FOG AWAY

HI, sorry been AfBWOL.  Its been very foggy here both outside and in my head.  I succumbed to the November chills and not wanting to impart tales of woe is me, skulked away from blogland.  But BACK NOW!
I have some fantastic slipper boots - so what you might says but I have ginormous feet and have never been able to find any that fit, these are fabullous and even better they are a pressie from Sally, thank you so much, my feet are so toasty. x

I am busy designing a quilt for my classes after Christmas.  Spring Flowers.  These are my blocks or a twist on traditional blocks.  I know that I dont blog my patchwork much, when the Christmas runner comes back from its temporary home at work then I shall show.  I need to finish off the table mats that are in various stages of constructions before the big day.

Those of you who have been Leafing along with me on the newsletter will appreciate this image.  It was taken by Ruth (thanks) after a heads up from Carolyn (great observation)  This is after the rain on the new stone pavement near where I work.  This is not a leaf it is an imprint left on the stone from when the leaf was there

This is the pavement, wow look at the fabulous patterns

Here is another one, I bet the council are a bit peeved at this but they do look so fabulous dont they.
Yesterday was glorious in the morning, so I walked to church.  In the distance I could hear the clinking of bottles being smashed in the refuse lorry and drilling and hammering, horses neighing and dogs barking.  I closed the church door and silence.
It was completely peaceful and beautiful with the watery November sun shafting through the side stainglass panes.  It was quiet, hey it was quiet.  I was at the altar and everything was quiet.  I am a sufferer of tinnitus, its never quiet in my head, but for a few fleeting moments, I was aware of nothing.  The power of the place, co-incidence or a whatever, it was a pure moment to cherish & I wanted to share it with you.  Normal droning & swishing has returned,my brain cells like to have a rave-up lol
I shall leaf it a bit (groan) with the newsletters as there have been quite a few in a short space of time, dont want to wear out your inboxes.  It is still very suprising that a few are not opened, especially as there has been alot of creative information recently.
I took some fab images yesterday which need to be uploaded, so check back soon for more of my drivel.  I am sooooo glad the fog has gone. Thanks for reading x

TODAYS BARGAIN

QUICK - for one day (24 hours only) HUBBLE BUBBLE DOLL is HALF PRICE   HERE

This is the best bargain as it is a complete workshop,
Fabric dyeing
Surface decoration
Constructing an embellished skirt
Constructing a textured blouse
Constructing a novel jacket
Making unique hair
All techniques included, all patterns included, many full colour step by step photos
Instructions in English
SPECIAL OFFER until 5pm BST 18th November 2011
Christmas offer buy for a friend, select a date to be sent & receive the workshop for yourself as well
Time limit - number of half price workshops limited....quick before its gone.....

(Not feeling very well, guess the dreaded virus has caught up with me now...cough cough...ahhhhh x)

CATCH IT IF YOU CAN!!

Todays SPECIAL OFFER:  24 hours to BST 4pm 17 November - Half price SILKEN TALES on HERE
Quick before its gone & watch out for more seasonal offers - If you want it as a pressie then I can send it for you on the date & you get a workshop as well 2 for 1 - bargain

CHANGING TIMES

A few posts ago I explained about the proposed changes to my local church.  When I was studying for my A level photography I took a series of shots in the graveyard, a beautiful and lovely place
this is a shot of the gate with my favourite shadows

I truely love this picture, shape, texture, line and form with broken colour, repetition, it has it all.  But no MORE it has been destroyed, by the so called march of progress.  In tis place is a perfect wall and a new wooden gate, very 'nice'

The point of this micro rant - take your camera everywhere, record the present before it is lost forwever, okay you may think so what a rusty old gate, but think of how many people have used this gate?  The feelings of the visitors.  The church is very old dating from the 12th century, I dont for one minute think that it that old but certainly a century, lost, gone, swept away.  Progress, bah humbug, oh dear am getting old.  Saying that, repeats what my DH has just said, is Pointless on yet?? Oh dear we are getting old we have a teatime program to watch.  It was once Countdown when the children were young, good for their vocab and maths.  Then Stargate through teenage years, good for science, & jolly good laugh & fun all together, now the nest is empty and we are on our laptops watching pointless, learning rubbish just for ourselves,  Tomorrow take your camera or phone and snap away, we are so lucky to have digital and to be able to record the wonderful world around us.  One day I will make a piece of work from this photo.

Thanks for reading - what do you think?

Link

Very seldom do I make Two posts on one day but this post from LINNIECAT shows a  tribute for today
LINK HERE

HO HO BACK AGAIN

Watching F1.  I was leaping about when Vettel went off at the second corner, not going to gloat until Lewis wins and Jenson comes second.
Beautiful day here after such a gloomy week.
I have Transfer printed with leaves.  Putting together the Page workshop on the blog and the Newsletter workshop.
If you join the newsletter this week then I will send you all the Autumn series which explains the leaf method.
The next one will arrive on Weds to allow you to create your background.  I have worked out the very simplest Mailchimp chump newsletter format and will stick to that, at least I can now post as many photos as I want.
Some NEW workshops will be appearing for sale soon and tonight the SPECIAL OFFER on Taking transfer printing further, which includes a complete project that uses leaves as an inspiration, comes to an end, so GET IT whilst its cheap & watch out for another deal.  The other workshops for sale are full price, they reflect the amount of work and the huge content that they contain.  If you are interested in one (or more) and want to know more about what they contain (I can only post one image in bigcartel) then please email me on
shelaghfolgate@aol.com

I am repeating the offer from last Christmas.  In that if you want a workshop as a pressie for someone, I will send it on a pre-arranged date and you will also get the workshop - so thats 2 WORKSHOPS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE
Please remember that a workshop is NOT to be copied PLEASE.  You have paid, I spend a long time and money developing these ORIGINAL ideas.  Thank you have a lovely Sunday, thanks for reading x

GREY WEEK

What a boring grey old week, dull and duller with rain and mist, at the moment there is no wind which is so strange as I live on top of a very windy hill.  The trees have dumped their leaves, wallop and our lawn is strewn with the most incredible colours, bright lime green grass so lush and golden yellow and orange leaves needing to be swept up.  After a period like this it usually gets really windy and the leaves fly around and hide themselves in the undergrowth, making a wonderful bed for all the little creepy crawlies that live in the garden.  Especially the huge big fat slugs that if we are not quick enough to bring Pusseos meat in, gorge themselves on cat food.  I have taken to flinging them across the lawn in the hopes that they are so slow it will take a week to get back to the patio. I do wonder what they think as they fly through the air.  Does not seem to bother the cat though that they eat her food.  Hedgehogs have disappeared now, probably making their beds in the leaves.  I am watching F1 qualifying at the moment such a wonderful looking circuit, all that money part of me loves it and part thinks its a terrible waste of resources.  I have many arguments with myself.

Yesterday we had the next workshop in the Happy Hornets charity days.  We have now wadded and backed the quilts for  Help for Heroes, ready for quilting, seemed appropriate to hold the day on Armistice day.  Very emotional day & my heart goes out to all the families and friends of our service personnel who are serving, have been injured or have given the ultimate sacrifice, that includes the fire service of which my son is part.  God bless them all for making our world a safer place

Transfer Printing - COLOUR ONTO CLOTH

In the pages section there is a Free workshop page.  At the moment it is about Transfer printing with crayons.  Check it out.  This image is ALL transfer printed, it is part of a full workshop called Taking it Further - COLOUR ONTO CLOTH Transfer painting, available HERE, for a few days this will be available at a special price

I am working on a theme of LEAVES at the moment, a FREE workshop is available in my Newsletters, this is ongoing and a new newsletter will be arriving shortly

Thanks for reading x

Magical transfer printing - Shelagh style :-)

LEAVES

Good morning for a beautiful England, I have just been out to capture these images.  Those of you who subscribe to my newsletter will know what to do with the images
This is the view from my patio.

The stickin the centre is in fact a beautiful lime green Acer, whose leaves have long gone

Cropped detail of the colours

Look at the wonderful SHAPES, LINES & COLOUR.  Dont just look really study & SEE

If you click on the image it will enlarge.  Look at the sturcture of the leaf, the thickness of the line, the marks made around the edges.  Look how the colour of the leaf on the right hand side is deeper bringing it forward and the leaves on the lefthand side are brighter and paler and are receeding giving the image FORM.  Assess the ACTUAL TEXTURE, the ridges and the mottled VISUAL TEXTURE.  This one image encompasses Design elements & principles IF YOU LOOK & SEE HARD ENOUGH

Goodness I sound like a school teacher, hey thats what I am!!!!!

I love shadows, ever since I discovered BRASSAI whilst studying photography.

Tints, tones & shades of one colour

Whereever you are in the world, see if you can find some interesting leaves to study

For those of you following on the NEWSLETTER, here are the reverse of leaves from my garden this morning, note how some are much more interesting than others in detail, also that some have more interesting shapes.  On the creativebrainedges blog, Dale has posted an interesting leaf from Australia.
Now I am going to 'be creative' with these leaves - results in the next newsletter (I will beat the chump I will)
Thanks for reading have a lovely day x

NEW TAB - FREE TUTORIAL WORKSHOP

Hi, Look UNDER the picture / image at the top of the blog and you will see a COMPLETELY NEW PAGE TAB.  As the challenge did not take off I thought that I might add FREE WORKSHOP TUTORIALS to the blog.  Check it out, it is the first of many which will change from time to time.  Not the same as the excellent TASTER pages that Dale over on http://downunderdale.blogspot.com is doing, but my own version - I must hold my hand up to being inspired by her idea - but they are not tasters & I am not selling anything except my workshops (as usual)
SIGN UP FOR MY NEWSLETTER - Another FREE tutorial is being sent in those.  AUTUMN NEWSLETTER 2 is ready to post
We are very happy family here as we have good news, although it was delivered at 1am this morning and we lost 3 hours of sleep we are all so very happy x

AUTUMN NEWSLETTER

Hi/  I have just sent the Autumn newsletter, it has some printing information, so if you are interested then please sign up.  I can see stats of how many people open the newsletter, it seems that so people dont look at it at all, I would love to know why, please leave a comment.  I always try to put come creative info, its not a promotional newsletter for sales even though I have some new workshops for sale on bigcartel and etsy )actually I must be honest I forgot to include them, I do hat Mail chump)

Any guesses what this is??

Enlarge the photo & have a guess

Off to bed as question time is 'a-doing my head in'!!!!!!!!

ITS A SHAME

HI.  Unfortunately there were not enough takers for the free workshop, so sorry to those who fancied a bit of a challenge. So it has been cancelled :-(  I shall have a re-think