B.......

Half way through the Craft Barn Alphabet Challenge and the letter B. I was tempted by Beautiful Butterflies and Bees but settled on "Bunting". I was intigued by the defintion in my old dictionary, that it applied to "the woollen fabric from which flags of ships are made" and also that it was the name of a bird.  I had a look at the bird and was delighted to find there is one called a Painted Bunting. What a beauty, not found in the UK unfortunately.

I went with the more modern use of Bunting. As usual I turned to gelli prints, one for the background and one for the flags and a couple of birds. The poles are just strips of corrugated card.

Thinking about this oviously worked into my subconcious and last night (this morning) I dreamt I was making the most wonderful collage.  As I woke up the image faded, no matter how hard I tried to capture it and by the time I was fully awake it had gone completely.  Ah well.

Look carefully....

A friend sent me this amazing image and I just had to share,

 a thistle.....but look carefully . It is made from images of humans by Cecelia Webber, take a look at her site you will be amazed.

Fun and flowers....

Yesterday was the monthly meet of "the Girls" and we had a great day making these, from an idea in the book "Handmade Decorative Books" by Sue Roddis.

 V's

 M's

 G's, she decided to mount them on cards

 and mine

They stand up but this was the easiest way to photograph them. We decided there were endless ideas for this format. Great fun.
Across from our meeting place was this amazing sight.

and my mauve rose had opened.

Colour.....

On Wednesday we visited the Kaffe Fassett exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London. Although familiar with his name, in my ignorance I have always associated him with rather grungy knitting.  All I can is Wow. On the one occasion I didn't take my "proper" camera to London I was suprised to find photography was allowed, so I had to rely on my little ipod. 

 This was the "Please Touch" wall just pieces of fabric loosely attached, gorgeous.

If you want colour,  put his name into Google Images. Like I said. Wow.

U....playing with matches.

gosh these fortnights go quickly.  Craft Barn Challenge time again, this time the letter U.  Well what a negative letter it is, all those "uns". I the dictionary I am using these were only 4 pages of words starting with U that didn't start with UN and 16 pages that did.  Didn't know where to start and then I say "Ustulation"...never heard of it, never seen it. It means, according to my old dictionary, "the act of burning or searing; ....the roasting or drying of moist substances so as to prepare them for pulverising"  Sounds a bit like my cooking.
I was sorting some photo files and came across a picture I took in Autumn 2008 and it occurred that Autumn is a bit like Mother Nature doing a bit of Ustulation. So here it is.

I played with the phot in Paint Shop Pro adding some flames and then I burned the edges with a candle and a lot of blowing out. The background is collaged book pages because I also thought how many times, down through the ages,  books have been burned. Here it is with the dictionary definition tag.

Sorry it's a bit wonky, couldn't get it to scan straight.

Later that day.......

the sun really came out and I had forgotten how breathtaking the Lake District is in Spring.  We stopped at Muncaster Castle, somewhere I had never visited. The Pennington family have lived there for 800 years and who can blame them. It stands high overlooking the Esk valley, these are view from the terrace.

There were Rhodedendrons in full bloom everwhere, we are not usuall so lucky with out timing,

And the owls......Muncaster is the home of the World Owl Trust.  I have a fondness for owls, their shape, their eyes and after once being allowed to stoke one their beautiful soft feathers. Just look at these beauties.

This last one looked as though he was carved out of wood.

Ulpha Fell......

To reach Wastwater we decided to go over Ulpha Fell, the road is narrow and it involves a lot of squeezing into the side to pass oncoming traffic but the view is worth it.

There were lots of sheep,

but these two were a lovely surprise.

Lakeland....

Many people know of Windermere and Coniston lakes but to the west there are some lakes which don't attract quite so much traffic.  This time we went to Wastwater which is the deepest lake in England, the mountain falls into the lake and just keeps on going.  It is a place which alters character with the weather, which can happen within  minutes, when we visited the clouds were down over Scafell (England's highest mountain) but beautiful I think you will agree.

 

These are the screes, I am told that sometimes you can actually see the rocks falling into the lake.

Iron Men......

We took a short trip to my homeland, on the way DH gratified a long standing wish of mine, to see the Antony Gormley statues titled Another Place.  I had always thought of seeing them at sunset but it rained for the whole 4 hour journey and we walked to the beach sheltering under an umbrella.  But it was worth it.  This was my first sight to the left

and to the right

They stretch as far a the eye can see. My biggest surprise was that they were life size, perhaps because of the Angel of the North, I had always imagined they were large. It is hard to describe all the thoughts they raised, peace, a longing, of just wanting to stand and stare with them.

The next morning the sun appeared and I went back, there was a completely different atmosphere to the beach.

I would have loved to walk in the sunshine to find the end of them and  it would have been interesting to watch the tide come in but we had to journey on. I wondered what this one was thinking as he gazed at the wind farm.

 I liked this use of recycled Christmas trees to stop the sand drifting.

You can see more of Antony Gormley's work here.