What a delight......

It is not often you can say that about an AGM but today was the AGM of the Sevenoaks branch of the Embroiderers Guild and the guest speaker was Frances Pickering. We have only had a months break but it seemed longer and it was lovely this morning to settle into the familiar pattern of chat and stitch, admiring expertise and sharing techniques and laughter.
The business part of the day was swiftly accomplished and we settle down to the delights of Frances' books. She generously allowed the books to be passed round so that you could feel them and admire them in detail. For the last few weeks I have been thinking that what I wanted to do is to get back to making books and now I am certain. I am determined to find a way to bring together all the techniques I have been learning.

Speaking of which I would like to thank whoever posted the link to Suzi Blu , I should have made a note at the time, if you read this please leave a comment so that I can thank you properly. Suzi's videos of journal keeping are another delight. I am a fan and have promised myself to start this week while we are away though I won't have full access to all my goodies, (luggage will probably be vetted!!!)I will have some bits and pieces with me.


This is one I made earlier whilst on holiday in Cyprus.

No fanfares......

Last Thursday I posted a piece in which I mentioned our wedding anniversary. Lynda of Purple Missus (have you seen what she posted yesterday?) left a comment which had Ken and I laughing.
She said

"The 46th Wedding Anniversary does not have any traditional materials or Symbols associated with it.

A contemporary or modern 46th anniversary gift has a theme of Original Poetry Tribute.

This Wedding Anniversary does not have any Flowers associated with it.

This Anniversary does not have any Gemstones associated with it.

So it looks like you and DH are going to have to write each other a poem :)

Well my particular DH is not the one for poetry but I thought "How sweet" and decided to have a go.

This is the result.

46 years
no flowers
nor fuss,
no gemstones
nor
fanfares

just us...........

.........(I did set this out in modern poetry fashion but blogger thought better!!))

I was going to present him with it on the day unfortuately we both forgot it completely and it was not until yesterday when someone asked me the date that I remembered. Heigh ho!!!

This is the way we were............



We are off to Somerset on Sunday, with fingers crossed for the weather after our wet weather in Cyprus. I have probably said this before but the reason we are going is to visit Tyntesfield one of the National Trust's latest treasures. I hope to come back with loads of wonderful photographs like this. I wish.


Courtesy National Trust

A toy.....

On the Textile Page of the V&A Museum there is a button where you can design your own textile, interesting to see how the different colours alter the "feel" of the piece.


Enjoy!

What I did this weekend......

Do you remember those essays you had to write "What I did ......this weekend, on my holiday...." etc. That completely ruined the.......weekend, holiday..... as you struggled with "On my...I......and then...............and then...........and then."

Well here what I did this weekend, I started a picture which I hoped would be the start of a fabric book, and then I set it aside because I was not happy with it,

and then I did my TAST stitch for this week, Knotted Buttonhole Stitch,

and then I worked on my other project which is a secret and then I went back to my fabric book picture and added something which made me happier.

The End.

Not quite, Redskins versus New York Giants on now!!!

Some time ago I lost all my links to Art Museums all over the world, I have just started to re-install them. I have just looked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and given the interest on drawing in the blogs I look at, lately, I would like to highlight this link to Van Gogh
Since we lived in Belgium 40 odd years ago we have had two Van Gogh prints in the living room . It seems that all great artists have put the greatest importance to Drawing. One of a man
and the other of a woman digging
These pictures are from the site which catalogues the complete works of Vincent Van Gogh

We bought prints of these at the Van Gogh Museum (which was in Arnhem at that time) and bought the frames in a shop in Brussels on a lovely sunny Autumn day.(Funny the things you remember). We were so young then, but we loved the idea of this man and woman working side by side and as our 46th Anniversary approaches I hope they typify the way we have worked together.

TAST week 37

See what happens when you go off visiting art galleries....., I feel this has a modern art feel to it but I'm probably just being whimsical.


Seriously, I didn't want to do this on a counted thread background but wanted to keep the feel of it being a mainly canvas stitch. So I made a grid on the embellisher and added the stitches, at first I was going to show variations but I couldn't get it to look "right" so I settled for this. I then added a digital blue border because of my black blog background.

Background noise...

I have just watched the BBC documentary on the installation of the exhibition of the Terracotta Army at the British Museum. I am so looking forward to seeing this exhibition but this programme was ruined for me by the invasive "background" music which made it impossible, at times, to hear the commentary!!!

A wonderful day....

and by that I mean a day full of wonders.
But first I must say thank you to those kind people who who sent me birthday wishes and commented on my last post. Comments from people whose work you admire are always precious.

For my birthday my best friend bought me and Art Fund card. What a wonderful present, I couldn't wait to start using it so I planned to visit the Oiticica exhibition at the Tate Moderen. I told Ken I would be back by lunchtime and on a beautiful golden September morning (I love my birth month) I took the train to London Bridge and thought I would walk along the South Bank of the Thames. As I walked from the train I thought "I have never visited Southwark Cathedral". So as there was no rush I made the deviation and found myself in the middle of Borough Market. What a delight, I am sure that this is one of those places that everyone but me knows about but for me it was a revelation, I was able to buy a piece of Ginger Parkin for my Yorkshire born husband and for my Lancastian self I bought Morecame Bay Shrimps. There was so much else I could have bought, here is a taste.(sorry about the pun)




I tore myself away from the sights and sounds and the tastes of the market and realised that I still hadn't visited the cathedral. It was worth the visit, although Shakespeare was buried in Stratford, I believe, there is a memorial to him here as it was so close to where here worked at the Globe Theatre.
As I finally made my way toward Tate Modern I realised that there was more activity than normal but then it was a beautiful day. I went to the Oiticia exhibition which made me think about using squares and oblongs. I promised myself I would try some different page layouts. I do not understand "modern" art I only know there are pieces that I like for their colour or form, I wish I knew more but it is like music there is a point where it appears to hold nothing for me. (Pop music stopped with Billy Joel as far as I 'm concerned:-))
When I came out, ready to quickly make my way to Charing Cross and home I realised that there was definitely something going on, when else do you have people dancing tango on the south bank of the Thames? It was in fact the Thames Festival . It took me three more hours before I reached Charing Cross as I enjoyed music from all over the world, dancing, bubbles, Punch and Judy, stalls and food and hundreds of people enjoying the autumn sunshine. What a delight.




I finished up in the newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall,where there was a "happening" organised by [re]design where various organisations had come together to allow all kinds of creativity, making badges from scaps of fabric, monsters from recycled blankets, knitted plastic bags, stools from old newspapers and a wish bench from old cardboard.
I made my wish and crossed the Hungerford bridge for home. I sat on the train with my mind teaming with ideas that will probably never see the light of day but THIS day was a rare and special treat.

Well now.........

A busy week which started with my birthday on Sunday, 66 on the 99, I thought there should be something terribly significant about it appears not. Unless it marks an acceleration of the crumbling process, which is a very poor attempt at a link for the Lutradur and Lace challenge on the Fibre and Stitch Group .
Pictures are worth a thousand etc... so here are the stages.

I was tempted to leave it at this stage but I can't resist trying to see what will happen if.....so I added organza, zapped and then leaves
.
Beads came next

Still not satified I zapped again...and the piece is now called Atumn, Bounty and Decay which makes it a very appropriate piece for my birthday.

I may add some more stitching and it needs mounting on a proper background, I think it will probably end up as the cover of a book.

The Missing Link....................

TAST week 36 and Cable Chain Stitch. I had a little trouble with the twist to start off with but then I was away and running out of thread was the only thing which stopped me. This is definitely one of the repertoire.


Almost inevitably this became a chain and I added the missing link, sometime in the future I would like to try and use this stitch for something like a charm bracelet.

Who's a lucky girl then...

What a lovely way to start the week.

The first thing that dropped through my door today was this lovely scrim I had ordered from Lynda, Purple Missus.
The depth of the colours is wonderful.


While I was still admiring the scrim another package came through the door and this was from Britt, Stitcherty Grub .


Don't you just love that sleepy little koala bear?

The bottom ATC has a little story attached.

Once upon a time a lowly duster crossed land and sea until it reached a far away land, this must have been a magical place for when the little piece of duster finally arrived home it was transformed into something sparkly and beautiful!!!
Ir this the most travelled ATC I ask myself. Thanks Britt, what fun.

But that wasn't all,


Britt also sent this card, her wonderful little scrissor-keeper (makes it so easy to find your scissors) and a bag or wonderful bits.

Well this was all too much for me, I headed for my workroom and my embellisher and this is the reult. Some of Lynda's scrim, some or Britts threads, and a bit of organza, no idea in my head but this is what appeared.


There are only three stitches in this piece, those holding down the "eye", the rest is all the embellisher. Marvellous machine!

Information overload..................

This weekend I have experienced what can only be called an information overload, on the same day I received Fibre and Stitch, Cloth, Paper and Scissors and yesterday, Workshop on the Web., not to ignore the fact that I hadn't yet completed my TAST this week.

CPS and WOW were both very good issues and right up to standard, F&S, if it keeps up this standard, will be very good and at the moment the Yahoo Group for F&S(which is by invite), has so many messages,that I can't keep up.

But now to this weeks TAST. When I read Shisha stitch my heart sank as I once spent a miserable afternoon in a Workshop trying to come to attach a mirror. Suprisingly I couldn't find the mirror!! But I did find some large sequins and managed, hoorah, to fix them to the cloth. Thanks Sharon!!! I always associate India with bright rich colours mainly because of this small but brilliant Phaidon book on India so here is my TAST sample for this week.

Not as bright as in reality but my computer seems to have a problem with red and pinks. Little does it know it is soon to be replaced. I hope!!!