New Interface

This is just a test with one of my favourite photos of Chester Cathedral. 

It seems as if I've been hibernating, but I'm just very slowly waking up. Then I heard some were having problems with their blogs since using the new interface(which I hadn't even known about) so I thought I'd better check if I could use my blogs. Digital Gran is the first i checked and it seems OK so far.

Tenerife

As you will see I wrote ths while on holiday(February 27th), but never managed to connect to the internet, so I thought it would be a good way to get me going again as I have so much to tell you. I’ve had a very busy and exciting time the last month or so.

i have posted  at about our first day at the Adain project with Wendy Couling if you’d like to go and have a look on the SerenTex blog.

We arrived here in Tenrife yesterday evening after going thrugh a rather stressful time at Manchester airport. Someone at the boarding desk was having a very bad day and booked us in - not only on the wrong flight but with the wrong company. It’s a long story, but we were going on one aircraft and our suitcases on another! Things were straightened out in time, but the aircraft had to be delayed while they did it. Everyone was very helpful and the men who had to find our suitcases in the hold brought them to us and one said he’d make sure they arrived on the correct plane. and our suitases were the first to come round on the carousel in Tenerife

Anyway, it’s my birthday today and I’m haing a very happy relaxing day.

A circle from the Bitacora!

A little play

 

These were created in Paint Shop Pro using some of my backgrounds and some sketches I made some time ago.

Exhaustion!

Backgrounds

As you can see I haven’t been completely idle, just not a lot of time to blog. I also made some more felted hearts and corsages for The Arc gallery in Chester.

The work below was made a couple of weeks ago when I went to a very small(4 of us) beginners class at my friend Mary’s house. I know I’m not really a beginner, but I do need a ‘new beginning’. I was only joining for this one class, but asked if I could join the class which she has once a month or so.

    

 

                   

The Conwy Estuary

Please take a look at what SerenTex members are up to these days.

Below are some photos that were all taken in the last couple of weeks from my window. It’s surprising how the view changes from day to day. As usual clicking on any of these photos will give a larger view.

       

A frosty morning.

Brrr! That water was cold.

  

The tideline.

     

Reflections.

This lady was obviously trying to get her message out there. Her placard says “Look on the bright side, at least it’s flat.”

I’m sure she never realised her message was going to go worldwide through this blog!

Moods of the Estuary

 

 

These photos were taken during last week’s stormy weather, it’s not often the river looks like this.

But here is a lovely reminder of Summer. it’s the work of my friend Mary Spence that I fell in love with and bought as a treat for myself.

There’s a new post on the SerenTex textile group’s blog which I know you will enjoy.

My thanks to Eugeni Evsikov, the man with the golden hands

Eugeni Evsikov

This post is a thank you to Eugeni Eviskov who was such a great help to both my husband and myself whilst on holiday in Tenerife recently. Many years ago I fell off a stepladder and damaged my back and since them I still suffer long bouts of pain. My husband also suffers from Sciatica and the day before we travelled his Sciatica became much worse and it looked as if we were going to have a very miserable time. Luckily for us, Eugeni has a clinic in the Bitacora Hotel where we stay. People call him, the man with the Healing Hands and very rightly so. We were both treated by him and so were able to enjoy our holiday if not quite as energetically as we normally do.

Eugeni has written a book called ‘Good Health’ full of treatments and exercises from around the World using alternative treatment techniques. I find this book invaluable as I think we all take far too many drugs when there are alternative things we can do that will help. This book has helpful suggestions to help improve your health whatever you suffer from, from arthritis to insomnia.

You will find Eugeni’s website here.

A very Happy and Creative New Year to you all

My best wishes for the new year to you all from a stormy North Wales. I know I’ve been very quiet recently and the reason for this is that I only have two speeds – Stop and Go. When I go it’s at top speed and family and friends wonder how I manage to do it and they tell me I should slow down, but I’m afraid slowing down just doesn’t work for me as I don’t know how. When I stop it happens so fast I hit the windscreen, then it takes me ages to restart.

Today I decided enough was enough and I have started making lists with 3 columns – Urgent, Creative and Non-creative and I have now started on the Urgent column. Once the system is working I hope to manage a few from the Non-creative column and at least one from the Creative column every day. I don’t really know where my blog fits into this, but it’s always been a pleasure until recently when it started to become just another chore, but I’m going to add it to the Creative column and hope it will become a pleasure once more.

This photo is of the hotel we stay at in Tenerife and I spent most of my holiday sitting on the balcony here.

A bit of a mixture

I have just posted more work from the North Wales Embroiderers Guild  Exhibition of 2011 up on the Croesew blog.

Another dozen hearts finished and also a dozen brooches. Now at last I’ve finished my Christmas orders and can get back to some real creativity.

This is the dress I enjoyed making for Mary in a Nativity play, but I don’t expect anyone would want to see the pair of trousers I altered for SIL? No, I thought you wouldn’t. Don’t you just hate altering things for people? It’s lovely to feel that I can ‘turn my hand to anything’, but it can be such a disadvantage at times can’t it? I’d much rather make something from scratch. I have a few pairs of trousers of my own that could do with shortening 1/2” to stop them dragging in the mud, but they are still waiting and being worn as they are

I wonder if it’s Prince William flying this helicopter? It’s an air sea rescue helicopter from RAF Valley where he is stationed. I don’t suppose I will ever find out why it was hovering over the river, too far off for me to be be able to see it properly. But if you look at the bottom right hand corner there’s a lifeboat as well, so it must be someone in trouble. Such a pity I don’t recognise the two with the pushchair who had a grandstand view.

To finish, last night’s sunset.

Things I see through my window

These are photos I took with my camera during the week.

There are also some photos on the SerenTex blog.

 

 

This was a 10K Charity Run last Sunday and they just kept coming and coming. It was a wonderful sight.

   

I’ve been finishing off work I have to make before Christmas, but I still have more to do before I go on holiday.

A bit of fun

As some of you know I just love playing with my photos, usually in PSP. I find it very relaxing and sometimes very inspiring.

As always, clicking on any image will give you a larger version.

 

  

These used Threshold and Halftone.

 

 

These also used Halftone, Twirl and a touch of Enamel. The original is shown below.