Where Do I Begin?

I have had such a busy time on my blogging break and I really don't know where to start with all the photos I have taken.  Why all the photos?  Well, in case you hadn't realised, we have been on our annual pilgrimage to St Ives in Cornwall.  Both my DH and I thought we wouldn't be taking many photos this time as this was our 6th visit and we already have thousands of photos between us.  Famous last words!  Between us we took over 2000 photos, not that they all made the computer.  

So, where to start?  A joyful part of our holiday was meeting up again with our very talented blogging friend, Carolyn, who lives in that beautiful part of the world.  We had a lovely day exchanging gifts and chatting over coffee and then lunch which my dear DH prepared for us.  Carolyn was most generous with her gifts.

Lots of lovely fabrics, beads and embellishments to play with a book for inspiration with lots of techniques that can be used in other projects too.  The fabrics in the yellow package were dyed by Carolyn form Monbretia flowers and are gorgeous.

Aren't I lucky?  Two of Carolyn's beautiful lavender filled hearts to enjoy and to remind me of my favourite place and a special friend.

On the second of our 2 week stay Carolyn and I met up for a super day of play at a workshop with the St Ives artist Sally Maccabe.  I have been wanting to do a workshop with Sally for a long time so this was a great opportunity to share the experience with a friend and have some fun too.  Sally does a lot of work in creative sketchbooking and that was the theme for the day.  We spent the morning covering our sketchbook covers in gesso ready for painting and in making lots of monoprints.  In some cases the printplate was just as exciting as the print that came from it and Carolyn and I both photographed our plates to use in digital work later.  

You won't be at all surprised to see that I stuck with my sea colours and motifs.  Nothing like staying in your comfort zone!

 This is part of Sally's shop and studio.  Notice all her sketchbooks on front of the fireplace.

Sally supplied us with a large assortment of different papers, everything from tissue, tracing paper and sheet music to watercolour paper and we spent the rest of a happy morning mark making and printing.

We played with drawing shapes,( are they pebbles or shells? ) with twigs and ink,

Made a folded pocket book which was great fun and easy to do,

and ended up with a pile of papers to use in our sketchbooks.

All of these sketchbook pages are only the beginning but already the cropped images in the picture above are suggesting further work and even pieces in their own right.

It's amazing how much time it takes to prepare pages like these and the pages above were made in a great hurry so they are not wonderfully impressive but they are a start and I may well use some of them in the Sketchbook Project (more of that another time).

While we're on a creative thread (pardon the pun!) I'll just show you the stitching I took with  me to stop me from going bonkers in the evenings.  I can never just sit I have to have something to do.  

This piece is based on a rock pool and the inspiration came from a project on the Embroiderer's Guild Website. I prepared the base and background before we left home and it consists of felt cut from a piece that Gina gave me some time ago, silkpaper,silk tops, sinamay, yarns, and scrim.  It was all held down with tiny stitches through strips of organza and then cuts were made in the organza to let the fibres underneath show through.  I stitched various yarns on top and added beads and found pebbles and shells.  Carolyn had included distressed ribbon in her gift to me and I used that to break up the line of rather glaring silk rod across the middle to suggest ripples in the water.  As ever the colour is a  bit off in this photo and the piece is more on the turquoise side.  I used very simple stitches for the embroidery, just french knots,seeding stitch and a few cross stitches.

This post is getting very long but I have just a couple more things.  First, Cameron is having a giveaway on her blog of some lace dresses and some of her beautiful felted work .  Cameron needs at least 10 people to join in so go across and leave her a comment on her post of 12 October, her work is unique and beautiful and she is a very special lady.  

Second I must express my own pleasure and amazement at the rescue of the Chilean miners over the last couple of days.  These must be very strong men to have survived their ordeal, to have been lost and now found and brought out of their dark place is nothing short of miraculous.  I hope that they and their families recover from this life changing experience with strength and happiness.

Talking of strength mine seems to have deserted me again for a while.  You'd think after a lovely holiday I'd be raring to go wouldn't you? Nup! Someone let the air out of my balloon and I'm vary flat.  Have no fear!  I will recover my mojo and thank you to Emma and Annabel for your lovely supportive words.  You can see, Emma that I've found some energy for this increasingly long post lol

What was that?  Where are the holiday photos?  Well, I now need a lie down but I'll leave you with a photo of my DH, otherwise known as ET!  Taken on board the open-top bus on the way back from Land's End. (My DH has been blogging some photos of our hols and there will no doubt be many more over there).

It was a lovely afternoon but a trifle chilly!  Bye for now :)