Comfort zone .........

..........I'm out of it. I started to work on a  new journal and it wasn't working.  I couldn't decide what was wrong and then I suddenly realised that I was out of my comfort zone.  An expression one hears and uses quite often but I think I now fully understand what it means.  This is how it happened.

I have made several journals lately and they have all been in my usual muted earth tones.  Entirely happy.  I decided as it was summer it would be fun to do something a little more colourful. First mistake.  I made this

I thought it would make a fun cover, don't judge a book by it's cover they say, so how do you make a book to live up to what is on the front. Second mistake, I decided my theme would be carnival, of Venice, to be precise.     I have never been to the carnival in Venice so I have no ephemera of my own.  Searching the internet soon revealed that all those people who have been don't publish copyright free images.  I found a few but it will be a stretch.  Third mistake, I got organised.  I made a box of scrapbook papers, some papers I made myself, searched out fabrics and dyed lace and now I have this really scary box challenging me to do something with it.
I made a page

and usually I can tell that something is right (for me in any case) but I keep looking at this and I don't get the expected "done" feeling. Just realised there is no tie in the tag but I don't think that's it.

Analysing my mistakes for future reference.  1. Decide on the cover when the signatures are finished. 2. Have a vague idea but don't be too specific at first, let it grow.  3. Don't try to second guess exactly what you are going to need, leave room for serendipity.

I am going to try and continue, mainly because I have done so much work so far, usually the journals take over and decide how they want to be  so I live in hope.

Two whole weeks of glorious warm weather, loving not to have to put on my usual many layers. 

So that was February....

...and now it is nearly Spring.  The much vaunted "Beast from the East" cold weather kept us indoors for a week,  Funny thing was that although you sometimes think it would be lovely to be stuck in so that you could try all those things you've been you've been promising yourself when it actually happens ...you do nothing.I was not the only one who found this, don't know whether it was the cold or the dullness but all creative juices seemed to freeze.

The first day was sunny and pretty

I moved to the living room to work but even with a six foot table to work on still managed to end up with the same minute working space.

Has a day with the girls where we did a little collaging,  Mine are on the bottom row,

I have made two micro mini journals but haven't photographed them yet. 

 We managed to catch  Darkest Hour    and felt that Gary Oldman's Oscar was well deserved. It has been a good year for films so far this year.

Waiting now for the clocks to go forward and the weather to warm up.

Little outing.......

...Thursday evening, a special treat, I went to listen to a talk by Janet Bolton.  I had seen pictures of her work but I was unprepared for haw fascinating it was going to be to here her talk about her life and work.  To see her work close to gave a new understanding on her, often long, process of such beautifully simple images. If you have the chance go listen.  One of the things she said, which I think will stick, was that when you are creating "the only person you need to please is yourself."  A very liberating statement I think.

She also made me feel very homesick as she spoke of the wonderful light of the northern counties, in particular Lancashire our shared home county. I gave myself a treat  to this book 

Don't you just love those sheep?

Yesterday was not so good. This may end in a rant......you have been warned.   A friend needed transport to a hospital, so off at mid-day off we went, a 25 minute journey.  She received treatment which in the nature of things took a little while and at 5 o'clock we set off home.  FIVE HOURS later we arrived home . The adverse weather had closed the Dartford Bridge and the area gridlocked.  Now here comes the rant, these things happen but they are made far worse by QUEUE JUMPERS  and people who can't obey the simple rule  which says STAY OUT OF THE YELLOW BOX UNTIL YOUR EXIT IS CLEAR.  We need another river crossing FAR AWAY FROM DARTFORD and we need to NOW. 

You can take your ear defenders off now.

The NFL season has ended, really enjoyed watching the recording yesterday and the BBC presentation team were great.  Now I have to re-think my entertainment whilst sewing. American Football is great because of all the breaks, though I still hate the ad break after the kick return but I digress.

During the play off season I have occupied my hands with this,

This is a vintage napkin, so about 8" x 8". I used grey sewing cotton which was part of a gift from my friend Gudrun who died last year. The white embroidery was on the cloth. Stream of conciousness stuff really but loosely based on Kent my adopted county.

I spoke of home sickness and these wonderful cloud effects, last week,  made me hanker for a walk own the Coast Road.

Photograph by Jim Raven.
Apparently they are called nacreous clouds 
a result of one of the recent storms.
I still think the weather has been worse since we started naming storms.

Decisions......

...I started this blog on the 13th January 2006.  Ten years....feels like five at the  most.  Frightening at my age.  I have been very lax (lazy) of late in posting, in fact the last post was in November last year, so I feel I must give myself a good talking too and decide whether I am going to continue which, I feel, would have to be on a regular basis to have any value.  So while I am dithering here is a bit of an update.

We went to the Samuel Pepys' exhibition at the Greenwich Maritime Museum,  really good displays but perhaps more about the times than the man.

I was a cold and frosty morning one of the only ones this winter, because of the mild weather it looked more like March than January.(The ppor garden plants don't know whether they are coming or going)

Have you noticed how there is always someone in a red jacket when you want to take a photo?
I just love trees in winter.

I have been sewing, another chair back cover completed. This time I took an A A Milne poem for my starting point.

I really enjoy my mind meanders on these and am now looking for another cover to make a third.
For you exhibition last year I mounted the piece of faux boro I had made inspired by the work I had seen here and here . This was mine

I am thinking of taking it off it's mount and extending it, not quite sure how or even why.

One of the reasons for being so remiss with blog posts it the amount of time I spend on my ipad.  A good portion of it on Pinterest.. This is my page
I did think I would try to also mention some of the things I found interesting on here. This is a post on a Japanese artist Junko Oki which I pinned because of this image,


So....there you go.  We shall see.

Weather......

I am English so I am fascinated by weather.  I love clouds and last nights approaching storm had me running back and forth trying to capture the most amazing clouds formations I have ever seen

 

Should have been going to Art in Action today but don't fancy the M25 in a storm so fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Apropos of nothing, my "tree" for Man and June had birds. Not as many as I intended but next year.....

 

Back to the Tour and the Golf and the Weaving. 

PS I have been reliably informed (see comments) that my pictures (not the first one) depict a "Spanish Plume".  Thank you.

 

Wk 7......

TheDocumented Life challenge was  Draw one shape and repeat, add colour.  Well there has only been one topic of convesation this week.  The Weather.  It would seem that Australia is burning,  North America  is freezing and we are drowning. I chose diamonds as my shape and added the little rhyme by R.L. Stvenson.  "The rain is falling all around"  the cover is another recycled photo.The background is a gelli which looked to me like the land underwater.

For my runner I took the wind, the other feature of last week's weather. 

It's been done before.....

but not by me.  Tuesday was the last day of our sunny weather so I prompted by a picture in the paper I took myself off to the nearest place to find bluebells to photograph.   I was a bit early the Ranger said but pointed me in the right direction and this is what I saw.

This magnificent tree is about 300 years old

It is home to many I'm sure

and it holds onto the earth with giant fingers

Come back in two weeks they said

Ah! Spring.

February grey.....

...again. Wet too. Yesterday I received a comment from a name I didn't recognise so I followed the link   Elfi Cella has two blogs, one elf2main is where she shows her  minatures for famous painting and the other elf2mani which has her other painting and photographs. Both are well worth a visit and made me open of Paint Shop Pro to play.

I turned this

 

into this

and then into this

Hopefully Mother Nature will soon change it back again.

Snow on snow.....

More overnight, still snowing now, the light powdery stuff. This is the garden this morning

and the road

I am waiting for Hansel & Gretel to knock here

Soft south and snow beast....

 Well this is a change from sunshine cruises.  Yesterday I woke up at 6.30 to what is our usual amount of snow (when we have any), it was still snowing and it continued snowing without stopping for the rest of the day.  There were three types of snow, quite big flakes and then a kind of tiny hailstones and then a fine powder which came in blizzards they just kept alternating all day. I have never in all my years known such a prolonged downfall,  

I spent a happy half hour trying to catch the birds as they whipped in and out of the tree by my kitchen window.

blue tits don't stay still long

It was easir to catch them on the feeder which is further away

and I was delighted when a robin arrived.

He came onto the tree later and seems to be saying"Do you mind if I camoe in for a while?"

This was the garden this morning

The bench is in there somewhere

and I think my car is still under this

Not one snowmen but a line of little snow goblins

and the chimney across the road is getting a loving hug from a snow beast

It is 9am and it has just started snowing again!

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.