Spectacular day....

in every way. Firstly the glorious weather, this is what winter should be like, cold but sunny and sparkling. This was the Darenth Valley this morning on the way to Ebroiderers Guild.


and here's one you might like to play with, try it in negative image for starters.
In a couple of months this will be reminiscent of Provence, purple with lavender, just hope we have the weather to match.

The spectacular day continued when I arrived at the EG for a workshop with Frances Pickering . As you can see if you visit her site Frances makes the most beautiful books. I have already mentioned her generosity when she visited us a speaker at our AGM. and she shows the same generosity as a teacher. I think I can safely say we all had a wonderful day full of laughter and excitement. Her books are really something and part of her generosity is in allowing any amount of handling of her beautiful books.
As my own measure of appreciation of anything handmade is my desire to handle it you can imagine I was very happy. They all have their own charm but the ones I liked most were the tiny ones and following Frances' suggestion this is what I chose to do,(2.5" by 2.5") meanwhile panicking for a theme, for she encouraged us to think of the completed book before we started and to keep it in mid all the way through.
By co-incidence an EG friend had seen and shared my enthousiasm for the performance of Sondheim's "Into the Woods" so this became my theme. This is my own offering so far.. this is the cover which we had to make first.
Pelmet vilene, gesso, acrylic paint and Treasure Gold and twigs I ran out to pinch from the hedgerow.

and this is where I really became excited, we made the pages for the inside and started decorate them. This is my first combined with the second,


I cut the tree out free hand so I was pretty darned pleased with myself!!
My friend Gudrun gave me the leaf which was just perfect She had been standing at a bus stop and noticed these skeleton leaves and instead of just standing there she had made a collection, aren't artistic people wonderful the way they see the world!!!
I hope one day I will be able to take a workshop with Frances at her studio, I am sure it would be an experience. Can't wait for the morning when I can go and do a little more.