Happiness is.........

.....the clocks going forward and a morning playing with the gelli plate.

Yes my body clock will now be in tune with the mechanical one and I wish they would stay this way.

I found two gelli plate demonstrations which had my fingers itching.  The first one is fascinating but very tricky. It was on the Gelli Arts blog. 

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I only managed to get one of the many images I tried to work but oh the joy when it did.

The original image is on the left and that came out pretty cool I thought. I loved the resist image .These are just placed the way they went into the scanner but I might just use them this way. I am now on the look out for magazines which I think might work.
The next one I found was quite tricky too because to the problem I have with revers images i.e. I just get in a muddle.
This one was called Gelli plate Monoprint Cityscapes by Janelle Nichol. This one involves waiting which is also one of my failings.
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This is my one of my own photographs of Whitehall in London.

and this is my attempt.

as you can see it is the WRONG WAY ROUND but as a print I really like the colours and the texture.  I will troll my photos and try again.
Super morning which and also had as a bonus these prints when I gave my plate a bit of a clean.

Spring..........

.........it's a bit chilly but glory be, the clocks have gone forward so " hurrah" says my body clock. Is there anywhere in the world I could live on British Summertime all year?   This is the optimistic photo I have on my desktop.

The stitching on my trees is finished and I just have to mount it. So another achievement for my 1 Year of Stitches.

We visited the embroidery exhibtion at Ramster, only held every two years this is a treat to see work of a high standard. My favourite piece was this cushion by Lucy Poland, unfortunately she doesn't seem to have a online presence so I can't post  link. Glorious colour combination.

The rest of the week has been spent finishing a junk journal, although every time I pick it up I see another spot where it could be embellished.

It was fun and a bit addictive.

One other little thing I did this week is aquire the pattern for Janie Crow's Mystical Lanterns crochet   blanket.  

 Now I need another blanker like ......but I have admired this pattern for some time now and over the summer hopefully I  can give it a go.  Now I just have to decide on colours.

How on earth......

......did I ever find the time to go to work?  This month has flown by with visits to The Knit and Stitch, a visit from my sister-in-law, a couple of theatre trips and yesterday a work shop with Cas Holmes at the lovely Sew Not Strawberry Jam. Not to mention my own knitting and stitching while feeding my two addictions American Football and Strictly Come Dancing.

For the first time ever I didn't take my camera to Ally Pally but if I had I would have taken photographs of the work of the wonderfully imaginative work of   Ann Small. and the delightful whimsy of Catherine von Isenburg

While my SIL was visiting we took a trip to Scotney Castle which hadn't quite donned all it's autumn glory but still looked beautiful.

 The theatre trips were to see two local amateur societies excellent productions of "Half a Sixpence" and "Hairspray". 
Yesterday was a real treat, a workshop with Cas Holmes. The lovely Sam welcomed us with coffee and I could see her wonderful ginger lemon cake so I was happy. Sew Not Strawberry Jam is becoming one of my favourite places, I just wish it was a little nearer..  I love the workroom

 

As does Sam's cat.

 Out side there are geese and hens and sheep and a lovely little garden, Didn't have time to take many photographs as the workshop was full on, took this through the window,

The first thing we had to do was go outside and draw, scary, I do not do drawing from real.  First surprise of the day, I managed something that looked like something. This is it after adding another element of the lesson and a serendipity meeting with my wet work on the way home.

We went on the compile the pages of a book based on our original drawing.  Because of the time constraint of the day I will have to finish my book here at home but I really enjoyed the day and found some of the techniques and ideas exciting. This was part of my work in progress.

Cas brought some of her own beautiful books,

You can see more of her work here

I'll get round to talking about the knitting and stitching later in the week (I hope).

The sun is shining......

the birds are doing their thing.  Yeah.

This morning, inspired in part by Lynda's blog and part by a Mother's Dat gift from my son of some holographic embossing powder (along with some interesting papers) and probably by the sunshine, I had a little play.  Ages since I've done anything like this.

I unearthed a piece which I had made when taking the workshops on Fibre in-Form, Scrunched up torn fabric, stitched onto pelmet vilene I had painted it with blue and bronze acrylics from Atlantis Art Materials and then I started in with the holographic powder.  I was still lacking something so I dug out my gold flakes and added them till I was happy.

I then mounted it behind a samll gold frame, it is only just over 5"x5"

The may be a week to go but as far as I am concerned today is the first day of Spring.

This and that contd.....

Blogger is having somekind of hissy fit, it has thown me out twice without saving.

As I was saying...I am quite missing being able to pop over to Trafalgar Square and find out what is happening on the Fourth Plinth. Very often it wasn't much but Sky have pieces together a Final Highlights video here.

Last weekend I had occasion to visit Tonbridge in Kent where I found this dear little fire station.

Staight out of Trumpton

As the short days have arrived here is some autumn colour, also from Tonbridge.

Isn't this a pretty side street?