Books only!

My workroom is getting tidier by the hour. What is speeding me up are the three books above that are begging to be read. When I've finished, which one shall I read first? I think I shall probably be hopping from on to the other, I can't wait!

The first to arrive was Mary Sleigh's lovely book - Exploring African Themes, then came Maggie's book - Stitches, Straps and Layers which looks so exciting and then Carol and Lynda's - luscious book Stitching the Textured Surface.

Back to Westhope

While we were eating our lunch we had a chat with a very interesting lady, Angela Thomson who travels the world studying textiles of different countries and cultures. She has an article in the latest issue of Embroidery magazine. I Googled and found an Angela Thomson had written quite a few books of textiles and I'm almost certain this is one and the same.


This beautiful fabric is resist dyed during a course, but I'm afraid I don't know who the tutor was in this case.


Some more work from the college.


This is Val a friend whom I got to know through various courses we did together over the years and I was very pleased to see her. She is also a friend of Westhope College and was one of the stewards at the exhibition.

The quality of my photos are not the best this time I'm afraid, but if you want to see examples some of the beautiful work of Stevie Walker who is a tutor at the college have a look at her website Stevie Walker here.


These Paper Quilts were very pleasing.


And the recycled work was really exciting.

Reorganizing

A few photos, but not many words tonight as I have decided to reorganize my workroom. Yes, again! So I'm just taking a short break to write this.


This is a lovely inspirational postcard I bought for 20p at Westhope College. The photo was taken by Anne Dyer who sold it to me. The round disk is not part of the image, but something else I bought a short time later, not realising until I arrived home that these pearlised colours matched the postcard.


This is the beautiful mug I had my coffee in, similar colours again but very textured. I meant to ask who made it, but forgot. The clothes I was wearing? Again similar colours.





What a difference a day makes. Click to see the larger image. Not so short after all was it?

SerenTex

I know you will enjoy seeing some of the work created on our SerenTex weekend at Plas and there is a long post about it on the Serentex blog. Above is a small part of the view from the terrace.


This is the fireplace in the lounge at Plas which has inspired Carol to create some wonderful work over the weekend.


And here is a card she sent me to thank me for giving her a lift in my car. I'm sure you will see where the inspiration came from by looking carefully at the fireplace.

Westhope College

I have so many things to catch up on I don't know where to start!


Thursday was a very exciting day with my 'old' school friends, then Friday evening another friend invited me to join them on a trip to Craven Arms in Shropshire to Westhope College, this college is famous for it's craft and textiles courses which I'd always wanted to visit. This weekend they have their annual exhibition of work and luckily we had a nice day for it and only had one short shower on the way home.


We were made to feel very welcome and were met at the door by the owner of the college, textile artist Ann Dyer. The photo above was taken by Pat Phillpott, the college Principal. It was wonderful to see all the work done during the year.

I seem to be taking a lot more interest in working with papers these days, probably because I have taken on line courses with Sue and Terri Welcome to Two Creative Studios. I still love my textiles and stitching and this is just a little extra creative craft I'm getting into these days. The reason I mention this now is because my favourite part of the exhibition at Westhope was the Creative Bookmaking course, taken by Jo Jukes a very talented lady.



This is some of her own work shown here and of course they are 'books' and can be read. I was very impressed with all the work turned out by her students who had been on the course for 12 months. I took so many photos and have permission to blog them all, but if I did you would be here all day and night!


I had a lovely chat with Ann Baker, who made the books above and we seemed to have a lot in common. She creates textiles as well as having done a C&G computing course here at Westhope. Here books were textile related and based on lace inspiration. Ann belongs to a Textile group called Marches Makers who have an exhibition on at the moment ‘Sense of Place’ at Red House Glass Cone at Stourbridge. Just that name makes one want to visit the gallery doesn't it?

Some members of this group :-- Jay Swain, Dee Highfield, Judy Evans, Margaret McQuillen, Margaret Webb, Ann Baker and Charlotte Gardiner. I have Googled these names and only found these 2 ladies.

Stevie Walker, Stevie is a great tutor and her own work is wonderful.

Charlotte Gardiner Whom I also met at Westhope.

My concentration has gone now and I think this post is too long anyway, so it will have to be continued another time.

A reminder of a wonderful weekend

My work at Plas Tan y Bwlch has been inspired by the wonderful work of Ro Bruhn and I took Sherrill's Khan's book Creative Stamping with me as reference. I think I like this way of journaling and will continue to use this method from now on. Up to now my journals have been very boring and far too neat and tidy, but I think this is far more rewarding. I have at last managed to 'loosen up'.

This is only the beginning and I have a lot more to record about my weekend with the SerenTex textile group. I will be putting an album with some of my friends work on the SerenTex blog when I get the time. Today I spent with my old school chums, nine of us got together for lunch and we had such fun. This has now become an annual event and for one afternoon a year we become teenagers again. The reunion will also find it's way to my Welsh blog as soon as I can. I'm ashamed to admit that I have yet to blog last years photos.

Painted papers

These are a few of the papers I enjoyed messing about with at Plas Tan y Bwlch. I have also painted quite a few pages of my journal during this visit. I'll post some of those tomorrow.

Sesga

A short post as I'm off again all day and will probably be too tired to blog tonight. Just joking!


I thought you'd love to see these photos of Sesga, myself and her lovely youngest daughter. They both came to visit us at Plas. Her little daughter at four years old is as bright as a button and is obviously going to be very creative like her mother and grandmother. I should have taken a photo of her chatting to Carol who was delighted with her.

Creative weekend

Just a taster. Plas Tan y Bwlch is a 19th century mansion and the interior inspires me each time I visit. It's leaded windows and carvings are full of interesting designs. So I decided to make some simple sketches of some of them with the intention of developing them into stamps.


The weekend was spent making these shown above. I hope to make more soon.


The rest of the time was spent experimenting with painting papers and stamping. None of them are finished yet. I hope to carry on with them during this week.

Plas Tan y Bwlch

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Here we all are where we all love to be on a short 'retreat' at Plas Tan y Bwlch . It was not a very pleasant journey I'm afraid as we had torrential rain for the last part of the journey. And very unusually for us as a group, we came up early for a cup of tea before going to bed. Well, I know everyone who reads this blog will understand why. It takes such a long time to try and pack the right things and not to bring the kitchen sink. DH did warn me my little car would not hold all the stuff I had, plus my friend and hers. He was right too. I had to take some of it out and leave it home. I had to leave my sewing machine and my box of stamps. But I knew my friends would let me use theirs if I needed to, So I didn't mind too much.


I had to take a photo of this small part of a wall as the colours after the rain looked so lovely.

There are more photos on SerenTex.

SerenTex

I finished my bookmarks for the Surface Design swap a few days late I'm afraid. This photo shows both sides.


A little taster from SerenTex.

North Wales Regional Day

Last night's Regional Evening was very successful with over 70 members attending. The finger buffet and the strawberries and cream were delicious with Ann Jones(SerenTex) in charge of the catering. The 3 winners were Rhiannon, Gaynor and Joan with Catherine of Silken Strands - (supplier of threads for hand and machine embroidery) having the difficult job of choosing the best. Unfortunately I was not able to take many photos as I was on the Ario stand, they had sent us a box of goodies to sell.


But I did get to see Carol McFee's samples from their D4daisy Book, 'Stitching the Textured Surface' which will be out soon and I can tell you now that no photo does them justice, they are fantastic.



The Madeira Lecture was given by Luned Rhys Parry a wonderful artist who creates her scenes and sculptures using recycled materials including old Newspapers and cardboard boxes. they have to be see to be believed. Luned has a wonderful sense of humour which comes out strongly in all her work. Unfortunately the quality of my photos are very poor.


Here is Luned demonstrating her method of working and below is a sample of work made by SerenTex member Rhiannon Jones who took a course with Luned and I've just booked to go an a Day Course with her soon. I can't wait!

Please click on him, he's worth a closer look!


And I was fortunate enough to be one of the raffle winners, winning a lovely box made by Ann Jones. Maybe that should have been the title of this post. 'Ann Jones' as her name has cropped up so many times. How does one person manage to do all this?

North Wales Embroiderers' Guild Regional Evening

I think you deserve a rest from my holiday photos!



These are the Postcards I made this morning for the EG competition. They had to be inspired by the Sea.
The top one has bits of fishing tackle picked up on the prom in Rhos on Sea and decided to call it 'No Fish?' (over-fishing).
Again another card inspired by the sea in Rhos on Sea that is now having dozens of these windmills which can be clearly seen from this beautiful little seaside resort. I wonder if the power of the waves could not be investigated seriously instead? But large-scale on-shore wave power generating stations could face similar problems to those encountered by windfarm projects, where opposition has focused on the aesthetic and noise impact of the machinery on the environment.
But I think this one an interesting idea Harnessing the power of the waves — Nordic Energy Solutions

Monaco

A visit to Monaco is always a must when we go to the South of France. Mainly because of the wonderful atmosphere there, the Grand Prix circuit and the Ice Cream at the Cafe de Paris. It's a very unusual place and very well designed with all those buildings that seem to be one on top of the other and yet they are all easily accessible.


I ordered the one on the left, but must admit to having eaten most of the two of them. Mmmmm!


I include these images and hope someone will find them inspiring. They were very inspiring in situe. Here is a website I found with even better photos for you eco art parade 2009 monaco

Cannes holiday

I came home to find these lovely swaps had come in the post for me. The Mailer Journal is beautifully made by Tracy Borders and the lovely bookmarks are from Francoise and Meg.


This is the painted front of the Bus Station in the square in the centre of Cannes. It can fool you when you first look at it, but it's all painted.


If I was going there on holiday tomorrow I expect this is where I would have spent most of my time, at the International Advertising Exhibition. This is where the Cannes Film Festival takes place, but they had already taken away the red carpet before we arrived!

Cannes

Thanks to everyone who commented on the last couple of posts and haven't had a reply, but we are just back from Cannes. We just missed the Cannes Film Festival by a short time, but it would have been difficult to find anywhere to stay during that time and would be far too expensive for us. The weather was fantastic and the window shopping was very inspiring. But all I bought was a few bottles of silk dyes!


This is the hotel we stayed at and as you can see there's a huge painting of Marilyn Monroe on the wall. We have stayed there twice before and when we arrived they sent us to another hotel for the first night. We were so annoyed as it happened the last time as well. We had a few cross words with them when we went back and they gave us a lovely executive room to make up for the inconvenience.


Here we are sitting in the other hotel which was also very good. I was taking photos of a beautiful vase in the window when the Receptionist asked if we wanted our photo taken.


This is the vase. It was huge and so beautiful.


Here is another photo of the interior of the Mondial Hotel.



A couple of colourful flowers I took and thought you might enjoy.


I took this photo in a cafe in Monaco. It was a very expensive Light Cola, but worth it for the atmosphere and just this one flower in the glass!

Now I need to get myself back into the frame of mind for creating. I feel inspired by the many things I saw, but first I need to make a postcard of the Sea for a competition at the North Wales Embroiderers' Guild Regional Day which is on Monday. as usual, I can't quite make up my mind what to do, so will probably end up doing more than one.

Dragonfly

This photo of the dragonfly was taken by my friend Trish (SerenTex) and I have her permision to share it with you. I love the way she's waving her arms and smiling as if to say, "Look at me in my new clothes". Trish took another photo just before this one, just as she entered the world in her new form, but that was not as good as this one.

Here is a closer look. Please click for a closer look.

I'm having a week's break from blogging, but I'll be back.
I leave you with some flower photos from the Botanical Gardens of Wales.

SerenTex

Here is tonight's sunset. (I think it's worth a click to enlarge)

This is what we did at SerenTex today amongst other things. I carried on with mine at home this evening. Would you believe I have never done any weaving before now as I just haven't had an excuse to try it until today even though I've wanted to have a go?


Kath sent me this Bookmark in the style of Margaret Beale, which is ideal for the purpose and is a really lovely and simple design.


This is my 'fast and furious' bag. I needed a navy bag, so I decided to make one using dark navy linen and curved pieces of felt made with the embellisher.

Meeting Carol

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Carol T a lovely young woman I have met on the Internet through our mutual interests. Carol is the 'Listmom' for the textile Challenges Yahoo Group I belong to. She also has a most interesting blog called Taylor's textile trials.
We had lunch together and then went to listen to Jae Maries at the Wales Regional Day meeting at Killay in Swansea, South Wales.


Three members from the North Wales Branch had travelled down together, Anne Cross who has been the Chairman of the Wales Embroiderers' Guild for the last 5 or 6 years and Sue Gallacher who is the new deputy Chairman. But here is a photo of them both enjoying a wonderful exhibiton of textiles at the Botanical Gardens.


I took a photo of this poster advertising the exhibition. anyone living near enough or passing through, it is well worth a visit. It's the work of two young Welsh artists, Sue Evans and Anita Bowyer. It will be there until August 16th. WalesOnline - News - Wales News - Paper corsets bloom at National Botanic Garden of Wales

I went as the North Wales Branch representative and we were made to feel very welcome. It rained all the time we were at the Botanical Gardens on Saturday and we travelled home on Saturday during the most heavy rainstorms I've ever seen.

As I mentioned previously Jae Maries was the guest speaker at the meeting and I found her talk very interesting, humerous and inspiring. Here is her website - Jae Maries

Meeting Julie

Here is a meeting between two bloggers! We chatted as if we'd always known each other, but this was our first meeting. Julie's DH took the photo, then he left us to talk about our shared interests.


A meeting between two Rubies! I don't know what the Rubies chatted about, but they got on well too, then Julie's Ruby came home with me and My Rubie left with Julie.


The postman brought a lovely packet from Aynsley which included two swaps, a lovely journal and a bookmark.

Ruby

Let me introduce you to Ruby who will be going home with Julie at the end of the week. I happened to mention to Julie of the MIXED MEDIA blog that I was sorry that I hadn't joined in the Ruby swap. So she suggested that we have our own one to one swap, which we will exchange when we meet on Thursday as she's on holiday in the area. Here is the free Pattern One Red Robin » Ruby Doll Patterns and Instructions which you can use to make gifts for family and friends. but not for sale.

Transfer Paint

Today I made this bag using transfer painted poly cotton and it's a surprise for someone!


Tonight's sunset.


Below flower centre taken at Ruthin yesterday.



An interesting tow bar cover again taken at the Ruthin Craft Centre car park.

Experiment

Quite a few of you have asked how I transferred the leaf in the last post to the fabric and as it was quite a while since I did it last I had a bit of a play this evening. I have called this a Tutorial, but it isn't really it's more of a hit or miss, but do have a go. It's fun.





The first time I tried this I used Bondaweb. Carol and Sue from SerenTex introduced me to the idea using petals and more delicate leaves.

It's quite a simple method and not new. Below is the method used if you want to save your leaf or petal until you need it.

1.Sheet of greaseproof or parchment paper. (Thanks to Jo for noticing error which I have now rectified)
2.Layer of Bondaweb.
3.Leaf or flower petal.
4.Another layer of bondaweb.
5.Sheet of greaseproof or parchment to cover.
6.Carefully iron on medium heat, preferably without steam.
7.Leave to cool before carefully removing the paper.
8.It can now be used when needed by peeling off the first layer and ironing onto the fabric.

When I went home I had a 'what if' moment and tried these thick and juicy leaves I had. It was more fiddly as the juice was coming out of the leaves around the edges and because they were so thick they separated into two thin layers.

Method with the juicy leaves starts with instruction 2, putting a layer of Bondaweb directly on the fabric without including the backing paper.






These are the leaves I used for my experiment tonight all are fresh from the plant. I understand most of them are of the Begonia family and the leaves are very juicy. I also used white fabric for clarity, rather than the transfer painted fabric I used previously.


As I didn't have any Bondaweb this evening I experimented with Heat n Bond sold for quilters and used for applique. It is not like Bondaweb, it's a little more dense perhaps. This is how it turned out. As you see it came apart in two thin layers and was able to use both with some additional bonding on one of them..


Here is a closeup of one part of the bonded leaf, as you can see the veins have gone.


Here are some more results of my play tonight. The top left corner was the most successful as it was not as juicy as the other leaves. The rose petal was done using Misty Fuse which was ideal for a delicate petal.
Bottom left corner is one saved from the original experiment way back and used Bondaweb.
As you can see from the enlarged image, bondaweb works better, the Heat and Bond leaves a slight deposit on the leaves. But with more heat and some experimenting might turn out well.

Relaxing day

I feel sure I must be the only one in the UK to be online blogging today! It's such wonderful weather compared to our normal wet and cold days. I went for a long walk this morning along the beach at Rhos-on-Sea, so I don't feel guilty about staying in with the Windows wide open to catch the breeze.


These photos are some I took yesterday of parts of the machine that stands outside the Canolfan Grefft Rhuthun - Ruthin Crafft Centre Visiting the craft Centre was the main attraction of my visit to Ruthin in the beautiful Vale of Clwyd, North Wales. But I take photos of this machine each time I visit, finding different angles each time. This time it was covered in cobwebs and I felt it was telling me how important it had once been and how pleased it was that I was taking photos. I have tried to find out more about it as it had 'Rd Kitchin, Warrington' stamped on it, but I'm none the wiser I'm afraid.


I was very pleased to find that Cefyn Burgess was working in his studio and was his usual friendly self and did not seem to mind I picked his brain about the merits of various Embellishing machines. He has such a busy schedule and today for a change he was having a playday and trying out various things on his embellisher. His studio here is well worth a visit.

Rozanne Hawksley has a solo exhibition here until May 31st. It was not the first time I have seen her work, it has been exhibited with 'Art of the Stitch' and also at the 'Knitting and Stitching' shows. I was fortunate enough to find Rozanne herself there and was able to congratulate her on the wonderful work. Lovely to see it altogether in one place. Ruthin Crafft Centre


Now we come to my little efforts the last couple of days. This is a piece of poly cotton that I have Transfer Painted. I'm going to do some FMO and we'll see how it turns out.


This is a quilty for Alis, I have to warn her not to look at my blog if she wants a surprise. This is again Transfer Painted, but this time on Satin fabric. Then I used a method that I haven't used often with fresh Begonia leaves and Bondaweb. Sometimes it works, others it fails. this one I'm more than happy with. It's been finished with some FME and zig-zagged to neaten.

Deganwy Promenade Day

It's another beautiful evening and the sun is on the castle, but I have just noticed that there are no flags on the poles. I must make sure they put them up to welcome Julie who is coming to stay in Deganwy this coming week.


Tonight there was a race in front of the flat. I was told there were 100 runners and I expected to see them like the London Marathon a whole crowd of them together, but instead they came in dribs and drabs like this.


These look strong runners.


But here is the best of the lot, a friend of ours who has taken part in marathons all over the world. He has just looked up and seen me with my camera which made him smile.


Here is the Alphabet postcard I made for Carol this morning.


This is a wonderful piece of real art I got from Linda this morning. She's called it 'Window on the Moor' and it's inspired by a photo she took when traveling by car on the moors. It's a Mixed Media piece on canvas.


This is the Journal I received from Iris of Three dogs, two kids, one husband, but no sheep!!!!!! this morning and it is just the thing to carry in my bag as it is so lightweight and has a soft beautifully textured cover. The patterns for the journals are Iris' and can be found on her blog here - Mailer Styled Journal