ON THE STITCH

The new image of the flowers are a gift from some of my lovely students.  The colours & flowers are so lovely that I wanted all of you to see them life size.  Thank you ladies

Hi, this was the view out of my studio window 2 nights ago. The cloud looks like a fist & the shading is so fabulous, I had to scramble about to get the camera in time to take this wonderful inspiring image.

I love funky, weird colour schemes, this piece is awaiting its quilting, which I will do at Poppy Patch on their Grand opening day next Friday
I might paint over it afterwards, what do you think? leave a comment if you think its a good idea.


As well as funky, I also love traditional colour schemes & traditional techniques. This is somerset patchwork & is part of what I am teaching on Saturday at the new Poppy Patch venue. I am pleased with the piece as most somerset is circular when finished & I wanted a square piece

This is a manipulated piece, which started out as a piece of plain fabric, stamped, stitched, cut, embellished, more stitch & coloured. The inserts are stitched paper. It is around 6 inch by 4 inch & would make a lovely insert into a piece of patchwork or a couple of brooches

There were more images but blogger eat them up. I will leave them until the next post.

The ankle has healed up, thank goodness, can wear my red sandals again, yipee. I just love red shoes. I wonder why? Last night I watched a program on the telly called The 60's -The Beatles decade & it showed BIBA in Kensington. Wow took me back to wonderful times trying on feather boas & hats & scrimping up the pounds to buy a few items from the shop. It was such an experience. I was only 14 when I first went there & the girls all looked so fabulous, long blond hair & heavy eye makeup. I guess my makeup is still stuck there sometimes, but I don't tie my hair up with a ribbon now, unfortunately but hey I have the purple car & when I get older maybe I will be disgraceful with a purple ribbon in my hair. Ha, my kids would be horrified, wonder what my slightly odd husband might say??

I am demob happy if you have not already guessed. I have 8 weeks of no work except for 3 & a half days, I feel a bit like I am spinning around in the garden under a full moon (LYN) really I should tidy up the studio & be very practical & finish off all the half finished things & then do my planning for next term, but HA none of it, I am going to pig out on rubbish TV & faff about doing anything that I want which includes stitching, painting & designing items for the open studios in September. I need to design my four poster bed that was kindly made for me by Richard at Moulton (thank you again) My theme for Heritage is Elizabethan England the first & the second, because I am totally an Elizabethan. Watch this space for how I progress. I have the design book........ bye for now

BACK NOW

I cant believe it !!!!!!!!! as someone said......where have I been in my head its been so long and such a lot has happened & I cant remember all of it.
I think I will post some pictures & maybe that will sort my head out hmmmmmmmmmmmm

Last night was Kettering Embroiderers Guild with Kumi Middleton, lovely Japanese lady who entertained us with a show & tell & talk as well as a workshop.  I really enjoyed the evening even though I had twisted my ankle that morning & it was agony (all together ahhhhh) nope it really was AHHHH!!!
For the workshop we had a piece of cartridge paper, lots of fabulous Japanese books with scrummy images in them & a large box of various papers to cut up.  Scissors & glue & away we all went.  You can se Kumis' bags on the website.  This is what we were doing in paper.  Well not me cause I am a rebel, a very quiet rebel but I felt very inspired by an image on  the front of one of the books.

This is the original

This is my interpretation, the glascine has made a diffused effect which I really love

I am very happy with my piece & now as usual need the time to develop it.

The word in fact is Chinese & means CELEBRATION, so I wrote out the word in pencil, traced elements of the symbol out of some fabulous goldish paper, then added texture with Japanese papers & Glascine.  Sometimes it is good to be limited with your media.  If I had been in the Studio then I would have had a far different outcome  I may not add the black, in fact I might try printing it onto black fabric treated with inkaid & see what effect that I get.

This has been taken with my fabulous new phone.  Since I have been absent without leave I have had my birthday.  I asked for aging face cream & the V & A quilt book from my wonderful children & they bought me a new phone.  A fab new phone that has a really good camera & can access the Internet.  I am now truly a 21st century girl.  I have had huge fun finding accessories for it & discovering what I can do with it. This is a diabetic birthday cake made by my son & is bananas & oranges with candles, what a hoot, I was really happy.  We had a barbie in their new house with their new little kitten & met my daughters very nice boyfriend.  So happy me (wish I didnt look so fat in the piccy but it is a funny angle  yeah right Shelagh)

I am busy with the annual bag summer school & the end of year classes.  One of my C & G classes has finished & all the ladies achieved a Diploma grade for their work

I wont put close ups of the wonderful work as some of the pieces are very innovative especially for level 2.  Yes they are level 2, I am a very happy teacher with what they produced in only 10 weekly lessons on the new City & Guild Creative Techniques courses in Machine Embroidery & Patchwork & Quilting.

This is the most amazing bouquet that I have ever received.

It was wrapped up in lots of beautiful cellophane , raffia, & sizoflore & was huge with some really unusual flowers in it.  It took 45 minute to un-assemble & find vases, the house looked fabulous & they lasted a whole week.  Thank you to a really talented group, hopefully I will have the good fortune to teach them again

At Moulton College each year the staff choose a picture or painting & it is enlarged & split into parts.  Like Rolfe Harris did in Trafalgar Square.  Each student has a piece & I also had a piece.This year was George & the Dragon by Rubens

My section has a horse flank, a snake, an eye & an arrow head along with alot of undecipherable colour & texture.

I was very happy with the piece which consists of underpainting by the embellisher machine, couching by hand & machine, wireform, hand & machine embroidery, then overpainting with various acrylic mediums & paint.

The snake is made out of pre-dyed & painted torn up tee shirt pieces that can be bought from Bee Inspired

I cant remember anything else at the moment & its geting late, see you soon x