas Tan y Bwlchis full of shapes and symbols in the carvings and stonework and I find myself using these in my work regularly. I think Deb Hardman of Cold Feet Quilter will recognise one of them as it was used to screen print part of an ATC I sent her. The other shape is also from Plas Tan y Bwlch and can be found all over the place. It crops up regularly in my work. Thanks for making me think about this Carol.


I took these photos at Abakhan today.

Reunion

No textile work done again today I'm afraid. Today was the day I have looked forward to since last year, a reunion between 5 school friends. Did you notice I left out the old? We were all transported to our schooldays and behaved like schoolgirls once again, chatting, laughing and giggling and being generally silly. A wonderful day.


I am second from the left, laughing as usual.


The old manor house called 'Y Faenol Fawr' where we had our meal.


This is a closeup of the date above the fireplace.


Here is the wonderful fireplace in the lounge where we had our coffee.


This peacock let us take photos of his wonderful tail, but the other one, the beautiful white peacock climbed up a wall and disappeared behind a chimney on the roof. I think I will just have to go there for another meal so that I can take a photo of that elusive white one.


I couldn't resist the texture of this bark and thought some of you might like it too.

SerenTex

We had a meeting of SerenTex this afternoon and there are new photos over on the SerenTex blog. This beautiful image above is work by Sue Gallgher, I know you love to see her work.


Here is the postcard I received this morning from Deb H. She is the Cold Feet Quilter Deb Hardman from Anchorage, Alaska. What a wonderful card, thanks so much Deb. This card celebrates The Elders of the Earth, we must protect those old trees and make sure they live so we can learn from them. They know more, have heard more and are The Elders of the Earth. This is what Deb's card has to tell us.


Here's one for the castle fans among you.


And the evening sky.

A change of colour

This is a WIP(work in progress)and has been in this state a long time. I think I might use the bits to make something else.


I designed this with the Artista Software and stitched it out with the embroidery module of my Bernina 180 Machine. I find this one quite pleasing and I might use it to make a book cover one day. It's been hidden in a folder for a long time.



I used the same design to stitch this one for a page swap. I needed to make a purple page and I was quite happy with this one as well. The inspiration was a window in an old building in Monaco.

A musical day

I've had a busy day, but a very enjoyable one. This morning I was looking after my beautiful 3 month old grandson and he is at such a delightful age. Then this afternoon I spent a short time with my textiles, printing out some of the music images from yesterday onto fabric. I should have mentioned that I was thinking about The Planets by Gustav Holst.


This evening I had a feast of music at The North Wales Theatre in Llandudno which was renamed recently to Venue Cymru. What was wrong with the original name? Nothing as far as I can see and the new one is neither English nor Welsh. There, I have had that off my chest!
The concert was brilliant and was the annual concert of the Maelgwn male voice choir of which my husband is a member. For me, the main attraction apart from my husband of course, was the world famous harpist Catrin Finch and I was not disappointed. The baritone soloist was Seeung Wook Seong from South Korea and also the well known string quartet called Pavao. These four young women studied together at the Royal Academy of Music before forming their group. All in all a wonderful evening.

Another busy day

Every now and then I spend a very enjoyable evening having a show and tell of our digital art online with Rosemary Muntus of The Crafty Computer - getting creative on the web and friends. We are set a challenge and this week's challenge was 'Inspired by a Tune' I chose The Planets. First I had to create some musical notes and then on to my planets.

All's well that ends well

I had an excellent morning and I covered a lot of ground, but after lunch things started to go downhill. I worked very hard on my experiments, painted sheet after sheet of paper with transfer paint only to find that one colour was obviously contaminated with something or had been in stock too long. It would not transfer the tiniest bit of colour onto any fabric I tried. I had to repaint the lot with fresh paint and now when it's nearly midnight I am thrilled with the results and I can go to bed happy.


As I was looking for something else I came across this photo that I took many years ago in the V&A Museum. I love this old wrought iron gate.

Experiments

I am still having fun experimenting for my Fibre & Stitch articles. This is a postcard I promised to send Helen Cowans the Textile Goddess, who is having an open day on Saturday June 24th between 11am and 4pm. If you live near enough do pop in to see her, I wish I was near enough to visit you Helen.


More experiments. Who knows whether they will end up in the article or not, I still have plenty of time to experiment some more!


I think this bit of news will have swept through Blogland like wild fire. We have a new Blogger and I know she will give us all a great deal of pleasure and inspiration. Welcome Maggie(Grey) whose blog is called magstitch

Another Padfolio

I am so fortunate. this morning I had this absolutely wonderful padfolio from Arlee, who lives in British Columbia. We all chose the colours we wanted for our padfolios and I chose these colours, which have become my favourite colours.
The inside of this padfolio is just as fantastic as the outside. As if it was not enough to send me the padfolio, she also sent me some fabrics in the same colours. Thank you so much Arlee. This is Arlee's blog DesignJournal - Albedo Design



I wonder if these sunsets have influenced my choice of colours? I took this photo on Sunday evening. It had been raining most of the day, but in the evening the sun showed under the clouds and the sunset was glorious. On the other side the castle looked just like a fairy castle or a pink birthday cake. Do you like it Dianne (FaeryDi)?

Ironbridge

These were taken at the Candle Factory at the Victorian Village in Ironbridge on Saturday.




This brings back memories of my grandmother's house.

The Victorian Town

Yesterday I went on a trip organised by the local Probus Club to Ironbridge in Shropshire. You will learn a lot more about it here at the website Ironbridge Gorge Museum than you will from me. Unfortunately it was raining too much for us to go out and photograph the actual bride, but we did visit some museums and also walked in the rain through the Blists Hill Victorian Town, which was really interesting. I will put some photos on my photoblog DG's Photos and Digital Art later.


This was inside the house where the doctor's surgery was held, so it could have been the Doctor's house.



There were a quite a few interesting old signs and posters around. Below is the dressmaker's shop.
I had hoped to see some work by Laura and Linda Kemshall who were there on June 3rd. But unfortunately I did not find any of their work. That would have been the icing on the cake for me.


I did get some nice textures even though it was raining.

Experiments

Here is some of my preparation work using transfer painting.

I'm busy

I'm letting you have a little peek at what I have been doing in the last couple of weeks. All the work inside this book is for my article in Fibre & Stitch.

Computing

SerenTex members in general are not very interested in computing and it always pleases me so much when one of them shows an interest. Today Rhiannon brought her new laptop with her to the meeting. She's only had it for 3 weeks and I was surprised how quickly she has picked it up. Well done Rhiannon. Today she had a little extra tuition on it. Here we are having a really good time.

Did I tell you before I am the 'tea lady' and 'Official Photographer' for SerenTex?
It is my job to take the tea basket home with me and make sure we have milk and biscuits to have with our cuppa at the meetings. This week I took these lovely white chocolate biscuits with me(plus the biscuits that a few of the others brought too). Now Rhiannon is the witty one in the group and she called these the biscuits with the low fat centre.
There are few new pictures on the SerenTex blog.

Block Printing

 

These are some of the block prints I have been playing with for two of my groups. I made these by pressing ordinary everyday items into a heated block.

Textiles

Here is Norma's Eye of the Beholder postcard, can you see the image Norma saw? Yes, it's a palm tree on a desert island with a boat sailing by. It's lovely. Thank you Norma. I'm sorry, I don't know if you have a blog Norma. This was a swap thought up by Joanna of the Surface Design Yahoo group.


This is the page I've made for Lynda as this month's swap for the FAF group. It's black and white with a touch of red. Maybe I have gone a bit overboard with the red and there is slightly more than a touch of it there. I hope Lynda will forgive me.

Embellished flowers

I'm a member of Myfanwy's Embellisher group Needlefelt Challenge and the last challenge for me was Garden Flowers(I think) but on the way home today I was inspired by Ox Eye daisies growing on the roadside. Every year I feel like using them as inspiration for some work but I never do. So today I went up to my workroom and in 1/2 an hour I had made this. It's no masterpiece, but it's another challenge done. I have just remembered what this week's challenge is. It's just 'Brown'. Now what can I do with that one?


I can't remember if I posted this image before? It's my piece of work for the combined effort of SerenTex Snowdonia. When we have all finished, it will all be hung together as one piece.