Machine Knitting and tree background

Quite a few people have asked about the background to the tree in the last post - detail shown here. I made the background separately using a piece of space dyed acrylic velvet I already had and as I wanted to create depth I tried to get a misty look to the far distance, so I used a layer of fine net over the velvet for the top 2/3rds, then added another layer of the same net from about 1/2 way up and yet another layer at the top 1/3rd. Stitched some light coloured small trees at the back and darker coloured larger ones towards the front. The tree was made with the embellisher, cut out and stitched onto the background.

Having been a Machine Knitter and Tutor for a good many years, my interest in textile embroidery and mixed media meant I had no time to use my machines and as I have so much 'stuff' in my loft studio I took DH's advice and decided to get rid of all of them. A friend bought my favourite machine a Brother electronic 950i, as I watched her leaving in the car I felt very sad and knew I'd made a mistake getting rid of that particular machine. I met my friend at the FOQ in Birmingham and asked how she was doing with the machine, she said it was still in the box unused and did I want it back? Of course I did! And I went to collect it today. I haven't yet taken it out of the box either as I had 10 ATC's to finish (almost done) and another ATC and Dotee Doll which I had forgotten about and now almost finished. Only then will I be able to take my machine out of the box.

New blog

I've just started a new blog on behalf of the North Wales Embroiderers' Guild and we have decided to call it CROESEW which is a play on the Welsh word Croeso, meaning Welcome.


This is the poster advertising the Guild Biennial Exhibition to be held in October.


I have also been finishing my Winter Tree for the SerenTex project on trees.


Here is a detail of the tree using the embellisher and free machining.

ATC's and SerenTex meeting

I'm taking part in a 'Technique' ATC swap with 9 other members of the Surface Design group.These two 'cool' cards are from Annette and Michelle.

A good number of the SerenTex members met yesterday, but I'm afraid the photographer had a little holiday! I took my camera with me, but was talking too much to remember to take photos. The opportunities were there as we had a good selection of trees that are almost finished for our project and many have nearly finished their Egyptian work.

I also had an Embroiderers' Guild committee meeting in the evening.

Festival of Quilts Part 2

Did I write in my last post that at this year's FOQ I did more socialising than anything else? Well it's quite true and I spent far less than usual. Above are the only items I bought. Some lovely Collinette yarns from Myfanwy of Winifred Cottage who had some lovely things for sale on her stand. A new stamp from Laura at Trapsuutjies. I like making my own stamps, so when I see one that I like and know I would find difficult to create I buy it. I was tempted to spend much more here. I must share this with you. If it hadn't been for Laura and Annette I would have missed seeing Pat, a very good friend from Hartfordshire. They mistook her for me and told me I had a double and as they pointed to her, we both recognised each other. Conincidence or fate?

I bought some Golden Moulding Paste from Ario : Art and craft supplies because I want to create some of the work shown in Carol and Lynda's book Stitching the Textured Surface. And a video which I could have done without perhaps because I loved Russian 's lovely work. A last minute decision before leaving for home. I missed seeing a few blogging friends that I wanted to meet, but there's always next year. But I did have a nice chat at the Computer Textile Design Group stand which is well worth a visit. I loved meeting Ann and Cathy again so soon after our course together. I also had a chat with Angie Hughes and Marie Roper who were tutors on the course.


There are not as many photos to share as last year as I preferred to keep up with my friends and listen to what they had to say about all the quilts. It's also very difficult to take good photos as there are so many people around. These are by no means my only favourites, but photographed for a reason.
The above quilt was made by Leisbeth Williams from Anglesey in North Wales and this quilt was inspired by field patterns. I have posted about Leisbeth here. She had her own 'City and Guilds' stand at the show as did another North Wales lady Christine Jones, who is a member of the North Wales Embroiderers' Guild. I'm sorry not to have met Christine there and have no photos of her wonderful work to share either.


I really did love this quilt, which I think was made by Helen Godden, Canberra, Australia. It's called Mother Earth. The catalogue description says it's bleach painted on black cotton to reaveal rich terracotta colours. Extensive machine stitching captures every decorative detail.


The following quilts appealed to me because they have circles in them.


This is a detail of the above quilt. Isn't it just perfect? After studying the catalogue, I think ths quilt is made by Liz Harding, member of the Gloucestershire Guild of Craftsmen?, Cirencester and is called Colour in the Dark. I apologise if I'm wrong.
Addition to this post. My sincere apologies to Therese Keppens, Françoise said in a comment on this post...Hi Mags. It was so nice meeting you in Birmingham.
The first quilt with the circles was made by Therese Keppens from Belgium. It's called "Graduated Colours". Thanks for letting me know Francoise.



I loved the circles here and particularly the colours.


I had to take a photo of this lovely quilt by C. June Barnes. I bought her book last year at the FoQ. It just happened to have circles on too.


This is a very tiny piece of the quilt made by Birgit Schueller from Germany according to my catalogue. It depicts a nice cup of hot chocolate or latte macchiato served in a cozy cafe. There are circular holes here and there, I'm not sure if they show in this little sample and these add to the feeling.



This quilt used metalic organza, folded and presses between two pieces of card if I remember correctly.
The work in the exhibiton shows the artistic creativity, skill, dexterity and hard work of hundreds of women from all over the world.

The Festival of Quilts Show 2009

This is where I was yesterday and it was a very enjoyable day shared with like-minded friends.


Here they are discussing some of the exhibits. We are all members of the North Wales Branch of the Embroiderers' Guild, Moya, the Chairman on the left (who drove us all there in her car), then Alison our Treasurer, Ann who is the retiring Chairman of the Wales Region of the Guild, Susanne the Programme Secretary and Jackie who is the Editor and Publisher of the Newsletter. Our Embroiderers' Guild is a very active and flourishing group, to join click here

October is a very important month for the Guild when we have the annual AGM on October 3rd and our Biennial Exhibition 'Extravaganza of Embroidered Textiles' at Rhos Methodist Church Hall, Rhos-on-Sea, Colwyn Bay, LL28 4HF, on Friday and Saturday 30th and 31st of October, 2009. The exhibition will be open from 10.30am to 5pm each day. There is an award for Traditional Embroidery and a 'Wild and Wacky' competition using recycled material. Demonstrations, sale of embroidered items and refreshments are available throughout both days. For more details click North Wales Branch details


This was one lovely surprise I had! Francoise CREATILFUN from Belgium 'found' me. We hadn't arranged a meeting, so it all even more exciting. We have been friends a good while and have exchanged many small pieces of art in swaps.


I knew Marlis TEXTILEARTAND... (Switzerland) another Internet friend was going to be there, so I went to the SAQA stand to find her, but she wasn't there, suddenly I heard someone calling and it was Marlis and Francoise together. I think I will change my blog name to the 'Pink Lady' now as that is how they found me, by my bright pink t-shirt. This is what I love about the Internet, there is no ageism at all. Most of my friends are young people, which will hopefully help to keep me young too.

I will be blogging about the FOQ again shortly as this is becoming too long, but here is a very interesting quilt that appealed to me and it was also a judges choice.

Testing video for serentex blog

This video is the one I was unable to download on the SerenTex blog. Health warning! Please turn the sound down a little :>))

Serentex taster

This is literally a taster :) Try SerenTex later for an update of our 2009 AGM.



That's my friend Mary shouting in the background, but honestly you can't believe everything she says. but I will forgive her anything today as she brought me the lovely framed textile art work she created and gave me. you can see it unframed here Digital Gran - Mary textile practice piece

I took a video of a typical SerenTex group discussion for you, but it just won't upload to the SerenTex blog for some reason. I'm going to have another go shortly.

Now for some serious stuff.


This work was all created at home after the course with Sarah Brownie at the CTDG Weekend. I used Elements 7 for all this work following some of Sarah's instructions from the handouts. The image above was my original and is a photo of wall tiles at my favourite little cafe in Betws y Coed. it's also a great favourite with 'bikers' every weekend.


This one and all the images following use layers in Element 7 and some of them use the Adjustment Layer and Pattern. It's been such fun creating them. I like E7 very much, but doubt if I could manage without PSP for some things especially the Displacement Maps facility which I love.

CTDG design work

During the course we were shown how to use Photoshop Elements which a few of us did not have, so we used PSP which made it a bit more difficult. Since coming home I have downloaded a trial copy of Elements 7 and I love it.

Please click to enlarge the images.


Here is the image I started off with. I had no idea what to expect as we had been told to bring images on either Rural/Urban or/and Arches. as usual I had far more images than I needed, but as Sarah started her tutorial I knew exactly which image I would use and didn't look at any others. I thought this image of Conwy bridges and castle with the river flowing below and the reflections had all the elements needed for a good design. Sarah showed us how to develop the design elements, emphasising the Tones, Shapes, Texture, Colour and Line. We had to describe the image to discover it's attributes and pin point a possible message.


I had never worked in this way before so I found it rather difficult to begin with. I don't really think I got it right, but with a little practice I will get there. I foolishly panicked and saved my image as a jpg. this happened because the original image was a jpg and my program always saves the same. This caused me to flatten the image and lose all the layers which I needed. So I had to start from scratch on my image, but again I panicked and used a blog sized image which was not big enough to print out. Looks good on the computer though.


I like both images above. They have a sort of calm aged feel about them. The message I think is that the river had been there a long time, with the castle built in 1100 or so. Then we have the three bridges, the tubular, the suspension and the modern. The reflections of all these things blend in the reflections of the river which has flowed continuously by all these years.


I like the strong colours in this one, but they don't convey the timeless quality I was looking for.


Is it just me or did this accidentally turn out a bit like Monet's Bridge at Giverny below? I thought it had some similarities until I looked at Monet's painting again and compared them.




If you look carefully you will see the tiles in the Monet-like one. I learnt how to make a pattern in PSP.


All in all a highly successful course as far as I was concerned and I think all the others felt the same.

Computer Textile Design Group

Here are a few more photos of what we were doing on the course at Chester. Above Angie is sharing a technique with Jean. I know Jean will see this as she visits my blog and even recognised me from my profile photo. Hi Jean!



I was too busy to take many photos, but above you will see some lovely samples of Angie's work.


Marie is helping Jane with printing some fabrics.



Here are some samples of Marie's work, but I'm afraid these photos do not show her lovely work at their best.


This is Judith printing a piece of fabric for Ann. Judith is the CTDG Chairman and without her there would be no magazine and no courses. Thanks for all you do Judith.
I will show you some of the work I did on the course in another post.
There will be more photos on my DG's Photos and Digital Art, but these will photos of people who were on the course.

Computer Textile Design Group

I have just arrived back from a Computer Textile Design Group Summer School which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was well organized with great tutors. Day one we were split into 2 groups, one group with Marie Roper, the other with Sarah Browniewhere we all designed images on the computers. The second day we shared two tutors, Marie and Angie Hughes, whose book came out recently. We had 4 printers and had the opportunity to print out on fabric all the images we needed for our projects.


Angie with her printer. Angie's textile notes


Marie teaching one to one.


I was fortunate to have Sarah doing designing on the first day. I'm afraid I'm a bit set in my ways and found it difficult to do things in a different way, but I have loads of fantastic handouts and will work on them here at home. Now, for the first time ever I have some idea of how to try to understand other people's art work and what to look for in particular and I knew after the first couple of hours that it had been worth coming on the course if I didn't learn another single thing. Of course, I learned much more during the two days, but as I'm rather tired tonight I will tell you a little more tomorrow.

The Eisteddfod and a couple of circles!

I have just had a wonderful day at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. There is such a great atmosphere here, this is the place for a bit of culture across the board. Something for every age and for the whole family. There are babies in pushchairs, young people and older ones, all enjoying themselves. Welsh speakers from every corner of Wales with slightly different accents and dialects and English speakers are just as welcome. There is also a competition for the Welsh learner of the year.
But guess my first stop? Well, the Arts and Craft pavilion of course, where else? I was so very lucky to have the company of a very knowledgeable young lady for over an hour. She had just got her Fine Arts degree at Bangor University and she was one of the stewards with personal notes from all the artists. So I had first hand details of the work. How lucky can you get? The problem is how many photos to show you. I think I shall have to spread it out a bit.
Please click to see the larger images.



This first piece is inspired by the aprons with deep pockets the women in this area wore as they walked around knitting with the ball of wool in the pocket.


Here is a detail of the work.


I have added a few circles here. I loved this exhibit by Maia Conran. These are old plates that have had digital transfers of the interiors of bedrooms printed over the original design. Maia used to take these photos at places she visited and sent one to the owner, if I have understood this correctly. but they really appealed to me. Perhaps because most of them are circular?


This plate was my favourite.

More art from the Eisteddfod later.