Lots to catch up on.....

I still haven't finished the feather sample (Sample 2), but have done a little more on it. I'm also well on with Sample 3, which is a butterfly and that should be ready to show off very soon. Sample 4 is of bead-weaving and I've done the artwork and the beading chart for that and am looking to getting stuck in with the beads and the loom. In fact, I've got through so many other tasks recently that things seem nice and peaceful and perfect for getting all caught up soon. So, I'm hoping to make several posts over the next week or so.

The one thing I can show you is the first sample I actually got done in class. It's a stitch and slash technique sample and the original source was to be animal fur. Silly me went and left the photo I planned to work from on the sofa instead of putting it in my college bag, but managed to scrounge this lovely pic (which you can see part of here) to work from. We had to make a felt-tip pen design from it, which is here and is not exactly impressive, I know, but my artwork is never really going to set the Thames on fire, is it??=)


The next stage was pressing then pinning together 3 or 4 fabrics in similar colours to the design, then to machine stitch (ordinary sewing foot and straight stitch) the lines on. After that, the fabric is cut away to reveal layers of the underneath colours. Here's the sample so far, (it's supposed to be put through the washing machine cycle to 'fluff' it up a bit - ie fray and wreck it!!!!), and it does look a bit like tiger skin. I confess, this kind of work is not really my thing - bit too large scale and 'rough' for my tastes.



I got some more fabric and silk paints in the post today, along with 3 bottles of silk paint gutta. Haven't much of a clue how to use it, but we'll be starting that in class in about 3 weeks' time.=) Also got some silk habotai, some green beads needed for my beadweaving sample and some beading thread for that.

Finished shell sample and other C&G work

Finally got the shell sample done after almost 2 weeks. It hasn't taken me that long in itself, (as most things don't when you get on with them!!!), but I've put in 4 sessions of work on it and here's the finished item. I rather wish I'd added some colour to the fabric in some way or used something other than the prescribed calico, which is rather too dull for this piece, especially as it doesn't have much colour in itself.


Last week's work was on birds or feathers, so I took some images found on-line of peacock feathers and was also able to work from a real one that Diane, our teacher, had brought in. That really helped to get the feel of the texture and the full effect of the sparkle of the thing! It also means that both of my designs so far have been taken largely from real objects rather than copying photos (which are so flat, aren't they?) and that's good as many later things will have to be from photos etc and the course requires some direct observation stuff. Here you can see my efforts at quickly reproducing a peacock feather in oil pastel, then in pastel pencils, although the long, green fronds on this one were hard pastel block as I didn't have the right colour pencil. Actually, I don't think the soft texture of the pastel pencil would have been as good, so all's well that ends well there.

The idea of this exercise is still to work on line (we'll be doing that up until we start 'colour' in week 7), but also to use appliqué and I finally learned how paper-backed Bondaweb is used! I also discovered that my fusible web was not paper-backed, so I've since ordered some from an E-bay seller. It came yesterday, but, as the seller is one of these with a Recorded Delivery fetish, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to actually get it. I've stopped asking these sellers not to use 'signed for' services as they're not at all flexible in meeting customer requirements on this! Since when do I want to pay for a service I do not require and will entail me either having to go to the Delivery Office to collect my package or arranging re-delivery when I can be certain there's someone in to sign?? They ought to pay me for the trouble...... Grrrr!!! Anyway, this is how far I've got on the sample piece - just bonded the fabrics and back-stitched around the edges in one strand of matching cotton. It was really hard to do this as our teacher wanted us to use thin wadding, plus a calico backing, so, especially when it came to the inner motif, I was trying to find my place through 6 layers and it wasn't fun. We're doing appliqué again this week, (although I'll be working from home this time), and I will not be using so much backing, if any at all!


Hope to get that sample complete v soon. Am planning to do the feather fronds in varying shades of Anchor Marlitt to get the colour variations and the sheen, but I'm waiting for the 'invisible' thread I ordered on Friday to come. Hope it arrives today! We have no class next week, but I don't want to spend that time playing catch up!

No more on the band sampler as yet, but I hope to have some more done over the weekend, when we're away again, but I'm not planning on taking my C&G work with me as I did to Scotland last w/e.

Quite a week!

Well, I can safely say that the Staff Festival last Friday changed my life. Why? Well, as I was walking around the Arts & Crafts market section thinking 'I can do this too', I didn't really take it that seriously, but now things have changed somewhat. After talking to DH about it a bit, we decided that I may as well try and 'go pro' as it were and, after all manner of last minute arrangements, I started at Harrogate College last Thursday on their C&G level 3 embroidery course. It takes 4 years to do the complete cert and diploma, but I may only have 2 years at college, so will have to do the rest by distance learning, (i.e. at least twice the price for less personal attention!!!), and I wouldn't mind still doing the level 2 stumpwork course as well, but we can look at that later. I felt I needed more training and experience before I could really design and sell things, so this should help enormously.

So, much to my surprise, I am now a City & Guilds student! Here are the things I did at the first class. The first year is devoted mostly to doing the Design for Craft module and the samples needed for assessment. Basically, you do the art and design work, then adapt it into stitch straight away. In year 2, students do their 4 big pieces. Year 1 seems to be quite a learning curve and so I hope to be able to do something alongside it in year 2, but that's a way off yet. We did shells and sea creatures, so I did this drawing of a shell, (from the real thing - I don't like working from photos, they're so flat!), and then made a start on this stitched piece. I didn't get very far with it as there's really only so much you can do in a 5 hour working day, esp. with intro stuff as well. Anyway, the first design section is concentrating heavily on line work, so here you can see the outline of the shell couched in Anchor Pearl Cotton #5, the white with the gold thread running through. Some classmates thought I'd couched in gold and over-complimented it, but I couched on in one strand of plain white stranded cotton taking care to not cover the gold thread in the process. I plan to do the top bits of the shell one in white and one in gold and really go to town with linear stitches in the shadow part, leaving the shell itself mostly as outline. Might put in a few flecks of brown here and there. I hope to get some more work done on it over the next few days and certainly to have it finished by next week's class. Mustn't get behind as there's a lot of work!

Here's the hardanger cushion sewn up and modelled on my mum's sofa this afternoon. She has bigger cushion pads than ours here, so I went to her place to get a good photo. Will give it to its new owners tomorrow afternoon.=)

High School Art

Not been up to much worth reporting of late. I have been shopping a lot though, so here are some of the things I've been treating myself to.

First off, 3 vegan cookery books. I want to get started on making some of the goodies from the small baking one at the front and will have to get a couple of specialist ingredients from shops in town later on today first. Yesterday's Tesco trip was mostly for baking goodies!! There are 2 excuses to bake as well (normally I can't much as Sir is weight conscious and I tend to get blebbier than I'd like too.....), so I'm looking forward to trying out the coconut lime cakes and the chocolate mint ones as well as some strawberry and/or mandarin orange tarts. Yum!

Been getting art things too. Here are the colour swatches from the pastel/drawing paper pads I've been coveting for a while!! I got the cool shades (blues) a little while ago, before Taiwan, and managed to get the warms and neutrals over the last few days on E-bay. A £5 voucher from E-bay Extra helped get one!=) I've also bought some new paints, but I'll show those off when the last lot arrive.

I got this landscapes book out of the library and loved it, so spent part of a 25% off at Borders voucher on that, (and the vegan cupcake book). The flowers one is a library book, but I know I want that one too. I love her style and the fact that she uses the same media and brands as me, so here are some tips etc on using all those fab pencils I got a few months ago, esp the Inktense and Graphitints, which are relatively new on the art scene and so material on using them is quite scarce.

Looking through old art pads I found some art from high school. Here are the Garfield characters, which I copied from a Garfield book, but didn't trace:

This is a cartoon collection of some of my high school chums:

And this is an old pencil case that I drew. I love this 'flash of colour' idea and the 'Landscapes' book has a couple of pieces in the same style. I'll be having more of a go at that soon. You can see my old name here in the signature and the date - 1987!! More than 20 years ago - eeek!

Here are some sketches that I did in the Department of East Asian studies 3 years ago - you might be able to make out the date there too. I did the pen sketch first and that seemed to work well for me as my pencil sketches are often very hesitant indeed, but with pen you have to 'commit' to your mark-making and that seemed to do me good as I did a decent pencil drawing immediately afterwards!

So, what does this tell me? That I probably can do well with art if I only get on with it. When I was 16, I'd been doing art classes at least once a week since I'd been about 5, so I was in better practise. I think, somewhere in my mum's attic, I may have my display pieces from my GCSE, the art exam I did when I was 16. If I find them when we clear her attic out for her this summer, then I'll showcase a few pieces and start to make a scrapbook out of them. And the post's just arrived with more stuff in: A rotary cutter for when I can start the C&G level 1 Patchwork and Quilting course and some watercolour paints. Will post pics tomorrow or so, this is enough for now!!!

The Friday Photo Shoot!!

No real stitching progress, but that's becoming rather a regular problem at the mo....=( I have, at least, bought the latest Classic Stitches. Love the look of the cover project, which I may just adapt to a more overt heart shape for a forthcoming silver wedding.


Had a play with my cheap pastels the other day and, in addition to the mark making and colour testing mess I made, I did this apple. Nothing special, but at least painting fruit and veg you stand a good chance of the finished piece at least looking like what it was meant to be!!!


I also got yet another set of Derwent pencils on E-bay. I've worked out that, had I payed High Street prices for the 4 tins of things I've got over the last month or so, it would have costs verging on £110, but I paid just under £45 including all the postage costs! So, I'm quite pleased with my 41% bargain there!! These are basically tinted graphite (the stuff in regular pencils), which are also watersoluble. When you do add water, most of the colours become more vibrant. So, they're very much like the Inktense range - both a fancy type of watercolour pencil, just different intensities really. Wonder if I'll ever really put them to good use??? Well, let's see, huh?

More pencils, stitching mags and viola-versary

Ooof, yes, I've been buying again. I seriously suspect myself of engaging in retail therapy.... Here's the latest addition to the pencils collection, Derwent's Inktense the full range. You use them like a pencil, then you can go over the marks with water and it turns into an ink-like quality. If you use the colour lightly to start with, it looks more like watercolour. They're really good, it's just a shame I'm not brill at drawing yet!! Here's what I did last night to experiment with them. It's just a copy of this photo and far from marvellous, but it was late and I'm no great shakes at paper based art. This sort of thing takes a lot of patience and practise and I think that could well be why I tend towards needlework where you can get it right first time!!!















I've also been hoarding more stitching mags. Went to WHSmiths and found the latest issue of 'Inspirations' there, much to my surprise! I didn't think it would arrive for another week or ten days, but here it is along with the current 'Stitch'. I also got a copy of this book from the Country Bumpkin designer series. Don't know that I'll ever make it up as is, but it's a very interesting book and a brilliant design. Got the weekly CB webletter this morning, which was full of all the new books they're planning to release this year. There's to be a 'Needlebook Cottage' in this designers series and an 'A-Z of Goldwork and Silkwork', which I am going to be totally unable to resist buying. BAD Country Bumpkin!!!













Today is my viola-versary. I am officially now a second year viola student. Given how little ground I've managed to cover, part of me finds that a bit disappointing, esp. as someone I 'met' on the ABRSM forums started violin a month before me, got a distinction in her Grade 1 exam last June and is already preparing for her Grade 3 in March! However, then I remembered the kind of year I've just had - about 3 months lost to illness, if not more when all added together, narrowly avoiding a nervous breakdown owing to an ill-suited (to me) job and various other hassles. Put in that light, I'm doing OK and, yes, I'm quite reconciled to the fact that I'm going to learn slowly. As DH rightly says, it's the fact that I enjoy it that matters, not the race to get to Grade 8 standard!!! Funny thing is that I've been unable to practise the last week and had to cancel my lesson on Tuesday thanks to having hurt my neck! It happens from time to time and is on the mend now, so onwards and upwards!

The weather is odd at the mo, JK. The forecast promised snow, but it's lovely and sunny right now with only light clouds. We've had stormlike winds, fit almost to take you off your feet, (I nearly did take off last Friday!!!), but at least not too much rain. Hmm, actually, I prefer rain to wind and I really get fed up with both at the same time!!!

Heidi asked what my plans were. Well, I've nothing set in concrete just yet, but lots of ideas and so forth. First and foremost, (as without it I can't really do anything else), is to get my strength back. Whilst that's in progress, I intend to build slowly up on other things, esp the Bible teaching work I do. When I was language teaching and it was stealing all my time and strength, it just became so hard to remember my real priorities in life. Felt like I was living in two conflicting worlds and I was beginning to feel more at home in (and spending vast amounts more time on) the one I didn't belong to! Most uncomfortable! So, now that's getting back to normal again, I can get on with what matters most. Doubt I'll get another job, but I might help DH with some of his admin work as he's very busy and earns more than enough to keep us both. I want to make some progress with my musical studies, pick my languages back up (nothing killed my Chinese ability as stone dead as teaching it for a year!!!), maybe even work through some of the Open University science courses I have copies of and, of course, stitch! We're going to Taiwan for 3 weeks in March/April and, after that, I'll be making moves on starting some needlecraft studies. Problem with most of the stuff on offer is that it's so contemporary and, frankly, I don't like that kind of style. I prefer traditional, detailed work, so I daresay a lot of the City & Guilds programmes on offer aren't going to work for me. The stumpwork ones look good though, so we'll see. Will let you know when I do, basically!! One thing's for sure, I'm not going to suffer boredom or lack of challenge and purpose!=)

Pencils, Pastels and ... wow!

Sacreligious, I know, but I haven't touched a needle since finishing 'Branches'! I don't intend to give it up though, but I have been quite slack with stitching of late - unless I had to, that is!! I hope to get that 'Child of Spring' cushion finished up over the weekend, but I wouldn't hold your breath as it looks like a busy one in general. So, now what's new, huh??

I've been having a bit of a pencil and pastel fest of late and <-here's what I've been buying.

I love these Derwent sets of things, so I bought both of these (the 24 piece Pastel and Drawing Collections) on e-bay for about 35-40% of the retail price including the postage costs! They come up all the time there, but are often almost full price, so it's just a question of knowing what you're looking for and waiting for a decent offer. The set of 64 pastels here is only cheap, bought it at one of those bargain bookshops for £6.99 yesterday, but I thought they would be good to learn with - along with the other set of 24 kids' things I've got. I'm kinda saving the Winsor and Newton set (another e-bay bargain a while ago) until I can paint something more worth the quality pigments! I did Armes Mäusle with the good stuff. Shown here are also the watercolour postcards and the fab square sketchbook I got from the art place in Salts Mill about 7 or 8 weeks back.

'Branches' lands tomorrow lunchtime. I do hope that everyone remembers whose show it is (i.e. not mine!) and nobody makes a fuss!

Jane has kindly nominated me in the 'You Make My Day' awards. Thank you SO much, Jane! I'm sorry I won't be going to the M'cr show next weekend after all, so I can't meet you, but I really am stunned and delighted that someone would put my blog in for this! Again, thank you so much! I'll have to think about who I'm going to 'vote' for now....

Home again - with a surprise!

Hi there! Thanks a lot for all the lovely comments on my stumpwork card.=) Sir loved it as well and it is now proudly displayed in our living room.

We got back from our holidays/vacation/break/whatever you wanna call it yesterday lunchtime. Had a nice time, although the weather was rotten for half the week. In fact, they say a month's worth of rain fell in about a day all over the country and there was widespread flooding. Both where we are at home and also the place we stayed on holiday are on high ground, so we had no problems.

I take it all back when I said to American friends that England isn't full of castles as it seems that the north (north of where we are even) is chocka block with them! We went to Bolton Castle last Monday and here's my (rotten) sketch of one of the towers. I'll add in the photo DH took when I can get it, (he's put the holiday snaps on his laptop or external hard-drive and I can't yet get at them), so you can see Bolton Castle as it really is too!

Now for the surprise. Well, it was a surprise to me! When I took the dog with me, I said that I would be happy if I just closed up one of the gaps. I never ever expected to get into it again and close them all up! Here he is:

He's not actually finished yet as I need to do some softening of the darker lines on the cheeks and then put in the whiskers, but he's 99% there. I honestly thought I'd do one ear at a push and get 'Child of Spring' done, but realised when said ear came on well and quickly that it was better just to press on with that and get it done as I seem more able to get on with it whilst away from home. I'll finish him completely over the next day or so. WOW!

Then it's on with 'Child of Spring', then the Brazilian piece, then..... Also have a LOT of lesson planning and course prep to do before September as well as more work around the home - getting things cleared up and helping to clean up during and after the decorating (DH hopes to get the hallway done over the next month or so, the last room - HUZZAH!) and then another great big, hard project to get back to. So, far from being restful, it's going to be a gruelling summer, but at least Mr Bow-wow is pretty much done! YEAH!

Armes Mäusle!!!

That's what my husband calls me when I'm feeling low or poorly, (so I hear it a lot!!!!). It means 'poor little mouse' in his native south German dialect, (Schwabisch). I knew what he would say as soon as I showed him the half done version of the latest work of art ......!!!=) Here's the completed piece, a pastel painting of a little mouse. I'm learning to be quite pleased with him!!=)

Art attack!

No stitching showcase photos today, but one of my very beginner-ish pastel paintings instead. I did this at art class on Monday night in half an hour. The teacher had given me a photo of Venice to copy, but I just wasn't in the mood for that, so I found a textbook, (we work in a science lab!), and came across the ideal photo: Igneous rock formation, (aka volcanic eruption).


I think it portrays my feelings at the moment just about as perfectly as one could wish for! (Yes, I know, it's rubbish....)