No fanfares......

Last Thursday I posted a piece in which I mentioned our wedding anniversary. Lynda of Purple Missus (have you seen what she posted yesterday?) left a comment which had Ken and I laughing.
She said

"The 46th Wedding Anniversary does not have any traditional materials or Symbols associated with it.

A contemporary or modern 46th anniversary gift has a theme of Original Poetry Tribute.

This Wedding Anniversary does not have any Flowers associated with it.

This Anniversary does not have any Gemstones associated with it.

So it looks like you and DH are going to have to write each other a poem :)

Well my particular DH is not the one for poetry but I thought "How sweet" and decided to have a go.

This is the result.

46 years
no flowers
nor fuss,
no gemstones
nor
fanfares

just us...........

.........(I did set this out in modern poetry fashion but blogger thought better!!))

I was going to present him with it on the day unfortuately we both forgot it completely and it was not until yesterday when someone asked me the date that I remembered. Heigh ho!!!

This is the way we were............



We are off to Somerset on Sunday, with fingers crossed for the weather after our wet weather in Cyprus. I have probably said this before but the reason we are going is to visit Tyntesfield one of the National Trust's latest treasures. I hope to come back with loads of wonderful photographs like this. I wish.


Courtesy National Trust

A toy.....

On the Textile Page of the V&A Museum there is a button where you can design your own textile, interesting to see how the different colours alter the "feel" of the piece.


Enjoy!

What I did this weekend......

Do you remember those essays you had to write "What I did ......this weekend, on my holiday...." etc. That completely ruined the.......weekend, holiday..... as you struggled with "On my...I......and then...............and then...........and then."

Well here what I did this weekend, I started a picture which I hoped would be the start of a fabric book, and then I set it aside because I was not happy with it,

and then I did my TAST stitch for this week, Knotted Buttonhole Stitch,

and then I worked on my other project which is a secret and then I went back to my fabric book picture and added something which made me happier.

The End.

Not quite, Redskins versus New York Giants on now!!!

Some time ago I lost all my links to Art Museums all over the world, I have just started to re-install them. I have just looked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and given the interest on drawing in the blogs I look at, lately, I would like to highlight this link to Van Gogh
Since we lived in Belgium 40 odd years ago we have had two Van Gogh prints in the living room . It seems that all great artists have put the greatest importance to Drawing. One of a man
and the other of a woman digging
These pictures are from the site which catalogues the complete works of Vincent Van Gogh

We bought prints of these at the Van Gogh Museum (which was in Arnhem at that time) and bought the frames in a shop in Brussels on a lovely sunny Autumn day.(Funny the things you remember). We were so young then, but we loved the idea of this man and woman working side by side and as our 46th Anniversary approaches I hope they typify the way we have worked together.

TAST week 37

See what happens when you go off visiting art galleries....., I feel this has a modern art feel to it but I'm probably just being whimsical.


Seriously, I didn't want to do this on a counted thread background but wanted to keep the feel of it being a mainly canvas stitch. So I made a grid on the embellisher and added the stitches, at first I was going to show variations but I couldn't get it to look "right" so I settled for this. I then added a digital blue border because of my black blog background.

Background noise...

I have just watched the BBC documentary on the installation of the exhibition of the Terracotta Army at the British Museum. I am so looking forward to seeing this exhibition but this programme was ruined for me by the invasive "background" music which made it impossible, at times, to hear the commentary!!!

A wonderful day....

and by that I mean a day full of wonders.
But first I must say thank you to those kind people who who sent me birthday wishes and commented on my last post. Comments from people whose work you admire are always precious.

For my birthday my best friend bought me and Art Fund card. What a wonderful present, I couldn't wait to start using it so I planned to visit the Oiticica exhibition at the Tate Moderen. I told Ken I would be back by lunchtime and on a beautiful golden September morning (I love my birth month) I took the train to London Bridge and thought I would walk along the South Bank of the Thames. As I walked from the train I thought "I have never visited Southwark Cathedral". So as there was no rush I made the deviation and found myself in the middle of Borough Market. What a delight, I am sure that this is one of those places that everyone but me knows about but for me it was a revelation, I was able to buy a piece of Ginger Parkin for my Yorkshire born husband and for my Lancastian self I bought Morecame Bay Shrimps. There was so much else I could have bought, here is a taste.(sorry about the pun)




I tore myself away from the sights and sounds and the tastes of the market and realised that I still hadn't visited the cathedral. It was worth the visit, although Shakespeare was buried in Stratford, I believe, there is a memorial to him here as it was so close to where here worked at the Globe Theatre.
As I finally made my way toward Tate Modern I realised that there was more activity than normal but then it was a beautiful day. I went to the Oiticia exhibition which made me think about using squares and oblongs. I promised myself I would try some different page layouts. I do not understand "modern" art I only know there are pieces that I like for their colour or form, I wish I knew more but it is like music there is a point where it appears to hold nothing for me. (Pop music stopped with Billy Joel as far as I 'm concerned:-))
When I came out, ready to quickly make my way to Charing Cross and home I realised that there was definitely something going on, when else do you have people dancing tango on the south bank of the Thames? It was in fact the Thames Festival . It took me three more hours before I reached Charing Cross as I enjoyed music from all over the world, dancing, bubbles, Punch and Judy, stalls and food and hundreds of people enjoying the autumn sunshine. What a delight.




I finished up in the newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall,where there was a "happening" organised by [re]design where various organisations had come together to allow all kinds of creativity, making badges from scaps of fabric, monsters from recycled blankets, knitted plastic bags, stools from old newspapers and a wish bench from old cardboard.
I made my wish and crossed the Hungerford bridge for home. I sat on the train with my mind teaming with ideas that will probably never see the light of day but THIS day was a rare and special treat.

Well now.........

A busy week which started with my birthday on Sunday, 66 on the 99, I thought there should be something terribly significant about it appears not. Unless it marks an acceleration of the crumbling process, which is a very poor attempt at a link for the Lutradur and Lace challenge on the Fibre and Stitch Group .
Pictures are worth a thousand etc... so here are the stages.

I was tempted to leave it at this stage but I can't resist trying to see what will happen if.....so I added organza, zapped and then leaves
.
Beads came next

Still not satified I zapped again...and the piece is now called Atumn, Bounty and Decay which makes it a very appropriate piece for my birthday.

I may add some more stitching and it needs mounting on a proper background, I think it will probably end up as the cover of a book.

The Missing Link....................

TAST week 36 and Cable Chain Stitch. I had a little trouble with the twist to start off with but then I was away and running out of thread was the only thing which stopped me. This is definitely one of the repertoire.


Almost inevitably this became a chain and I added the missing link, sometime in the future I would like to try and use this stitch for something like a charm bracelet.

Who's a lucky girl then...

What a lovely way to start the week.

The first thing that dropped through my door today was this lovely scrim I had ordered from Lynda, Purple Missus.
The depth of the colours is wonderful.


While I was still admiring the scrim another package came through the door and this was from Britt, Stitcherty Grub .


Don't you just love that sleepy little koala bear?

The bottom ATC has a little story attached.

Once upon a time a lowly duster crossed land and sea until it reached a far away land, this must have been a magical place for when the little piece of duster finally arrived home it was transformed into something sparkly and beautiful!!!
Ir this the most travelled ATC I ask myself. Thanks Britt, what fun.

But that wasn't all,


Britt also sent this card, her wonderful little scrissor-keeper (makes it so easy to find your scissors) and a bag or wonderful bits.

Well this was all too much for me, I headed for my workroom and my embellisher and this is the reult. Some of Lynda's scrim, some or Britts threads, and a bit of organza, no idea in my head but this is what appeared.


There are only three stitches in this piece, those holding down the "eye", the rest is all the embellisher. Marvellous machine!

Information overload..................

This weekend I have experienced what can only be called an information overload, on the same day I received Fibre and Stitch, Cloth, Paper and Scissors and yesterday, Workshop on the Web., not to ignore the fact that I hadn't yet completed my TAST this week.

CPS and WOW were both very good issues and right up to standard, F&S, if it keeps up this standard, will be very good and at the moment the Yahoo Group for F&S(which is by invite), has so many messages,that I can't keep up.

But now to this weeks TAST. When I read Shisha stitch my heart sank as I once spent a miserable afternoon in a Workshop trying to come to attach a mirror. Suprisingly I couldn't find the mirror!! But I did find some large sequins and managed, hoorah, to fix them to the cloth. Thanks Sharon!!! I always associate India with bright rich colours mainly because of this small but brilliant Phaidon book on India so here is my TAST sample for this week.

Not as bright as in reality but my computer seems to have a problem with red and pinks. Little does it know it is soon to be replaced. I hope!!!

What I did.... and other matters.....

First of all thanks to Gerry and Gail who like the post on Japanese wrapping. I guess you quilting ladies could make some really wonderful wrapppings. If I haven't mentioned it before(and I have been known to repeat myself!!!) what I really admire about quilters is their neatness and precision. If I could buy it, I would. I am a Virgo and we are supposed to be meticulous in all we do. I am the exception that proves the rule.....

Essential information, Sharon B can now be found here.. All the best with the new site Sharon, I don't envy her the amount of transferring she is having to do. And so To TAST. Portugese stem stitch, I really like this stitch, and will mark it as a favourite. Just a quick memo piece.


You will have probably gathered by now that even by English standards we have been having a rotten summer but yesterday the sunshine returned. Now does anyone agree with me that there is something that happens to the sun in late August, the sunshine that we had today is a compeletly different colour to the sunshine we had a couple of week ago. For me the Summer has turned toward Autumn. My son will inform me that Autumn does not start until the end of September and my husband, bless, just says "Yes, dear" when I start talking about the quality of the light! Whatever, yesterday in the golden light I decided it was a lovely day to work outside and I took Beryl Taylor's wonderful book as a starter and made this "fabric" paper. I don't know yet what I'm going to do with it but I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I went to look for a link to Beryl's book and found she now has a web site and blog.



I also added to a piece I was making using the Purple Missus technique, I added some paper napkin images and some dried flowers, it isn't finished yet but was pleased with the way it looks so far.

Very autumnal I think, tee hee!!!!!

If you hate sticky tape.....

With Christmas coming............Oh yes it is! I saw Christmas cards on sale when I was in town last week. I was fascinated by these references to a Japanese art called Furoshiki. A way of wrapping articles in cloth. I came across it on Layers of Meaning and thought I would pass it on for the benefit of persons like me who hate sticky tape. I always stick to everything except where it is suppose to go.(my children can look at a pile of presents and say "that must be from Mother"). Seriously, I did think it would be a fun way to wrap small presents using printed cottons. This is my first experiment, I oviously need to pay more attention to my folds but I love the idea.



This is a link to the Japanese Ministry of the Environment description of folds(PDF)

The one I like in particular is the one for wrapping bottles, I'll have to practise.

Scroll Stich and scrambled thinking.....

This is my little scroll stitch sample, I like this stitch a lot. I think I may have come across it when learning stem stitch at school but I can't remember the teacher saying "Oh what beautiful scroll stitch" she just told me to unpick it!!!!!


I read with amazement the article in the Guardian by Germaine Greer. (Links from Albedo Designs and Sharon B )I am not a quilter, but I have stood in front of quilts and been moved to tears by the beauty of the colours and the incredible skill of the stitcher.
What is art? To me it is something man made which has power to move one or all of my senses.

"What could be the point of such an exercise in futility?" Ms Greer asks. The same question I have asked myself many times in many different in many different ART galleries.

I know what I like.......

Great day, I went to the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Acamdemy as the guest of my best friend. I love this exhibition for it's variety, There is every style and size of painting, wonderful architectural models and sculpture. I really to fall into the "I know what I like" type of visitor(no formal art training). This can be abstract (usually because of the colour) or impessionist or realistic. This year there was one painting that drew me back three times. "Scene from a contemporary novel" by Nicholas Middleton.Please look at it.
This was in a room with the photographs which I thought was rather unfair as people walked by without so much as a second glance. But this is in fact and oil painting, the detail is incredible and also when you look into what at first appears to be monachome you find touches of blue and red and yellow. Amazing, I am so glad I have seen it.
Outside the Academy was an installation that was every rust lover's dream. Here are a few pictures.

Crested Chain Stitch

The summer months seem to be flying by and already the days are getting noticeably shorter, yuk! I am trying to make the most of it though, the leisure centre I belong to has an outdoor pool as well as the main pool indoors. I don't swim very well and I started going to try and help my back but the last couple of weeks it has been warm enough to swim outside in the sunshine. Lovely.
I am working on what will either be a present for someone or a UFO depending on how well it turns out and that is taking up most of my sewing time but I have tried the Crested Chain Stitch. It took me a little while as all twisted stitches do but then I got the flow of it and even incorporated it into the piece I am doing. This is the sample for my TAST collection.


As it is also called Spanish coral stitch, I thought flamenco, sunshine and bright colours,(not as bright here as in reality), I also had an excuse to play with my dusters and embellisher for the background.
Sun is shining, Ken has gone to play golf so I am off for, hopefully, a messy morning!!! It's ages since I had the opporunity to paint and dye.

Casting seed.....

Another place we visited this week was Wakehurst Place, Kew's "Country" Garden. It was our first visit but hopefully not our last, this is the home of the Millenium Seed Bank and there is a very good exhibition explaining the work. The were some amzing pictures of rare and unusual seed and this was the inspiration for my TAST stitch of the week, Cast on Stitch.
It's a good job my friend knows me very well as I sat and huffed and puffed whilst I translated the stitch. At one point I couldn't remember how to cast on (I have used the thumb method for years) and had to go and find a knitting needle and a ball of wool to remind myself. Cracked it in the end though and I love it.

Thank You.....

This is a picture of Scotney Castle in Kent which I took on Friday. I would not have been able to share it with you if it were not for the kindness of an unknown gentleman who handed in my camera. I did not miss it until my friend and I were going to Greenwich on Saturday. I had left it in the walled garden when we had a picnic, I didn't expect to see it ever again, I have no way of thanking the gentleman as he didn't leave a name so I will just have to put this into the ether and hope somehow he knows how grateful I am.

This is another view of Scotney where as you can see the Autumn colour seems to have started early, we found this in other gardens we visited this week.
I love this view and have photographed it, painted it and embroidered it in the past.

TAST rolls on.......

I took the opporunity to have a quick five minute on my new toy to make the background for this weeks TAST> Buttonhole wheels.

A great texture adding stitch, I love Sharon's examples especially the last one.

Smocking........

Saturday was Embroiderer's Guild Day, always exciting, but I could have done without the added excitement of a puncture!! It was a Smocking workshop with Heather Spaulding, I arrived three quarters of an hour late thinking that I would never catch up. What a lovely day. Heather was a very good teacher and had prepared packs for us to make a bag. There was a piece already pleated on one of those marvellous (but expensive) little machines. Throughout the day she took us in twos and threes to explain the stitches and to make sure we had understood. Unfortunately in my panic I went without my camera so I can't show you Heather's wonderful examples, but she had flower panels and abstract pieces and the one that I really lusted after was a chatelaine for her sewing bits made in back organza and gold thread.
This is the front for my bag (which I finished off last night).
We just used a couple of stitch yesterday but I found this site which has lots of stitches and clear instructions.
I found the whole day really satisfying, there were many shared stories of domestic science classes at school and my main memories connected with smocking are the fronts of my dresses which my mother made for me, which were so heavily worked they felt like body armour.
Now I just have to pluck up courage to cut the tacking threads and then to find time to turn it into a bag.

A question of gender?..............

Thanks to Sue Bleiweiss for her generously shared instructions and inspired by the many wonderful ones I have seen on my travels through the blogs I have made my first padfolio, using my favourite dusters and emulsion and ink techniques shared by Purple Missus




Flushed with pride I showed it to my husband who instantly said "it fold the wrong way". I assured him I had it right and showed him pictures, he still insisted it folded the wrong way. When my son came to visit I showed it to him and he agreed with my husband that it folded the wrong way. We came to the conclusion that it is a male/female thing akin to double breasted suits and buttons which go the opposite way round. Strange. So now I will know should I ever make one for a male I must remember to make it fold the other way.