Over on the creativebrainedges blog, I have posted an image

I am continuing my ramblings about it here

One of my diploma City & Guilds design portfolios was based on the Hammersmith weavings of the master Morris. I just fell in love with his mastery of design. In my work I am most interested in texture & line, but this body of work is concerned with shapes and pattern, How time changes influences and decisions

This is the piece that influenced my design work for over a year.  When I originally saw the image in a book I thought that the lily flower shape was a leaf and based the work on this shape.

I was very fortunate to visit the V & A & see this piece.  I stood in front of it and cried.  It is so beautiful, the colours, shapes and balance of design is just outstanding.  I was so absorbed by it & astonished to see the piece full size and realise it was a flower not a leaf.

The visit caused me to change direction with my design work.  I no longer design from designs, if you know what I mean?  How can you better a master?  His choice of colours?

I chose to take a really radical view, change the colours into modern almost pop art colours, bright greens and oranges, silk paper, the very early days of using a soldering iron.  So passe now but so exciting from the late Daphne Glicks influence.

Perhaps I should re-visit my theme?  Perhaps I should almalgamate my current texture work with the shapes and patterns from the original design work, maybe the new challenge of the BRAIN  EDGES will help unlock & marry up the two very distinct designers within me? Hmmmmm

Back to Morris....

This is Edward Burne-Jones drawing of Morris reading - what a hoot, wish my sketching was a 10th of this

Jane Burden by Rosetti

His outstanding contribution to design, printing, embroidery, tapestry, weaving, fables & father of May Morris embroiderer.

The influence of her father is apparent here.  I think that this is beautiful

William was the husband of Jane Burden, who was in love with Dante Rosetti, in fact they all lived together for some time - fascinating man to settle for a love triangle.  She was a muse of Rosetti & Morris - she must have been some woman to influence these two men!

This is the pretty boy Rosetti, you can see why Jane was so taken with him! I think he resembles

Leonardo Dicaprio in Romeo & Juliette, what do you think?

If you don't know anything about Morris, please look up info.

There is a room which is now a tea room designed by him in the V & A.  I have eaten there many times, it is wonderful

The wonderful panels

The ceiling & windows

The V & A is worth a visit just for this room

I hope you have enjoyed my ramble through the influences of William Morris in my life.  My sitting room curtains are designed by him.  I see influences everywhere in modern & vintage designs

Check back to here and the BRAIN BLOG to see what transpires!!!

Barmy weather

England has gone bonkers - yesterday the temperature was nearly 90 degrees F & this afternoon it is nearly 50 degrees F (OK maybe more but feels like that temperature)  Its dull, overcast & rainy & very cold
Last night all the windows were open and just a sheet on the bed, here I am sitting with a thick woolly on & a quilt over me, this afternoon at work we had the fire on!!

I am posting pictures of chairs by various artists over on the new challenge blog:
http://creativebrainedges.blogspot.com
This is a joint venture between Dale Rollerson from www.thethreadstudio.com in Australia & yours truly

We are challenging each other 3 times a week to sketch etc & post what we are up to on the blog.  Join in and FOLLOW us, even join the challenge, no costs, no advice, comments would be great
See where our inspirations come from and take us - no doubt at some time into our first love of stitch
Newsletter TEN has been sent - please check your spam boxes just in case it has been sent there, some of you  are not opening the newsletters which is a shame as I do try to add some free creative inspiration to each one.
Here is one of the images the newsletter contains

To find out what it is and how to do it, please join the newsletter or open it!

The Poppy field is fast disappearing, I do hope that I get the privilege of viewing it again next year

Part three of six of FOLLOW MY HEART is due tomorrow, half way through already and the last SMASHEE is due on Friday, I shall miss my fabulous Smashee group - 8 months is a long time & some of the members have been with me for years from the creativechallengers days

I am yet to decide what I am offering next or when I shall repeat the workshop series, summer is a time for me to re-charge my creative batteries, oh how grand that sounds, last year was the start of the horrendous mouth problems & the summer before I had teeth problems, so wish me a good health summer this year, I hope it wont be too hot or humid, at the moment I just feel like veging out doing naught!!  I am sure that that will change

Back to being a sloth on the settee watching England cricket wrapped in my quilt - Is it really nearly July???? x

CREATIVE BRAIN EDGES

Shelagh and Dale have joined forces to push our creative brains a little further each week - textiles / art / design / sketch / draw / paint - who knows?

We are starting on 1st July with a CHAIR
- bookmark us and visit to see what we are up to HERE

Linkedin

ahhhhhh - I was asked to join by a person that I trust, I checked the box for no emails & it has invited all my address book.  If this has offended you, please accept my sincere apologies.  I have no idea how to get out of this.

A BIT OF THIS & A BIT OF THAT

Hi, June in England is still staggering along a bit like April.

Had a lovely lunch yesterday with a friend & again today with two friends, I feel very fortunate to have such good friends.  I received some beautiful orange roses which if the sun appears tomorrow I will photograph.  I also gleefully got a stack of embroidery transfers which contained one of 2 beautiful budgies.  We are still missing our budgie, its so very quiet here & although there is a wall hanging with birds on in place of the cage I still find myself looking and about to whistle.  I have never had a dog or a cat so I cant imagine how awful it must be to lose them.  Cardboard cat is keeping us on our toes.  Give her the food, eat a bit, sniff and walk away a bit.  Out I go with the fork and mash it around, stick it under her nose and she eats a bit more, its a funny game round and round the patio with the fork and a following and chasing cat, heehee.  She is hilarious.

The image above shows how dynamic cut work can be allowing texture to be built up into low relief (3D)

Many different processes were used to complete this piece.  Certainly alot of creative work is stopped just short of resolved.  My advice, cut off a bit, work into the rest more then you have 2 pieces of work, if all fails then cover it in white acrylic or Gesso, even black gesso, wait a few minutes, then take a baby wipe and scrub it off

SYNOPSIS = isnt this a fabulous word, a pattern in itself

Happy stitching x

TRIAL OUTS

I am having a bit of a do with my right eye!!!  A really silly excuse for not posting, but true, I thought that you might like to see some of the textile 'stuff' that I have been creating, along with the books for Follow My Heart, which are for members eyes only! lol

Along with Dale I have been experimenting.  Nope not telling what it is or how its made
but here is another one

A lot of work & time went into this, which I love, sometime soon we will let the secrets out, meanwhile here is another image

The backgound is the wonderful INKTENSE BLOCKS - fabulous blocks of watercolour, with the fantastic property of when they are dry they are permanent.  No other watercolour media has this magic. (as far as I know)
The pencils have been around for a while, but the blocks are something else.  I am having fun experimenting with them
Here is another image

This is based on Broome, Western Australia, remember all the goodies that I received from www.thethreadstudio.com  there was a photograph also and this is my take on that
This is multi layered
Here is my process, be warned takes a good few hours to complete

1. Woven SARI SILK strips - purple, gold, green & fuchsia.
2.  Smashed into Turquoise felt
3.  Distressed with heat tool
4.  Stitched with Rayon variegated thread & disconstructed stitched patterns, densly all over
5.  Sprayed with white Gesso
6.  INKTENSE BLOCKS - again

Still more work to do, but has been shelved in favour of some hand stitching - but cant do it because of the silly eye!!!

Happy Fathers Day to all of you so fortunate to still have your wonderful Dads here so you can cuddle them & give them a kiss.  Love for a parent never fades & is especially strong on special days x to my dad x

SAD NEWS

Hi. I received a phone call this morning telling me that the very kind and lovely lady who gifted the ACCUQUILT GO & GO BABY to the quilters of this area & myself, has passed away suddenly.
She was in her beloved garden, it was a really beautiful day so I thank God for that mercy for her.

As we stagger through our lives we rarely are touched by genuine kindness & thoughtfulness.  She was one of a rare breed & I shall remember her happy face when I lugged all the wonderous gifts up to her door.  Her excitement was infectous

PUSSEO & POPPIES

Good morning from a very sunny England.  The field is now a complete carpet of red, it is astonishing.
The colours in this picture would make a wonderful weaving for stitch, as the proportions are balanced & the colours are unusual
I shall paint a page & post it later!
And here it is!
I walked to the field, hoping to get there whilst the sun was shining, to no avail, it was windy, cloudy & felt really chill.  I climbed over a 5 bar gate & crawled around in the dense undergrowth to take these pictures

The field did not look so stunning close up as the poppies were quite scattered, they must have some sense to not grow too near to each other.  The heads were huge for field poppies & there were some variations in the colours, so I guess in the species.

This is part of the lane where I walk, I love the intregue of rounding the corner to see part of this

The village I live in has a church dating back to the 10th Century

Arriving at the poppy field, I love the hard austere form of the bars with the soft colourful fields beyond

Hiding in the undergrowth

This is all the corn that is left - this field is usually all oil seed rape, so it had a really strange mixture of plants

Just quite simply WOW, I am just so pleased with this shot especially as it was so overcast.  I left going until the golden hour, only to be thwarted by the clouds

Here is the painted book page with a real poppy picked from the field, the poppy is now safely under acrylic medium in my book

I decided that I could not be bothered / didnt have time to do anything radical with the colours except to band them into proportions, seemed like fun to put the green that started it all in the sky

So Here is the end of the Poppy field tale - perhaps taking a picture out of your window might inspire you to a small body of work?  I know that I shall cherish my images, especially when the field is full of frost & snow!

On to Pusseo now

Here is PUSSEO (aka Charlotte, lottie, cardboardcat, Smellycat, stinkypuss, fish?!, Oi - could a cat have more names lol)

sunning herself on the patio this morning.  She is so very odd, from here she went to sit on the wet lawn in the shade just plonk, she does make me laugh, sometimes she sits in a flower pot, I am sure that she is a bit mad, so suits us fine!

As it now evening, I had better go and feed her

Have a lovely weekend. x

ODD WEEK

 This has been a bit of an odd week.  I am still feeling 'under the weather' so to speak, so very tired all the time.  Had a blood test this morning so maybe that will throw a light on what is up.  You know I could just eat an enormous cream cake filled with sugar sugar sugar - wow that would help the diabetes wouldnt it!  Maybe it might wake me up for a moment.

I am surrounded by altered books in various stages of dressing & have 'aquired' a few more bits & pieces including a couple of books & some more Sari ribbon from Dale including her new book on Sari ribbon which is just scrumptious, oh and more sprays.....  Elsewhere some stamps have arrived which were very good value, a little small but quite good detail - I expect they will make an appearance in Follow My Heart!!  My daughter bought me another Paperchase book & some more stickers, rubbing alcolhol (hmmm nice smell lol) some differnet gel mediums & a whole fistful of punches have also been squirreled into the studio.  Its so good that I have expanding walls.  I have re-written the laws of physics...!!!!
Taking of that did you see the information on the Voyager spacecrafts yesterday?  Its 33 years since they were launched - THIRTY THREE YEARS - I am still reeling at where did my life go.  I vividly remember watching the launch & being really interested in them.  Wow.
Yuk its started raining on is very dark & gloomy but we desparately need the rain as here in Northamptonshire we have been declared a drought region from today.  I suppose now it will rain for months as I have been to Tesco & bought lots of thin little tops as there was a half price offer.  Okay they will probably go all baggy on first wash, but it did cheer me up a bit.  I must confess to wandering around M & S as well with something that looked like coat hangers on my arm.
Its tea time now & I want to get a NEWSLETTER out this evening, so please check you spam boxes if it does not arrive.
- happy stitching x

EYES

One of the problems with being diabetic is what happens to your eyes.  Mine have been very naughty since I have been ill & are causing me problems, quite worrying.  Today I had to have my annual retinal screening where drops are put inyour eyes to make the pupils go huge, very attractive like a huge puppy eyes, especially as mine are brown, but initially painful & lasting bluriness (is that a word?)  Feel quite silly sittting here with sunglasses on, not easy to type either lol
So today absolutely no creatively, except for the two classes that I taught, fabulous work, I was going to photograph and then promptly forgot, so sorry ladies, so sorry bloggers
Program on at the moment about Roy Lichtenstein

Very appropriate image this!!!!

Back tomorrow hopefully

LIVID

Ok time to let off steam

On monday  went online to see if I had 'won' any olympic tickets (I hadnt) then I noticed a withdrawal out of my account the dame time as my DH had put a cheque in.  I immediately phoned the bank, who put a stop on my account & told me to check again the next day (odd I thought) the next day I received a scruffy letter saying they had put a cheque wrongly into my account & then decided to just remove the money (this I have been told is illegal without informing me first)
All this week I have had bouncing emails from Amazon who wont pay for my goods, very odd I thought as I had another letter saying my account was now ok
Then today at work my card was declined.  So b...... embarrassing, I was livid
SO I have just sent a really snotty email to the bank, lets see what they do about it

On another moan tack remember the mad train ride when we could not get off, have had a really lovely letter from network rail asking us to send the tickets off to them for a 'goodwill gesture'

Actually had a lovely day with 4 really nice people finishing off the SNOWY LINEN LAND quilt at Poppy Patch & getting my new ACCUQUILT GO die - Ricky Tims applique die, ohhh its fab, so I should be using it, instead of whinging on to you on here!!!!
Jesters - I am no artist - my daughter is - I am just a designer

Oh for goodness sake now I cant post pictures or even make the text larger - blogger breakdown.......Shelagh scream ahhhhhhhhh

POPPY FIELD

As promised the bright lime green field two days ago has now turned into a sea of red

I have not photographed the altered page now it has the poppies on yet - as the book is drying another page of experimentation. Back later
Here it is

I added small red dots the day I noticed the poppies, they needed a while to dry as the picture was covered with acrylic medium & varnish making it shiny.  I used Pitt pens for the dots.
I drew the Poppy with An Indian ink black pitt pen & whilst hunting for my Inktense pencils - to no avail, found my Sakura pens & one Inktense pencil, guess what colour Poppy Red - now thats amazing....and we won the lottery this week ten whole pounds, pays for next month only way!
I coloured the Poppy with 2 colours of Sakura & the Inktense wet.
On the right hand side from my window are bushes.
I drew the main stems on with the black indian ink, then grabbed a christmas tree stamp & stazon, green & black & stamped the foiliage on
I think this is finished now, not at all like the original plan of the lime green field in the late evening sun.  If I had not observed & recorded it, this piece would never have  been made - true serendipity
Hope you enjoyed seeing the process.
In my workshop Follow my Heart this is one of the kind of processes we will use, then translate the design into stitch.  If I do this one then I will show it.
Time to eat & sit in the sun

REGISTRATIONS CLOSED

Hi from a hot & humid England - this resembles my brain today struggling to get a resonable thought - fish & chips helped though!

Registrations for FOLLOW MY HEART have now closed

Each student will be working on their own theme or following my heart into an English Country Garden.

Pusseo the cardboard box cat left some of her dinner, we usually bring it in, because of ants & other wee beasties, my DH has just shouted up the stairs look out the window & there as bold as brass was a hedgehog eating her food, dont know where she was, but it is very funny.  Noe should we perhaps put a little cardboard box out for the hedgehog eh?
A nice box arrived yesterday from Greatart maybe that will do :-)

Forgot to take a picture, this evening, of the field which is now full of bright red poppies - will try to do better tomorrow

POPPIES

Today the sun has shone most of the day, sitting at my desk a couple of hours ago, the sun was shining again on the scene from last night, but this time the sky was washed with a brighter blue, then I spied the lime green field, overnight it has sprouted bright red poppies, swathes of them
So the first thing I shall do with my design from last post is to add some red highlights

I worked some more this morning on the book page before going to work.  Rotten coughing night, got so fed up with it & the cramp from being inactive that I got up early
I dont know, sometimes I just despair of computers.
I wrote this 3 hours ago, then Picasa where I store my photos decided that it would re-install all the photos.  So I watched the Secret Millionaire - you know as you do - when the silly puter is enjoying itself being naughty
Hey ho
Back to the puter to post the new FOLLOW MY HEART WORKSHOP - you still have a day to enrol quick.... http://shelaghfolgate.bigcartel.com
I digress, must get the promo in eh!! drives you mad I bet?
Well it had gobbled up all the photos from 25th May onwards, all of last nights.  I am going mad and madder & then really annoyed then upset.
Turn it off, turn it on, turn it off oh you know on and on, then I thought hum do a search well I found them....(oh joy!!) where 2011:05:30 - yep of course we all look for things under THAT don't we??????

So I am posting this picture, the one with the tiny poppies is drying, I cant face any more photo histrionics, I am off to bed - mumble mumble - hope I get some sleep tonight I am beginning to feel a bit like I am drunk huh that would be a treat no booze for me for 2 years now cause of the diabetes, I guess a sniff would keel me over - oh blow I am going to bed x  Cardboard cat (pusseo) has a bottomless stomach tonight, meat and meat and more meat miaow, perhaps she has a midnight tryst with Ginger cool or big puss & needs all her strength hoho she is not worried about a distended stomach & a girdle......mad woman...sleep zzzzzzzzz