Another Little Quilt Swap

Yesterday saw me slaving over the ironing board............no not housework, I was heat setting the bark rubbings from Saturday!

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These rubbings above were made on voiles, a satiny fabric (the brown), and a lovely crinkly voiley fabric (technical terms!).

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I really liked the effect on the crinkly fabric which I had coloured with 2 colours of fabric crayon and thought it would sit well on my swap fabric so I cut it into 4 pieces and frayed the edges and machined it on with a variegated cotton.
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As you can see I had previously stamped the fabric with a text stamp.
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While we were at Belton on Saturday I picked up lots of Canada Goose feathers and made some more prints across the surface with these. I was a bit heavy handed in one or two places so the next challenge is to knock these back a bit.

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This is my practice piece and I've used a large butterfly stamp with gold paint on this and I like the effect so that may be the next step for my swap quilt. Coming further to the front of my mind is how to stitch the quilt. I enjoy hand sewing so maybe that is the road I will go down. Watch this space!

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It's my Mum's 84th birthday today so Happy Birthday Mum! See you soon!

A Day Out

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This last week has flown by and although I've been floating round the blogs I haven't managed to post myself. Like quite a lot of other people in blogland blogging seems to be taking a bit of a back seat at the moment especially since the weather has warmed up and the evenings are lighter.


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I have been working on my Quilt Swap fabrics and getting samples ready for a little expo I am doing at my next quilter's group meeting but I don't have any photos to show yet.


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Although we should have been doing a million other things like hoovering, dusting, cleaning the windows blah de blah today I pursuaded my husband that it would be a good idea if we went to our local National Trust property, Belton House, for a few photos and for me to have a go at taking some rubbings of bark on fabric. I didn't get too many funny looks and came away with some reasonable rubbings which I have yet to iron-set and photograph. When we got to Belton we found that the basement and original servant rooms were open to the public so we diverted for a look round. There were some wonderful textures in the floor and wall surfaces in these old rooms and the collage at the top of this post is a collection of some of the images of the day.


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My blogging is likely to be even sparser over the coming month as I have several projects to complete and my Mum is coming to stay so I hope you'll excuse me if I'm not around so much. Maybe a blogging break would be a good idea to revitalise my slightly flagging enthusiasm. Mind you, I will definitely be blogging after Tuesday as I am taking a workshop with the famous and lovely Gina Ferrari and I will be bursting to tell you all about it! Maybe I should be practising my free machining before then? By the way, Gina, I found the safe place where my requirements list was hiding! In a pouch I thought would be a good holder for my fabric for Tuesday! Doh!


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Hope you're all having a good weekend. See you soon!

Another Little Quilt Swap

I am (hopefully) taking part in Kate North's quilt swap in July. It's not a done thing until the thing's done. In other words there is no compulsion to participate until the quilt is made and the photo posted to Kate's ALQS blog. The deadline falls in the third week in July so I don't have long to get my quilt made. (Sorry, the sign up period has ended so you'll have to wait for next year, if Kate does it again).
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My initial thought was to make a quilt on the lines of my Journal Quilt for May, taking the centre panel and enlarging it.
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I started by selecting fabrics of various textures including silk dupioni, crushed polyester, scrim and various weaves of cotton. The maximum size for the quilt is 24" x 24" so I assembled the various layers using this size plus a margin for sizing and errors. The next step was to add some texture pastes (pumice, matt medium and crystal paste) and paint the fabrics with silk and fabric paints.

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Hmmm! Now it's painted I am not so sure. The colours have turned out a lot stronger than I had envisaged and for the moment I have gone off it! It is resting in the conservatory where I pass it regularly and where it will hopefully tell me what the next step is soon. I could have washed off some of the silk paints but I decided against that.

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After I had painted the seascape I didn't want to waste the left over paints and brushed them loosely onto some cotton curtain lining, scattering salt onto the wet surface.
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This is the result, a limited colour palette which I chose for no particular reason. I wet the fabric and then painted on the colours, some of which are metallics and again sprinkled with salt and left
overnight to dry, that was the hardest part!
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This is the reverse side which I much prefer as it is a lot subtler. This is now sparking off several ideas for the next step and my initial thought is "Monet's garden" or, if not Monet's garden, a romantic garden with columns and trailing flowers. I'm thinking printing onto Extravorganza, maybe some printing onto the surface and some stitching to hold the whole thing together.

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At least now some ideas are coming and I still have the original piece to think about. Oh yes, and my mojo is evidently back after last week, thank goodness! The good news is I take my last tablets tonight. Yay!

Journal Quilt - May

While I've been feeling out of sorts with the antibiotic treatment I've been on I haven't achieved a lot but I have finally finished my Contemporary Quilt group Journal Quilt for the month of May. I started the quilt before we went on our holiday to Wales and felt I wanted it to have a coastal theme.
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I had previously been playing about with layering plain fabrics and adding texture pastes before painting. Needless to say my preferred blues and turqoises came to the fore! After I had made the sample pice I thought I would cut out a section and use it as the centre panel in my quilt. The overall size is 12" X 6".

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While we were away I added various yarns, some hand stitching, beads and pieces of found objects, some of which I picked up on the beach at Conwy. I think I may have overdone the french knots at the bottom but I don't intend to unpick any. The piece has been finished off with blanket stitch around the edge. Next stop June and July is looming large!

Little Gems and Flowers

There hasn't been a lot going on chez Mixedmedia this past week as I've had no energy with this medication and have been feeling decidedly yuck, not that I'm complaining as it's all in a good cause. My brain has been off taking a holiday too but today I find that the fog is at least clearing and creative thoughts are returning. Maybe the nasty bug is on its way out? ~ Anyway, short of any new activity I can at least show you my two Little Gem quilts which I completed a couple of weeks ago.
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As you can see the first one is a leftover from the quilt I sent to Italy. It's actually the piece I practised the free machining on. ~

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The second you have already seen in progress but I have now added some punched tomato puree tube which has been painted with alchol inks. ~ There is still time to make a Little Gem to help the Quilt Museum in York raise funds for its collection. My friend Sandra included a post on her blog some time ago to show how easy they can be to make and I am hoping that I may get at least one more made. If you are going to the Festival of Quilts in August you will be able to enter the tombola for these quilts and may even win a quilt by a famous name! (there are some beautiful quilts on the Little Gems site which you can access by clicking on the Little Gem quilt at the top of my blog).
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In the post today I have received the last two pages of our MixedMediaATC Yahoo group swap.
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I am so pleased to have this page from Jean, the organiser of the swap, as I love her very pretty embroidery.
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This lovely page is from Wendy and I'm also pleased to have a piece of Wendy's work as we met up at the NEC last year. I'm sorry that my photograph doesn't do this justice as the top layer is an organza which has been distressed with a heat tool. The background is a painted vilene. I don't think Jean or Wendy have a blog. ~ Our Yahoo group is taking a summer break with only one swap, which I am hosting, and these flower book pages will be completed with a covers swap when we come back to swapping in September.

Happy Post

I've had some lovely post since we got back from Wales and thought I would share it here. Just before we went away I had a phone call to say that I had won a raffle prize at the Moulton Mill Quilters Exhibition that we went to in April. By the time we got back from holiday I had forgotten all about the phone call and wondered what on earth the parcel could be that was waiting for me at the Post Office.
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I had been told to expect a bag but when I opened the package there were 2 bags! I hadn't expected the lovely drawstring bag with all the extras. Aren't I lucky?! Unfortunately there was no contact address with the parcel so I can't thank anyone so if anyone out there knows the Moulton Mill Quilters please tell them I am delighted :o)

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The second piece of happy post was my order from Moo!

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Don't look too closely at them as there's a (not) deliberate error! Oops! I got the address of my blog wrong! Duh! That apart I am really pleased with the cards and they are a great way of carrying examples of my creativity around with me. I have to admit I wasn't going to bother ordering anything from Moo as I don't really need business cards but they made me an offer I couldn't refuse and now I've received them the quality is really good (no affiliation).

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Finally, I had a wonderful letter in the post today which gave me a lovely boost in a yucky week.

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My very sweet 4 year old niece has sent me a beautiful 'Thank You' card for a little present I sent her before we went away. It's far brighter and more sparkly than my awful photo shows it and I love the butterfly she has drawn flying above the flowers. I am ashamed to say that we haven't seen Evie since she was quite tiny and it's not as if she lives in another country! We will have to remedy that!

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Now is the time to say 'Goodbye'

We've said our 'Goodbyes' to Dorothy today and sent her on to her next hosts, Bob T Bear Esq and Dilly

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We have really enjoyed having Dorothy staying with us and it's been surprising how many people have joined in with the spirit of the thing when we have been out and about with her. I didn't want to add to the weight of her parcel too much but I had to make her a little jacket to keep her warm during her travels.

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This is the back view, beautifully modelled by Dorothy,

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and here is the front view with its Evolon lining. I needed to use something that wouldn't fray for the lining and Evolon fitted the bill. Dorothy is now inside the box she's sitting on and on her way to Bob and Dilly in Essex. Bon Voyage, Dorothy!

Beautiful!

By the time I've finished you will probably be bored to tears with our Welsh holiday but this is the reason that we went to Wales last week.

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The laburnum arch at Bodnant Gardens, just outside Conwy in North Wales, is famous and I have been wanting to see it for more than 20 years. As it flowers in late Spring there is only a small window of time to see the fantastic display and until this year I have never been in Wales at the appropriate time.

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The arch fairly drips long tassels of gorgeous yellow flowers and the smell, something I wasn't expecting, was wonderful!

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We were so blessed to see the arch at its absolute best and under such wonderful light conditions. The sun cast a beautiful light through the plant and onto the ground.

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Needless to say my DH and I both took loads of photographs and I could not get enough of standing under this fantastic canopy! Well, I had waited over 20 years for my moment so I wasn't going to waste it :o))

Amazing Shapes and Light

As anxious as I was to see the laburnum arch, which was pretty much the first part of the garden you come to on entering, I was stopped in my tracks by this amazing Acer. (I am running out of superlatives for this stunning garden!)

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No, you are not drunk, I took the photograph on an angle to get the trunk in. Aren't the contortions wonderful? Hopefully you should be able to click on the photo to see the fantastic marks on the trunk.

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This is its beautiful canopy with the sun sparkling through and the laburnum teasing me in the background.

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I took this photo for the shadows but it was only later that I noticed the petals on the floor.

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The play of light and shadows became a theme of the day for me and these big Gunerra leaves are a great example and inspiration.

Texture and Inspiration

To gain access to the gardens you have to go through an underpass and this has been cut through this impressive rock.

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I am sure the colours and layers will provide me with some inspiration.

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This window is part of The Old Mill at Bodnant. I have no idea what the huge leaves are.

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Back to the theme of shadows with this lichen (?) growing on a rock in a more formal area of the garden.

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How could I leave these posts without returning to the fabulous laburnum? The plants are growing over a metal frame and as well as the rust which adorned the frame these shapes overhead appealed to me. Just a word of warning, in case you are not aware, despite its beauty the laburnum is very poisonous so if you have a plant in your garden keep it away from children and don't be tempted to eat the seedpods!

Carsols and Friends

Well, we're back from our sojourn to the Land of Song. And what a fantastic week we had! You would not believe it by the weather today (we've got our heating on! In June!) but we had the most amazing weather for our holiday in North Wales last week. We had lots of warm sunshine as you'll see from the photos and it was a bit of a shock to wake up to pouring rain for our journey home yesterday.

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I've just popped in here to give you a taste of our week as I still have lots of my photos to put onto the computer. I've been to Wales several times in the past but my DH has only been for the odd day so it was good to share things with him. We stayed in a lovely cottage in Deganwy overlooking Conwy Castle and we took advantage of the coastal path to walk into Conwy.

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Needless to say our American guest, young Dorothy, came with us and enjoyed a trip on a tram up the Great Orme in Llandudno (more of which later).

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I think Dorothy could have done with a sunhat, it was boiling!

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It was lovely to meet up with Mags aka Digital Gran during our visit. She is a lovely bubbly lady and we were soon chatting like old friends. We're hoping to meet up again when DH and I get the chance to go back to Conwy, which we surely will as there was so much we didn't have time for.

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Mags and I had arranged to swap Ruby Dolls and I have brought the very beautiful doll on the right home to live with me and my other Rubys. It's amazing how all these dolls are so different when they all come from the same basic pattern. Mags had incorporated some lovely vintage fabrics and crochet into her doll.

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I had another gift from Mags, a very yummy bottle of a special lemon liqueur! I am saving it as an incentive to get me through the next couple of weeks. I've got to take, in fact, am taking, a course of strong antibiotics as the tests I had done earlier this year have found that I have that grotty bacteria that causes ulcers! No wonder I haven't been feeling too well for ages. Unfortunately the antibiotics are not very kind to your tum and I'm already feeling a bit delicate in the you-know-what department so I may be staying home for the next 2 weeks till I've finished them :o( Also, NO ALCOHOL! OMG! Not even a teeny tiny sherry on Sunday. Good job I had the odd glass last week!

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I'll be back when I've sorted out all my piccies! By the way, is anyone having problems with getting onto some blogs? I have been clicking some of my usual links and getting thrown off by Internet Explorer before the site has loaded. Maybe it's just a glitch?