Disappointment and delight..........

Yesterday, a remarkably murky day even for London in November, I went to visit the  Finch exhibition at Anthropologie in the Kings Road, Chelsea.  The display was confined to one small room

and two windows,

 This mas me smile.

  Because of all the publicity it has had I think I was expecting a much larger exhibition so I left feeling vaguely disappointed.

I hopped on a bus to Harrods and found these,  in between the large window displays were these tiny
delights. Who knew what goes on under our feet.

If you click you should get a closer view. The reflections and the snow effect made them quite difficult to photograph and they were set quite high, we commented that they were above child height, which seems a shame.  So much fun and whimsy, massive congratulations to and envy of the people who made them.  I would love to go again.

On another note entirely, I have probably been living inside my head but this morning I found this magazine
Through our Hands,
 
 it is now on it's third issue and you can read it on line or pay for a pdf copy.
Thanks to Margaret Cooter for the link.

Keeping up........

...... Just.

Bust week last week with a meeting of The Girls where we tried to get to grips with the mysteries of the Needle Punch.  I failed miserably but as a reminder of the fun trying I looked for a stitch for my  runner that would resemble the loops. Thanks to Mary Corbet I found Turkey Work and after a bit of trial error I managed two lines.

Documented Life this week was to use an envelope from the mailbox.  I received a store card and it was in a very nice folder which I decided was more interesting than an envelope.  Thursday was a trip to the pantomime at Erith Playhouse, "Beauty and the Beast", written and directed by a good friend, Great fun to boo and hiss and watch other friends being extremely silly,.  So I popped this into my "journal".

 

with the programme inside

Saturday was a trip to Bromley Embroiderers Guild to hear a talk by Lynda Monk.  as ever she was informative and amusing.  So generous with her knowledge and such wonderful things to see.  I bought two or her screens for printing and trying out some of the techniques she spoke about, so watch this space.


I promised myself that when I put something on my Pinterest board I would also put it here. The other  morning I found this.  Adding fabric to a tag..  I have done it to make book pages before but thought this has many possibilities.

 You can see the full tutorial here at Yours Artfully 

and this morning thanks to BJ of ccrafts corner I found this great use for old Christmas cards,


 I only hope I can remember it when the season comes round again.

Christmas came early......

Yesterday it was the monthly meeting of The Girls and we were to have our pre-Christmas meeting. Unfortunately, one friend had the current cold but bless she did send us a little gift. It is now on the tree.

The little tin contain threads. 

 

The other gifts I received were this tool which I never seen before.. We will be playing with this next time we meet.

 and this wonderful ornament of my initial in mosaic it stands about 9 inches high.. Clever girl.

My present to them was this

 

which I hope will give them some fun.

Our hostess for the day had gone to great pains to create the right atmosphere right on the doorstep.

 

As you can imagine, we fell through the door in fits of laughter.  

Lots of chatter, some lovely food and not to over tax ourselves we

made one of these. Tutorial here

Great day with a very special little group who have given me so much pleasure.

December..part 2

The John Lewis windows. A hair hare..

A towel turkey..

A dyson donkey

and

a polar bear

amd penguins

and of course and owl

all very ingenious.

Another bit of a disappointment at Liberty

and finally to Fortnums where there was this domestic goddess

some carol singers

and finally Father Christmas

I really hope I have the chance to go up again after dark as the street lights looked as though they would be quite a sight.

December...

..now it is time to think about Christmas.  With dire warnings of freezing weather for later in the week I decided to pop up to London and have a look at the Christmas windows.  I had heard that Harrods had gone to town this year.  The windows represent the carriages of a very luxurious train.

 

 

 

Not camp at all.  One end of the store had a woodland scene. With Golden Owls...well it is Harrods.

 and these  for my friend who would have wanted to take them home

I found Selfridges, though in a worthy cause a little disappointing so we will move on down to John Lewis which I found highly entertaining. Blogger having a bit of a fit so I will add later.

Ravenna and Venice.....

Well the snow is back so this seems like a good time to take a final look at my holiday. The last visiting stop was Ravenna in Italy. The port is quite a long bus ride from the city but when we started our wander there was no doubt we were in Italy.

The old town of Ravenna has cobbled streets and the bicycle is the preffered mode of transport.

I would hate to be caught in the rush hour, I wonder if they have blue lights!

We had only a few hours to take in the sights which of course in Ravenna means the mosaics.In the three churches we visited they were on the floors, the walls and theceilings.  We gazed in wonder at the colours, the detail and the overwhelming richness of millions of tiny pieces of stone.

Here are just a few.

 

I loved this little window.

I am not sure of the significance of this golden bale but I loved it anyway.

Back on the Odyssey I discovered that my daughter had arranged a massage for me.  This is the ante room to one whole hour of heaven.

This was the sad sight that greeted us as we returned to our cabin on the last night.

and this was the sad sight that greeted me when I woke of the next morning.

 The only disappointment of the trip. I had missed our arrival in Venice which I had been pleasurably anticipating. The only time on the whole trip that I didn't watch our arrival. I shot out to my favourite deck and there in the distance you could just make out the Campanile and the dome of St Marks. 

Fortunately I have been to Venice a couple of times but I would have loved that view from the yacht.

(This photograph is from the Seabourn site, no breach of copyright intended) 

It was a wonderful holiday, so many sights and impressions of so many fascinating places. If I did something like it again (if I win the lottery) I would tack on an extra day at each end.  That way we wouldn't have had the stress of any possible travel delays and we would have been able to

spend a little time in Istanbul and Venice.

One more image from Ravenna.