Happy Days

I've had a really great day out today! I went to an Open Day at the Husqvarna shop in Nottingham where Linda and Laura Kemshall were the guest speakers/demonstrators. I have seen the Kemshalls at several shows in the past but have never felt able to get near enough or have enough time to see their work properly so it was wonderful to have a whole day to listen to them and see their work.

The morning started with a slideshow and chat about their work and inspiration and about the importance of working ideas out in a sketchbook. I have to apologise for my photo above which has caught Laura as the amazing hidden woman! The assembled ladies then broke up to watch separate demonstrations by Laura and Linda, to have a good look at all the work and sketchbooks they had brought with them or to complete a small exercise which the Kemshalls had set up for us to try. All in all it was a very busy couple of hours and I don't think Laura or Linda stopped to eat, unlike the rest of us who enjoyed some very tasty homemade cakes!

Laura was kept very busy demonstrating some Free Machining and answering questions. while Linda demonstrated how she makes use of the Embellisher (needle felting) machine to create texture in some of her work. In the afternoon we had another slide show presentation while Laura described her process in completing her quilt Black Pearl which won the Quilters' Guild Challenge at this year's Festival of Quilts. She made one point which struck home with me and which may seem obvious but hadn't occurred to me. When starting to design for a competition which will be hung in a hall as big as the NEC Laura designs LARGE. She has a point. Design large and bold if you want to be noticed. I think I may have to have a rethink on my own plans for next year.

My enjoyment of the day was completed by a surprise encounter with some family friends who I hadn't seen for a couple of years. It's funny how small the world is sometimes, isn't it? These friends live about 40 minutes away from Nottingham but I had never expected to bump into them in a sewing shop at a demonstration. My friend has been making lace for years but I had forgotten that she also sews. An added bonus to the day and a chance for a quick catch up. I was their bridesmaid about 50 years ago! OMG I wish I hadn't written that now! I didn't know I was that old! lol

I think it's done!

I was going to spend just an hour working on my workshop piece today and then do some much needed housework but one hour turned into quite a few! Who said I'm stubborn??? I have had quite a battle with my machine today. It has refused to pull up the bobbin thread and thrown stitches and snapped its thread but I refused to be beaten and after many rethreads, changes of thread, cleaning and a new needle I did manage to get to a finishing point. I've decided that my machine does not like tyvek very much and I probably need to experiment with different tensions a bit more. At least I didn't break any needles!

I've added in scraps of fabric and baby wipes from my scrap bag and also some recycled petticoat lace and some hessian mesh. All I need to do now is decide on a binding and I will have killed two birds with one stone! A completed workshop project and the November Contemporary Quilt Group Journal Quilt (Yes, I know it's only October! This must be the first time I've ever been ahead of myself!).

As usual, you can click on the photo to enlarge. What do you think, Gina? I have to decide now whether to continue with this technique for my quilt for next year's Festival of Quilts or whether to proceed with my printing ideas. Whatever the decision I am definitely going to continue with Free Machining practice. I have a link in my sidebar to Leah Day who is blogging a free machine quilting pattern every day for 365 days and I intend to make up some fabric sandwiches and try some of these for myself. While I may not quilt with them per se they will be good for all sorts of effects in my art quilts. Somebody please remind me I said that I would practice some FME quilting - regularly!

Thank you Gina

Yesterday I travelled down to Peterborough, a short train ride from here, to join a Free Machine Embroidery workshop with the lovely Gina Ferrari. The workshop took place at Art And Stitch and its aim was to use the sewing machine to create a variety of textures to be used in a landscape type picture. I had been waiting for this workshop for several months and really looking forward to it as Gina is a very unassuming and generous teacher and I knew that I would learn a lot. I had high hopes and I was not disappointed!


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As you can see we were suitably supervised throughout the workshop by this very attractive young lady who I think may have been laughing at me a little! :)

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There were 10 of us taking part in the workshop and we soon made our presence felt by spreading ourselves out to fill the available table space.

Angela and Pam who run Art and Stitch kept the tea and coffee flowing all day and even supplied sustaining biscuits (chocolate and I think I spied Jammy Dodgers too!) in the afternoon when energies might have been flagging a little.
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Gina eased us in gently with a little basic Free Machine practice but then soon had us working on small pieces which would become part of our final pieces. Before we got started on the stitching we painted bondaweb and tyvek which would be used in the afternoon to construct the landscapey scenes.

We stitched onto net which had been stabilised with water soluble membrane which was then dissolved away and prepared other texture with small pieces of knitting, the looser and holier the better, and also a little crochet.

Above is the tyvek with sheers stitched on top and blasted with the heat gun. Unfortunately my blue sheer came from an old scarf, maybe silk, and it did not respond to the heat gun other than to start burning! Oops! Despite that it has given me a nice dark piece which has its own texture.

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So, by the afternoon we had knitted and crocheted pieces, embroidered netting, painted and stitched tyvek with sheers and a background of painted bondaweb to work with in adition to fabrics we had brought with us.

This is my very-much-a-work-in-progress seascape. My first piece of knitting came out with too tight a tension so I cut into it and opened it up before I stitched it down. It is the lowest layer in the piece above. I also cut up the stitched net to get more sympathetic shapes that would suggest wave shapes in my sea. I also incorporated scrim and previously painted nappy liner and velvet to start building the landscape. I have a lot of work to do to complete the scene but I really enjoyed getting this far. The idea is to use Free Machining to attach and incorporate the pieces together. Hopefully I will get time to work on this some more this week and it will then become my Journal Quilt for November.

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I have to confess to a 'Eureka' moment during all this process. A light suddenly went on in my poor old brain while I was Free Machining in zigzag and I suddenly could see how I could use stitch to build and describe movement, landscapes, flowerscapes or whatever I want to make. I know that may be very obvious to all of you out there but I suddenly realised that I was capable of using this very simple device to achieve what I have been working towards for the past couple of years. FME has always seemed a great mystery to me but Gina's teaching at the previous and this workshop has opened me up to exciting possibilities. I know you read everywhere about Free Machining and drawing with the needle but it all seems a bit unreal till you actually sit down and do it. I'm not saying I'm suddenly going to turn into a Diva embroiderer but I am very excited to have this new tool to play with. I am also not scared of working on this piece because, if I make a 'mistake' I know I can use more stitch, handsewing and beads to get round it. Watch this space!

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If you live anywhere near Peterborough do check out Art and Stitch. They are a lovely bunch of people and make you feel like one of the family and their workshops are always accompanied by copious cups of tea and coffee.

October Journal Quilt

Phew! I'm pleased to say I've managed to finish this month's Journal Quilt early despite hitting a brick wall a few days ago and thinking I would never get it done. I've had it laying on the back of a chair waiting for inspiration to strike and today I decided just to stitch vertical lines onto the top section to suggest a background wall and have done!

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The bottles are appliqued on and organza and a sheer have been added. The blue bottle is made of an old T-shirt that I had used to mop up paint and dye in my studio.

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The original inspiration came from a painting I had done of bottles.

I cheated a bit and traced the bottles. Unfortunately I can't think of a title for it. The only thing I could think of was "Gottle a geer!"

Beach Treasures

It will come as no surprise that I enjoyed a spot of beachcombing on our trip to Cornwall. My DH has several photos of me, head down, studying the beach. It is a wonderful way of whiling away an hour or two trawling the beach in the sunshine with the sounds of seagulls crying, waves breaking and children playing ringing in your ears.

I pick up all sorts of things during my rambles and I don't always know what I will do with them when I get home but they all have potential.

This lovely assortment of shells, pottery shards and beach glass will make a few cuffs, don't you think? I may try coating the glass with something (clear nail varnish maybe?) to restore its shine as it shines beautifully when wet. I don't have a glass tumbler or I would tumble it to polish it up.

Flowers and a Gift

For the past few months I have been involved in a Flower inspired book pages swap at the Yahoo group MixedMediaATC_UK and we have now just about reached the end. The final 2 pages are for the front cover and its reverse side. However the two pages I have made will not necessarily go to the same person.

For this first page I made the base fabric by free machining over chopped fabric and waste thread from other projects which I had sandwiched between water soluble membrane. I then stabilised the base by backing it on some painted cotton and handsewed the flower in yarns, finishing off with beads. This is intended to form the reverse of the front cover.

For the front cover I used a piece of my own handpainted fabric which I had already coincidentally used as a practice piece for some flowery shaped free machining. I then added some free machined plant stems and leaves, handstitched leaves and beading. Fingers crossed the eventual recipient will like it. Once everyone has their cover and inside pages the idea is to construct the book and have a show and tell at the group. I am hoping to make 2 more pages of my own to include in the book. I should be making the back cover and its reverse but I have a lovely page from Annette which I am going to use for the back cover. (The second page in her post).

I have had the pleasure of meeting another blogger this week and what a pleasure it was too! The wonderful book and art doll above were a generous gift from Wendy who blogs as Emmelinesplace. The lovely paper in the photo above with the script is tissue paper which you can apparently buy in Lakeland Plastics. I have an idea to scan this and then print it onto fabric. Hopefully I won't get done for copyright if it is only for my use.

I have to show you in detail the beautiful brooch which Wendy made for me. Isn't it beautiful? Thank you so much, Wendy for your generosity, not to mention the great chat we had. We met up at 11.00 and chatted away for 5 hours, would you believe!!? Luckily Wendy lives near me so I think we will be having some lovely creative time together in the future. That's if we can stop talking long enough :o)))

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Before I forget, don't forget to watch the new creative series being broadcast on Sky TV Channel 171 for a 10 week period which is showcasing some of our well known textile artists. If you don't have Sky you can watch the programmes online. The details are here. The series started last week but you can catch up online.

Sennen Cove

Every year that we have been to St Ives we have intended to go on the open-top bus that runs around the coast during the main summer months. We were lucky that this bus was on its final week when we arrived in St Ives so we decided that this time we would definitely do it! We were very brave and sat on the top deck but I was really pleased that I had ignored the weather forecast and taken a warm jacket, woolly hat and gloves. Even so I was frozen through by the time we arrived in Sennen Cove, our ultimate destination. I snapped the view above of Sennen Cove from the bus as we were leaving by which time we had retreated to the lower deck away from the wind!

Not long after we arrived at Sennen the sun decided to come out and it turned into a glorious day as you can see from the photo above. I don't know why but the signpost in the foreground really appealled to me. The sign must be working as the gulls were not being a nuisance.

Needless to say I couldn't resist doing some beachcombing and I was delighted to find this piece of plastic sticking out of the sand. It must have been in the water for a long time as both sides are coated in these skeletons of sea creatures. I haven't decided how I will use it yet, I may just keep it in my journal as a reminder but I love its wonderful texture. (it's had a good soak so it's not smelly!)

What do you think of this shot? This is part of the structure of the new lifeboat launch ramp and my DH had great fun playing with the shapes with his camera but he missed this one! Just now and again I like to get a snap that he doesn't! Bad girl!! ;o)

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If you are interested in painting Vivian Blackburn has blogged extensivelly about this part of Cornwall and her seascapes of Sennen Cove.

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JP was asking about the cottage we stayed in and you can see photos of it here. We booked it through St Ives Holidays who rent cottages in the area. (No affiliation but they are a good company in our experience).

Where the heart is

They put the flags out for us when we arrived in St Ives! Well, not really, but it was lovely to see them fluttering in the breeze. We had arrived at the end of the September Festival fortnight so the flags were still flying. I was hoping to be really cheeky and snaffle one as they took them down but I was too late, they took them down on Sunday before I got up! ( I thought they would be so damaged by the wind that they would let me have one, I wasn't going to pinch it!)

Our first evening saw us having fun with swooshing a la Maggie Grey. We had fun and infected several other people with our madness when they saw what we were doing and had a go themselves!

As you know I met up with Carolyn and had a lovely chat over tea and muffins and this little chap decided he'd like some muffin too.

As you'll see below we had all sorts of weather but this shows you that some of it was beautifully sunny and showed the harbour off to its best.

Sunshine and Showers

Although we were holidaying fairly late in the year we weren't hindered at all by the weather. St Ives is wonderful in any weather and you can easily adapt what you do on any given day. The beach above is at the far end of Porthmeor Beach which sits below the Tate gallery. The blue and white row of buildings are beach huts which would be very busy in the summer. St Ives beaches ( there are at least 5 of them) all have a different character. Porthmeor is mostly a sandy, surfing beach but it peters out into rock pools at this end.

The view above is looking out to sea from Porthmeor.

I think this is my favourite view of the town. I love it when the sun picks out the cottages on the harbour beach. The beach immediately below me is Porthminster Beach, home to the famous Porthminster Beach Cafe. Needless to say, my DH was pleased that the sun didn't shine every day and that the sea got stirred up a bit......

On the day that we had arranged to meet up with Carolyn for a second time we woke to a very choppy sea (probably not at all dramatic by St Ives winter standards) and DH and I stood on the balcony at our cottage (in PJs!) snapping away for over an hour! Mad! But it was fun watching the waves crashing over Lambeth Walk. If you click here you can see my DH's photos which are much more dramatic than my little camera can manage. He's been posting a lot of St Ives photos and a few stories too so you might like to sit a while over there.

Collage

Even though we have been going to St Ives for several years and already have hundreds of photographs I still managed to take over 450 more! I still haven't loaded all of them onto the computer yet! Rather than bore you with loads of individual photos I've made up some collages of images that I hope will interest you and provide me with some inspiration for future projects.

Most of the images above were taken on beaches or pathways but the one in the bottom left corner is the wood on the side of the Round House Gallery in Sennen Cove. (More of Sennen in a later post).

I'm sure the patterns in the sand above will come in handy. I just need to find the time to play about with them in Photoshop.

I drew the heart myself but all the other textures and patterns were there for the taking. The Tall Ship in the top left hand corner is the Stavros S Niarchos owned by the Tall Ships Youth Trust. It arrived early in the morning and stayed all day to provide some great photo opportunities while the youngsters got some practice in.

Cooeee!

It's me! I'm over here! Did you wonder where I'd gone? The header's a big hint. We headed off to St Ives for our annual fix of cornish air and cream teas and have had a fantastic fortnight chilling out by the sea. Needless to say, since we got back I've been catching up with shopping, washing (where does it all come from!!!!!!), emails and blogs (where do they all come from?!!!!!!!). Not to mention trying to comb through the 450+ photos I took and load them onto the laptop. I've done about a third so far.



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One of the highlights of our trip was meeting up with a blogging friend, the very, very lovely and friendly Carolyn who lives locally. We had arranged to meet at the Lifeboat station and Carolyn had no trouble in recognising me and greeting me like a long lost friend. We set off chattering in a random direction and eventually settled on tea and musffins and a very l-o-n-g chat at the Porthgwidden Beach cafe. (I have to give them a link as they generously let us sit and natter for over 2 hours!) We sat on the terrace overlooking the sea till it got a bit chilly and we had to move.



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Carolyn had very generously brought me a gift wrapped in some very pretty purple and pink sparkly paper which I can use in a project.



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The parcel held a funky skinny scarf that Carolyn had knitted and which I enjoyed wearing over the course of the holiday when the wind got a bit cool, and a beautiful dichroic necklace in a beautiful sea colour. On top of that I came back from a day out later in the week to find a bag of yarns and beady goodies that Carolyn had popped through the letterbox to keep me going. Thank you Carolyn :o)

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I had been wanting to try my hand at cuff-making so I made the cuff above for Carolyn before we went to St Ives. It's made of felt with velvet squares, scrim, net, shells, beds, buttons and stitch. I hope Carolyn liked it, she said she did, and I'm pleased to say it fitted!



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It was really lovely to meet Carolyn, she is a very warm bubbly person and we had lots of laughs while we were chatting. Roll on next year when we will definitley meet up again.


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On the subject of cuffs I made 2 more while we were away. some time ago in blogland I saw some beautiful cuffs that had been made using gifts. I know they are on a blog that I know really well but I cannot up to now find the original source so please leave me a comment if it's you. (Found it it's here)

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This cuff is made on a felt base with a zip used to suggest a wave. I then added yarns, velvet and some beads, beach glass, shells from St Ives beach and stitch. I gave this cuff to another friend who we met up with who I used to take art classes with at home and who now lives near St Just.

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Finally I made myself a cuff but I had to improvise with this one as I hadn't intended to make 3. This one has a 'colour catcher' base stiffened with a piece of canvas and backed with dupion silk. Fortunately I had enough velvet etc with me to pretty it up and I used some special buttons I had bought at The Hub in Sleaford. These cuffs are all the rage at the minute and I've been asked to make another one for my friend's mum and they're such fun to make!

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Once i've sorted all my photos I'll be back with a few pics of St Ives. Meanwhile I am trying to force my brain back to swap projects and next year's Festival of Quilts where I am supposed to be entering a quilt. I made some notes on the train coming home but my brain and body have gone on strike today and I'm still in my Pjs so it may be a day or three before I get blogging again. Hope you're all well and creating hard and thank you all for your lovely good wishes for our trip away. It worked! We had a great time!


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(Excuse the big spacing on this post but I'm having problems with Blogger).