Bed rest..................

....well not really. Just a glorious excuse to sit with my feet up and sew. Op went  OK and I now just have to get myself in working order again.

Week 5 of 1 Year of Stitches.

My little world has aquired a few more houses,  a train, a lighthouse and I think that is meant to be Piel Castle. 

This piece is becoming even more auto-
biographical by the minute.

When I go north there is a pont where the M6 motorway crosses the Manchester Ship Canal that is when the light seems to change and I take a deep breath of contentment.  If you go to Barrow in Furness by train there is a bit where you cross the viaduct over Morecambe Bay and you can see what apprears to be a lighthouse  on the top of the hill.  This gives me the came feeling,  of "coming home" (Cross now, I had a super photo i took from the train and I can't find it.)
 Silly isn't it, I have been away from "home" for 58 years but each time I visit I have these emotions.

When I first came to London in 1960 travel by train was the only option for me.  If you were making the journey on a Sunday it could take eight hours to get to Euston.  When were married we would have like to spend our honeymoon in Cornwall but it would have taken 3 days to get there from Barrow as we only had a weeks leave it wasn't an option so we spent it in the Lakes. (Not a bad trade off.)

The "lighthouse" is  called The Hoad  locally and is a monument to Sir John Barrow who was born in Ulverston and became naval explorer. I do have a real lighhouse connection  though. One of my greatx3 grandfathers was the Lighthouse keeper on Walney island which was up for sale recently.  That would have been fun but the lighthouse tower was not included.

And then two come along at once...........

... I decided has been far too long since I played with paint and paper. At the beginning of the year Seth Apter suggested a prject for 2017. It is called Artifacts. 
"". This would be a no rules collaboration. Just find or make some sort of artist book, planner, scrapbook, 3-ring-binder, folder, or other container to document your creative experiences, whether they be in art, craft, or anything else. Then get to documenting in any way to style that works for you.""
That sounded like something I could do.  Loose enought not to become a millstone round your
Then Seth started to preview all the new stamps, stencils etc.  he has new for this year. Finger itchingly good.  That sent me to Paperarsty as I know they stock many of Seth's products and lo and behold they had just issued a challenge for January,to create using Pink and Orange so.......
a journal spread, using distress inks, sari silk, Treasure Gold , metal findings and a homemade tassel.

  Difficult to photograph. This is a scan.

 And here is one I made earlier,  more textile orientated.

Lady in waiting........

......that's me this week.  Fingers crossed, tomorrow I will be having a long awaited gall bladder operation.   I have been trying to anticipate all the things that I won't be able to do for a couple of weeks like bend stretch and lift. Somehow I haven't managed to do quite the amount of de-cluttering  that I promised myself I would do but then embroidery, paint play and a trip out with a friend are so much more appealing don't you think?

Week four already of the 1 Year of Stitches challenge and my piece has taken an even more nostalgic trip.

Hopefully anyone who has ever visited Barrow in Furness will recognise the crane from the shipyard. On the way to Barrow the road passes the Dolly Blue Works. Forgive me if I have told you about them before. The road now by passes the factory which is has become a residential complex but one of the delights of my childhood was to  to drive past the factory with its blue walls in the hope of spotting a blue man.  The men wore blue overalls and their skin would be covered in the powder as was everthing around. Oh the excitment if we saw one.  There is an good piece about the factory here,
 The trip was to Rochester, it was freezing cold and foggy but a lovely brisk mooch round the galleries and shops.
Today it reached 9 deg c. and after last week felt like Spring so the garden had a quick tidy and the apple tree had a hair cut before I have to put my feet up.   Lovely to see the white of the snowdrops just beginning to show and the hellebores pushing through. Daylight lasting a little longer too. Hurrah.

I am going to cover the paint play in a separate post becauser I need to link it.
. 

Half way.....

....through January, where did that go? The good kind of winter weather though, frost and clear blue skies.  Possibly a third through my 1 Year in Stitches piece but who knows what is still to come.  Still obsessed.

Livestock and mountains have appeared. All a bit of a cheat really.  I find myself thinking of things from my childhood but they have to be altered for the sake of "art". The sheep should be Lakeland Herdwick sheep but their grey coats didn't show up well enough and the Lakeland hills are rounded by the Ice Age and not sharp like the Alps but they do get snow on them,.  The cows are what my sister would call "proper" cows i.e black and white but at the moment it looks as though one of them is a goat, slight adjustment to be made I think.

I sais last week that I was looking to see the film La La Land and comment.  We saw it.  Best I say nothing.

My Pinterest find this week was the artist Kimmy Cantrell  I love his sculpture faces.
http://www.kimart.com/index.html

No pressure then........

 ....my first offering for 1 Year of Stitches 2017   received 489 "Likes" and 60 very kind comments.  I hope I managed to respond to all of them but if I missed anyone,  thank you.  It has certainly been a fascinating week, the variety of stitches and styles is amazing. I have become slighly obsessive about my piece which now looks like this..

I am not sure about my attempt at  mendung clouds   , I find blues very difficult  to work with.   When I first started making stage costumes(amateur) the lighting designer (professional) told me that blues were the most difficult colour to light.  I think I should have stuck to my trusty indigo range but I was trying to brighten up.  We shall see if they balance out as the rest progresses otherwise they will have to come out. Not a pleasant thought as chain stitch may be one of the easiest to do but I have found it is a "b*****" to undo.

One of the unexpected benefits of 1 Year is the links to other places.  Here are two I liked. First

 A beautiful site for ribbon embroidery with very good tutorials. One of these days...
The other is Folksy a site selling modern British craft. I have ordered these buttons in anticipation of vast production this year.

We have a had a liittle snow here and worse, a biting cold wind so a bit of surfing (web) hs been the order of the day.
Please go an look at this site   Kirsty Mitchell    . I don't want to risk breaching copyright so I can't post a picture but I promise you if you like colour you won't be disappointed.
 I was hoping to be able to comment on La La Land but the weather put paid to that little trip.  Hopefully next week.                                                

First week .....

...passed in a flash.  This is what happened to the yellow line.  Not the Yellow Brick Road after all,(well it might be) but something triggered in what I laughingly call my brain and suddenly I was thinking Hundertwasser
I have long wished I could see some of his work for real, fascinated by the complexity of the shapes and love the wonderful colours.  So here is the beginning. For scale this is in a n 8inch/20cm hoop/

Remember that teaser, well it was a sort of "Wot I did on my holidays" except I was a home but I made it over the Christmas time .My inpiration was a picture I saw on Pinterest, I do wish people would make their links to the actual post not just the site. It took me 20 minutes to backtrack until I came to the orginal to that I could acknowledge it.. It came from this post
 This is what it turned into.

The background is part of an old pair of linen trousers.  Now what to do with it?
I had a huge beef this week with the Spring Knitting and Stitching Show    I received an email offiering a discount on entry tickets, after last year when we were horrified at being charged £17 "on the door" I thought I would take up the offer.  When I applied nearly six hours before the deadline it rejected the code, after several tries I gave in.  We will NOT be going to the show this year.

John Lewis had taken one more row off the haberdashery department in Bluewater and allowed Mac cosmetices to play music.  Shame on you.

I also managed these this week. 

 

It won't last......

....not just a pessimist, I know myself ...but while it lasts.  Here is the firt day of "1 Year in stitches"

I took me ages to actually start and then came "Yellow Brick Road "...so we will have to see where it leads.  It doesn't look very inspiring but it has already sparked another idea.

Last night watching Tom Brady do his stuff, I made these "journal" pages.(I have no intention of keeping a journal, like I said, I know me.  Butterfly mind and a difficulty with finishing off.)

Gosh that man is inspiring! 

 Seriously,  great fun, I haven't done anything like this for ages. A while back I found that if you use sticky tape, my preferred is Scotch Magic, you can remove imagaes from the Sunday paper magazine supplement. The little red berries in the first picture and the strip along the bottom of the second were done this way. I like the magic tape because it has a matt finish. 

To inspire you .

Right.....

...here we go then.  Last day of 2016, another turn along the road.  Tomorrow see the start of
1 Year of Stitches challenge, I mentioned in the last post. I want to make something vivid. not my usual muted palette.

We shall see.

Here is a sneak peak of something I have been working on over the holidays.

 

And here is my wish for you all.

Happy Christmas......

....a bit of general silliness for you.  I couldn't resist.   The kind gentleman who took the photograph for me said "I don't wish to be rude but you are the oldest person I've seen doing this"........little does he know.

 

Well.....

this is one of those times when you don't have time for anything other than Christmas preparations. So you pop into the internet for a little R&R and what happens you find a couple of things that you want to start right now.

How about this one......

"One Year of Stitches" filling a hoop with a year's worth of stitches.

Seems doable. We shall see. Here is the link if you want to play along.

I aren't dead.........

...as the message from Granny Weatherwax said. 

I have though been very, very lazy about blogging.  One reason, the blogging community has changed, posting on Facebook requires less time and effort. Many people have, like me, just stopped posting. So the daily habit of reading up favourite blogs has fallen by the wayside. 

Another reason is blogging used to be all about sharing ideas, now it seems sharing an idea has to be a commercial venture.  I can understand but I miss the free exchange .

My other reason is more personal, my life has changed due to my husband's health, so freedom to dash off to this exhibition or that interesting event have been curtailed. therefore less interesting things to share.

Life not all gloom though and yesterday there was a meeting of "the Girls" and in amongst setting the world to rights and a lot of laughter we had a little mini session of making Christmas gift tags.

Mine are the botton line. 

So I will make this my Christmas greetings to anyone who still hasn't given up on me.  I don't make resolutions but I am going to try and make an effort in the new year. 

Can't resist..........

......on Saturday we went to the Maltings in Farnham, Surrey. We have been before for their textile event but this time it was Antiques and Collectibles. 

The Maltings, an old brewery is an absolute maze of  corridors and stairs which lead to room of various size.  At one point you climb some very suspicious looking stairs up onto the stage and beyond.  Which give it all a feeling of a treasure hunt.  Which it was. My first find was this box.

Who could resist but this is what was inside.

Apparently belonged to an old gentleman who used to make large model railway engines.  The used sets have odd ones missing but the unused set is a completee alphabet, about 2" square.
We then found these, again irresistible.

When I fist came to I used to work for the Star newspaper in Bouverie Street. I am so glad I don't live in a time when you have to takes a cod's head and boil it. Some of the invalid recipes would have you up and about in no time...in fear of been fed more of it. I could have done with this as Math was never my strong point.

My last purchase, it is huge,

I think you would need a very strong coffee table but it is full of wonderful images of fashion from bear skins to mini skirts,

I was gifted these tiny little pewter owlon their new perch.

Add to this a delicious lunch with friends, a good day.

Oh my goodness........

Just look at this post from the wonderful Seth Apter, a retreat he hosted in Taos, New Mexico.  What a fantastic time they must have had  filling these Cabinets of Curiosity. I can only dream.

 

Sometime ago I started my own Box of Curiosities and reading Seth's post today really fired me to go and take another look at it. :I think it could do with some of the excitements that the group made.

Might just go and have a little play.

 

All the usual excuses........

..for not posting.  I have found time to sew though.  The panel I bought at the Knit and Stitch at Olympia has had a few stitches added,

 

and is now a cushion.

I also made a little Mandy Patullo type hare.

He is about 5inches across. Not quite sure what to do with him now.
 Had a great day yesterday with a very talented friend.  She showed us how to make these little people.

Mine is on the right.  Loved how different they were.  She has promised to start a blog soon so I will let you know.
So sad for the people of Belgium.  We lived there for a few years and my son was born there. So many happy memories.

We had one glorious day this week so we did the Spring tidy on the garden, so satisfying but still a lot to do.
We are having new windows installed soon, unbelievable the stuff that accumulated between the door and the window in the spare room, so back to the clear out.

This blew my mind, as I couldn't ice a cup cake, just look how small it is.  A Happy and Peaceful Easter to all.

Disgusted and delighted........

Disgusted with Twisted Thread for their pricing policy at the Spring Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia. £16.00 entrance to selling show seems rather greedy.  The show is no where near as big as Ally Pally so I hate to think what they will be asking for that in October.  Be careful Twisted Threat you will price yourself out of the market. Because I was still reeling I didn't buy a catalogue and of course I bought something but the trader hadn't put their card in and I haven't a clue who they were so if anyone knows the name of the couple who were selling reproductions of impressionists paintings on fabric can you please let me know because I would like some of their other fabrics.



Right, having finished moaning I can say that we had a very enjoyable day.  So nice to find someone that you didn't know about and who's work you loved.  Mary Sleigh , textile artist and bookmaker, great combination. This is what had my juices flowing.

It was almost the first thing we saw but I just had to go back at the end of the day for another look.They fold up into books but it was the delicacy of the fabric and the stitching that I loved.

Thank you for allowing me to photograph.

I worked out how to make the gift card and cotton reel from my last post.

Good fun and quick to make.
Well the show really gave me a creative kick and then our Maylands Textile Group meeting yesterday gave me another.  I counted up this morning and I now have ten projects vying for attention in my butterfly brain.
Better go and start something.