Lotus arch and another treat

Here is the Egyptian Arch Alis Clair sent me. It is worked on rusted cotton and has a silk Lotus Flower and is extremely beautiful. Thanks Alis.


At the weekend I was going to Plas Tan y Bwlch on a course with this clever and enthusiastic Textile Artist-Bobby Britnell. Unfortunately I felt rather poorly about 3/4 of an hour into the class, completely hooked and raring to go, but I had to leave. Bad timing, I had a little bug which at any other time I could have coped with. I was so annoyed with myself. But these things happen and it could have been worse. Bobby sent me all her class Handouts which are very clear so I can have a play here at home and hopefully go and visit her at Moor Hall in rural South Shropshire before long. She also gave me a dozen of those lovely postcards of her work that you see on her website.
The photo above is of the view from my room at Plas in the pouring rain before I fell poorly. Can you see that meandering river and the flooded fields? Below you can see the rain pouring down!


Now for the other treat I have for you. These were sent me by my friend Mary Spence who was on a class with another spectacular tutor, whose course I must join next time she comes. She is Louise Gardiner, she does Embroidered Art and Illustration with Public and private commissions. I have been a great admirer of her work for a few years now.
I don't have Mary's permission to show you these, but I know she'll forgive me. Won't you Mary? This is some of the work done by the class over the weekend. You will know two of them, but I don't know who the others are by I'm afraid.


This one is by Joan Park, my friend from SerenTex who has written an article for the next issue of Fibre & Stitch - An Online Mixed Media Zine It's fantastic Joan! She's wonderful and just look at those dogs.


This one is by Mary Spence who is also writing for Fibre & Stitch Zine in the next issue. This one is so funny that I even recognise some of them, I really do. I have such talented friends.




Sorry I can't name you, you are all worth a mention. Fantastic work and I hope you will forgive me for posting them here. It's so obvious you had a wonderful weekend. Sorry I missed it all, but there will be another time.
There was one other tutor Claire Muir, I spoke to her a couple of times in my few hours there and I can imagine her class also had a great time, but I didn't see any of her work unfortunately as it does look spectacular on her website.

Glue gun

I must thank all those who have been kind enough to add a comment recently on the blog once again. Things should be back to normal shortly. Hospital visits every night are over and my sister in law will be home tomorrow.


Carol T challenged us to use our Glue gun to decorate fabric this month on Textile Challenges and here is my effort. I'm quite pleased with it and I think it has possibilities if I work on it a bit. The curvy lines were made with the gun onto baking parchment and left to cool down, I then chose some fabric that I had printed and covered it with some Misty Fuse. The cold glue was peeled from the paper and placed on the fabric with the MF and covered with another sheet of baking parchment, then quickly turned upside down without disturbing the glue shapes. Cover with more baking parchment and iron very gently with a medium hot iron trying not to squash the glue shapes. The bottom shapes were my first ones and I pressed too hard, but these also have quite a nice look to them. They have stuck to the fabric really well and I finished them off by rubbing on some silver coloured Treasure Gold.


This is a rather quickly made card I made with some screen printed fabric I didn't like, it's not one of my best postcards, but I'm going to send it to my friend Liz of Dreaming Spirals anyway as a small thank you for selling me one of her Gocco printing machines which she is selling on Ebay. I have wanted one of these for a very long time. I love Dijanne Cevaal's work here Musings of a textile itinerant and she once mentioned she uses a Gocco machine for some of her work.

TIF March Challenge Finished

I'd like to thank people who have visited my blog and especially those who have been commenting recently. I haven't had much time to send personal replies but I do love having all your comments. I promise to show you soon how I make my stamps as I really do need some new ones anyway.
Margaret S of LITTLE WORKS OF ART also made my day by an award to Digital Gran 'as a blog that brings her inspiration and makes her appreciate the blogosphere’. Thanks for the lovely award Margaret. How lucky can you get! I have just had the same award again from my good young friend Carol T of Taylor's textile trials, the only other Welsh speaking Blogger I know. Diolch iti Carol.


This is how my March Take it Further challenge set by Sharon B of In a Minute Ago finally turned out and I'm quite pleased with it. It will probably end up as another bag, but I am open to suggestions.


Some of you who have been following its progress might remember it started off inspired by the above image created in PSP9.

March TIF

I have just spent an hour relaxing in my workroom after my hospital visit tonight.


I decided to paint the corners on my TIF challenge piece. The original intention was to make a stamp, but as I don't have a lot of time just now it was easier to paint the black squares, then I'll free motion embroider them. The top one is the small bottom right hand corner and the one below will go to the top left. I think this would make a good box lid perhaps or maybe another bag? (grin)


I was searching for a suitable stamp so I thought I'd take a photo of some of my home made ones to show you. I don't always wash my stamps when they are made out of string and glued on with PVA as it comes off. The Acrylic paint dries and seals it. Can you see the yellow cat? That is quite old by now as I made it for my granddaughter to stamp with and she'll be 18 this year. How time flies.

Progress on March Tif

As I mentioned in yesterday's post I decided my Take it Further March Challenge is going to be very simple and straightforward, but I am really enjoying it. This is how far I have gone with it.

March TIF

Today has been extremely busy and it's been just like a laundry here, but the worst is over I think and now I just need to finish drying and then ironing the whole contents of an airing cupboard! All this came about due to a burst water cylinder in my sister in law's airing cupboard, she herself has been in hospital for the last fortnight having a hip replacement.


I went up to my workroom for half an hour to see if my idea for this month's TIF challenge was going to work, now this is as far as I have gone, the ribbons have all been placed on black fabric temporarily, I will probably move a few of them before I'm happy. Now where does it go from here I wonder?

New books and TIF

I might have mentioned the two bargain books I bought in Chester on Tuesday, they are both about Egypt. This one above is called Discovering Tutankhamun.


This one is about Ancient Egypt and I bought it at the Past Times shop, a shop worth a visit.


I have started collecting my things together to make my Take it Further challenge for March. This is going to be very simple this time as my time is rather short just now. I've just noticed the blue spool of thread in the photo, I must have picked it up by mistake.

Pale green

After reading Helen's Journal here tonight I had to post twice the same day. I never do this normally.

When I was a child I used to go and stay with my Nain regularly and her kitchen walls used to fascinate me. I hated that colour so much, but I loved where it had chipped here and there by someone carrying something carelessly through, there was a lovely terracotta colour underneath. My mother had the job of re-colouring the kitchen every spring for Nain. But as soon as it was done another chip appeared! I wonder if I had something to do with this?

I have never met anyone with a green face, but that is what happened here and I love it! If you would like to see more about this quilted page have a look here Digital Gran: Fragile Fragments page 1


I created the first design in PSP9.

An arch for Kate

There's a lot of work waiting to be completed, but my sister in law has had a hip replacement and we are doing quite a lot of hospital visits just now.


This arch is for Kate North, who wanted some vintage people or anything along those lines, using brown, metallics, black and autumnal colours or pink. I do hope she won't be too disappointed in the colours scheme. These photos are from a small collection of my family photos. These are really 2 photos that I manipulated so that it would show my mother and her aunt together. Aunty Elin was a spinster who was very kind to her sister and family when they lost a husband and father the last few weeks of the first World War. in this instance I have shown her taking my mother to the fair and buying her a china shoe with pictures of 3 Welsh Ladies on it and an unusual feature, the lace itself is real. I still have the shoe and took a photo of it for the arch. I have used these before as I love the story behind it.

If you are interested you will find more about the shoe, here. This is what I did with the photos last time. This quilted page is now in Australia.


Out of interest, below is a photo of five of the sisters who were always very close and lived well into their nineties. My Nain is bottom left wearing black as she always did, sometimes she wore grey with mauve accessories and next to her is Aunty Elin sitting down.

More wonderful textiles

Thanks to everyone who showed their appreciation of Mary's work. I will try and persuade her to let me take proper photos of some of her work. These were taken at a talk she gave the Embroiderers' Guild.
I have another feast for you tonight, this time Joan (Park)'s work. Joan is also a member of SerenTex who is also featured in the next issue of Fibre & Stitch.

Please enlarge these photos to see the work at it's best.


I have chosen a few examples of Joan's work to show you what a variety of techniques she uses. I might let you see some more before long!


This is a wonderful 3D piece that looks like large shells.


This mask is so delicate and beautiful.


This is an example of Joan's dolls and I love him, he looks such a character. Just look at those feet and hands. This is just what I awlays imagined what one of the little people would look like.

Wonderful textiles

As I have nothing new of my own to show you tonight I thought I would give you a little taster of the work of a friend of mine. She is Mary (Spence) a member of the SerenTex textile group that I belong to. Mary has done a lot of travel in recent years and one of her favourite destinations is India and this work is the result of some of those visits. Mary is writing an article for Issue 4 of Fibre & Stitch and that is something for us all to look forward to


This is a wonderful felted and embellished piece of work based on Elephants.


I'm sorry I can only let you see part of all these wonderful works of art as they were laid one on top of the other on the worktop. But it's enough to whet your appetites for more I'm sure. I will have to persuade Mary to let me take photos of each one separately for you another time.


Here is another beauty!


And here is Mary herself explaining how she developed this piece art.

SerenTex meeting

I forgot to mention I had put up two new posts on the SerenTex website.


This is a batik that Rosemary is stitching into.


And this one is Gaynor's work in progress inspired by Ton Schulten

Cariad Mam (Mother Love)

I know a few of you were interested in seeing how my thread painting turned out. I quite like it and I have called it Cariad Mam, that means Mother Love in Welsh. I nearly used the other side (the wrong side)as it looked a lot more delicate because I used white felt for the back.


I found this on Fan My Flame Gina's blog and thought I'd find out what my name means. I don't normally do these, but I was surprised how close some of this was to the truth. The first part has never been true, I have always lacked confidence, but I will always have a go at anything with my hands with complete self assurance. I have never, ever thought, I can't do that and I must admit that anything of a practical nature seems to come very easily to me. I do make my life what I want it to be, but I don't think I would ever knock down anyone who gets in my way as I'm really quite timid.

I have always been very happy with my own company, I'm not at all grumpy, but find myself getting more and more unsociable if I have a project on the go as I get older. There are so many things I want to try out and time is not really on my side. I wish I had been born about 20 years later than I was so I could grow with all this new technology that fascinates me so much.

What Margaret Means

You are confident, self assured, and capable. You are not easily intimidated. You master any and all skills easily. You don't have to work hard for what you want. You make your life out to be exactly how you want it. And you'll knock down anyone who gets in your way! You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something. You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense. You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun. You are deeply philosophical and thoughtful. You tend to analyze every aspect of your life. You are intuitive, brilliant, and quite introverted. You value your time alone. Often times, you are grumpy with other people. You don't appreciate them trying to interfere in your affairs. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life. You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home. You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Recycled bowl

This bowl was bought at a Trade Fair shop in Chester, I just had to have it, because it's such a pleasing smooth shape. I was told it's made form recycled aluminium by two brothers in India.


It then became this by using Kaleidoscope in PSP9.


A little bit more play and a bit of cut and paste and it became this. I think this one has possibilities as textile art.

Focus

Here is the piece I am working on for an Anonymous Card Art Fundraising Appeal-Cerdlun for a well know art gallery in North Wales called Glyn y Weddw. Read about it here. I'm trying to create a scene which was very familiar to me as a child and no other view in the world compares to it. It is Snowdon, the hightest mountain in Wales from Nantlle lake.


I also played with threads on the embellisher tonight and I think I see something trying to come out here. I will add a few more threads to it tomorrow and see what develops.
At the beginning of January I chose a word which was to help my work through 2008, it was the word 'Focus' and it did help me to get lots done, but gradually I have drifted into my old ways and my little grass-hopper mind is starting to play tricks again. In the last couple of weeks I have started quite a few projects, but none of them are finished. I feel the need to get on with it when the inspiration strikes before I forget, of course this is no good if I never finish them. So I will say the word 'Focus' to myself now and then and see if that will get me back on track.

March TIFF ideas

This is a sure sign that I'm a bit tired after a day's shopping in Chester. My way of relaxing is spending time playing with a paint program. Tonight it was PSP9 and the Take it Further challenge March « In a Minute Ago colours. I think I will use my paint program as my little thing and concentrate on creating a design using the colours. I'm sure I will find inspiration eventually.

Progress

I'm posting what I have been 'playing' with today. I know Zandra Rhodes would never, ever have started anything with a black background, or would she? Well that's what I did today. You can see the piece that I screen printed and over printed with home made stamps and acrylic paints. I only started this as the muse seemed to have gone on holiday and I needed a kick-start. Just goes to show - I really enjoyed it. This is about 10" square. I was going to turn it into postcards, but I think I will make another piece and make a bag with it.




This led me on to using my Embellisher. I need to make a small work of art for an auction and I thought I'd try and work something from memory. It's Snowdon from Nantlle lake, the most beautiful view in the world! I was brought up here. Unfortunately one side of the valley is scarred with slate quarries. Richard Wilson made this view famous when he painted it in the 19th century(I think). The painting now hangs in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

Joanna Waller

Here is the lovely birthday card Sue Gallagher (SerenTex)sent me for my birthday. It was made by Joanna Waller, Joanna is a well known textile artist who makes wonderful Installations for large buildings. She also makes smaller works of art and they are all very beautiful. Have a look at her website Joanna Waller - Textile Artist
And the best thing of all, Joanna is going to write us an article for Fibre & Stitch.