Snow - still!

The snow that fell on Saturday last has been joined by a lot more over the last week and consequently yours truly hasn't been very far.  It's amazing how many basic food supplies you can order off the milkman to have delivered to your door and how little you can spend when you don't go to the supermarket!  It's also amazing how the milkman can brave freezing temperatures in the middle of the night to get the milk to your doorstep while the postman finds it impossible to walk up your street to deliver the post!  We've had no post all week and I'm waiting for stuff!  

Anyway, enough ranting!  When the skies send you snow, break out the dyes!  I have to confess that my quick foray into snow dyeing this week didn't turn out quite as I intended.  I was aiming for browns, oranges and blues from the dyes I chose only to find I'd grabbed golden yellow instead of an orange so yet again I've got greens! Duh!

I made a few deliberate errors, as ever,  and some areas of the cloth ended up sitting in the thawed out snow/dye which gave a solid colour but these areas are the best.  I used Golden Yellow, Turquoise and Aquamarine.  Not that I want any more snow but if we get some later in the winter I shall have another go with orange and indigo and see what that gives me. 

There has been a lot of discussion on the Contemporary Quilt Group Yahoo site on the subject of snow dyeing.  I did mine by soda soaking my fabric for about half an hour.  I then wrung the excess out and put it crumpled up on top of upturned foil dishes in a large bowl.  I heaped snow on top and then poured on the three dye solutions (one tsp dye powder mixed with 100mls tepid water) using a teaspoon to distribute the colour/sprinkle the dye on.  The bowl was left outside for a few hours but as it was still freezing out there I brought the bowl into the conservatory until bedtime when I judged that enough dye had percolated down, removed the snow and put the fabric into a plastic bag and put the whole thing into a warmish room overnight.  Having then decided that the kitchen wasn't really that warm I put the bowl up against the radiator for a few more hours and then rinsed like a loony and did a final quick wash in the machine.  The beauty of the fabric was revealed when I ironed it.  My method is definitely of the hit and miss variety and not the scientific variety.  I'm amazed it works!  The main thing is not to let the fabric sit in puddles of dye or you'll get solid colour.

You can find more posts on snow dyeing if you click the label at the end of this post.

It's snowing again as I type and guess whose DH is going to be walking home from a 'boys night out' later on?  It takes all sorts............. :-)  Just hope he doesn't fall over!  Keep warm and safe if you have snow and ice.

Knitting & Stitching

Well, despite all the threats of the weathermen I did make it to Harrogate for the Knitting & Stitching show on Friday.  We were lucky because our snow didn't arrive until yesterday and we saw very little of it all the way to Harrogate.  My dear DH stayed home to look after mum for me, what a trooper!  

I decided before I went that I would take the day very steadily and not do my usual trick of running round like a demented chicken trying to see everything and as a result I had a lovely relaxed day.  I did think though that there were less stands than other years.  Not all exhibitors allowed photographs but I did manage a few.

This cheerful Santa greeted everyone as we came in and, in the manner of these displays, everything was knitted, including the grandfather clock.  

The first main exhibit was Clyde Olliver's 'Transitions', which included a variety of materials and forms.  I had seen the piece below when it was on display at the Hub near me but it was good to have another look.  I am always intrigued by the combination of stitch and slate together with rusty pieces. 

 There were a couple of pieces like the one below made from shaped slate in what looked like its natural state with stitch incorporated into it.  I love slate and I think this piece would be quite relaxing to live with. 

I didn't manage to find Maggie Grey's stand although I believe she was there but I did find this piece below of hers on the stand of Wessex Textile Artists.

The piece is entitled 'The Long Diary' and includes digital images of the many places Maggie has travelled to in the course of her work.

As well as the main halls displays are set up in the refreshment area in the basement (as I call it) and many of the colleges offering textile course had stands there and were offering inspiration packs (more of that shortly).

Needless to say this area is a hive of activity at lunchtime.

Suitably refreshed I made it back up to the main halls for a little retail therapy, trying very hard to stick to my short list and budget.   

  

I have been thinking about getting Jane Dunnewold's book for sometime and having had a look through it at K&S decided it was for me.  It is packed with information and hopefully I will get plenty of time to read it while sitting with mum.

I couldn't resist these fabric sample packs from Textile Techniques who specialise in hand-made textiles from around the world.  I love shibori fabrics but doing it myself is so painful for my hands that I couldn't resist the ones above.  There should actually be 6 pieces but one is hiding!  Similarly the green themed fabrics were irresistible for their colour!  what can I say?  I'm a weak woman ;-)

These inspiration packs were put together by students on textile courses and were very cheap!

I did buy one or two other basic supplies but my biggest sin was a lightweight computerised Janome for taking to classes and sewing days.  I got £50 off plus a free darning foot and it will free up my poor little basic Janome for playing with paper, metal and rusted fabric which I have always been too scared to sew on the machine in case it damaged it.  No excuse now for not playing, except that while Mum's here I haven't got anywhere to set it up.  My new machine is the Janome BCC30 which is being sold to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness so I have done a little bit for charity too.

I was really looking forward to seeing the Julia Caprara retrospective and I was not disappointed.  I never met Julia when she was alive but I so admire her beautiful colourful work and her powerful, energetic sketchbooks.  

Excuse the reflections from the glass case in the photograph above.

This wonderful detail is from a larger piece and when I saw some of Julia's work several years ago at Festival of Quilts it encouraged me to start this journey that I have been on with stitch and fabric.  I particularly like the way she put colours together and used different textures of thread and stitch to build her work.

What else caught my eye?  BOLT:Echoes was a fascinating stand and Jean Littlejohn's sea paintings which incorporated stitch and beads  were  mesmerising.  I'm sure she had used Zwarowski crystals as they sparkled beautifully (and didn't look as tacky as you may be thinking they sound).  I did take photographs but was asked not to put them on the blog.  If you follow the link to Bolt you can also explore work by Jessica Abraham and Linda Westerman who also had their exhibition 'Exposed and Eroded' at Harrogate. Speaking of echoes, Gizella K Warburton's work, which was close by Clyde Olliver's stand, echoed the colours of his slate works (just by coincidence). Gizella's works were in very muted colours and had wonderful frayed edges.  Again, no photos, sorry.

Yesterday morning we awoke to a little of the white stuff

 

nothing by Northumberland's standards but enough to make me glad my trip to Harrogate was on Friday.  My studio has ice on the inside of the windows and I had a happy few minutes taking photographs that I hope will be very useful for textures in Photoshop.

My DH is being a star in helping with Mum and looked after her while I went to the Show.  He even offered to help her with her shower, a quick hose down in the yard!!! :-)  He needs something to distract him - his computer has been infected and needs a complete clean out.  Whatever will he do while it's away?!  Heaven help us! ;-)

Kim Klassen's Skinny Mini Course

While Mum has been sleeping and I have been feeling lousy with the cold of the year (!) I have been working through Kim's excellent Photoshop course.  If you have missed out on this round you have another chance to do the course as Kim is running it again at the beginning of December so just click on Kim's button at the top of my right hand sidebar.  It is a video based course and Kim keeps the videos short so they don't take forever to do and I have to say it's becoming more and more addictive.

To be fair to Kim I can't detail the steps I took but here are the results of my labours

 Above is the original photograph and below the altered copy (click on the altered one to see the details).  The aim was to change the image to black and white and then add adjustment layers to get the desired effect.

This photograph of the Magnolia Yellowbird was taken at Alnwick Gradens in Northumberland and the aim of this lesson was to reduce the strength of colour and add a texture to make a bit of a dreamy atmosphere.  I decided to add some text too and changed the colour of the text.

This was the original photograph of St Ives rooftops on which I altered the saturation and added adjustment layers. I then added a photograph of nets to which I applied more adjustment layers.  I think I would have liked the net lines to be dark where they're light and vice versa so I need to have another play with this.

I have paid a very nominal $5 to have continuing access to the instructional videos and still have 3 more to work with including how to make brushes which I glimpsed today and which I have done a little of previously.  There is still a mountain of stuff to learn but in terms of finding my way around Photoshop this course has been wonderful.  I'm going to play some more!

MIA, a little digital and a new website

This could turn into a bit of a long post so you may want to make a cuppa before you start!  You may have noticed that I have been conspicuous by my absence over the last few weeks.  Despite the fact that my foot is still causing me problems, that wasn't the reason for being away.  At the end of October my Mum went on a longed-for cruise to America for three weeks and 2 days before the end of the cruise she woke up with a numb arm.  To cut a long story short she had had a stroke so DH and I headed down to Essex to be there for when she got home.  After a 5 day stay in hospital and some recovery time at home Mum is now staying with us until we can see what sort of recovery she is going to make.  Fortunately it is just Mum's right hand and arm that are affected and she does have movement in it but no feeling so fine movement is tricky.  She says she will bounce back and as she is a fighter I'm sure she will.

We have had some laughs in all this because Mum's speech was slightly affected in as much as she kept mixing up her words.  DH is now referred to as her 'un-in-slaw'!  She was talking to my brother today about 'ruvuccas' (verrucas) so the sounds are all there, just a bit mixed up. :)

Just before our dash to Essex I had signed up to Kim Klassen's Skinny Mini Photoshop workshop and couldn't start it until we got back home.  Kim is offering this class again in December and from what I have seen so far it is an excellent class to learn the fundamentals of Photoshop Elements, especially with the use of layers.  I have already learned a lot and had fun making the changes to these images. 

 This daisy image is one of Kim's and I think all I did was add the text and change the colour of it.

 Using the daisy image again this had a solid colour layer added and an adjustment layer.

This dandelion that I had photographed  has been cropped and text added.  The colour of the text was altered by colour picking from the stone in the background.

This image above is one of my favourite images from Barbara Hepworth's garden in St Ives and I used and adjustment layer (hard mix), added text, changed its colour and then warped the text.

This final image is one of Kim's and includes a texture layer and some judicial use of brushes.  

The best thing so far is that Kim is teaching some very useful habits to get into and I now appreciate why you should save photo files as PSDs once you have manipulated them.  With a PSD you get to save all the layers you have made so you can come back and work into it more later if you wish.  Magic!  

I'm at least a week behind on the course so I hope to get a few more lessons done over the next few days while Mum is resting.  Anyone who is a veteran at Photoshop will realise these are only baby steps in manipulation but that's what I need, a good grounding to demystify the process.

Some of you may know that I am a member of the Quilters Guild of Great Britain and within the Guild I am a member of the Contemporary Quilt Group.  This group has been invaluable to me since I joined and has been a constant source of friendship, inspiration and knowledge.  My main point of contact and chat has been the CQ Yahoo group but now we have our very own website!  

The site includes information about the group, images of members work and contact details for anyone who is interested in becoming a member.  The site is in its infancy but it already looks exciting and will be added to over time.  If I can manage it I will put a button on my sidebar.

Needless to say, crafting is taking a bit of a back seat at the moment.  Journal Quilts are waiting to be finished (3 still to do for this year), Stay Home Round Robin coming up in December, An A4 quilt for Another Little Quilt Swap.  Although my sewing table is now vaguely accessible in our bedroom I don't feel very inclined to get to grips with anything too complicated so I am handsewing some laminated fabric I was experimenting and may well end up handsewing my remaining projects this year.  Watch this space!  (My little Fantasy Bird has progressed but I keep forgetting to photograph it).

I can't go without showing you our gorgeous great nephew who is now almost 9 months old and who has just been to Australia and back to his uncle's wedding (in company with Mum and Dad and grandparents).

This little man charmed all the stewards on the flights to and from Australia and all the guests at the wedding.  He's learned to blow bubbles too and I can't wait to have another cuddle!

If you're having a bad day

you have to go and read this, it will have you crying with laughter (but maybe only if you like dogs and have tried moving house with them!).

I'm sorry I've been MIA.  Life!  I'll be back in a day or two.

Stay Home Round Robin 5

Not a lot happening in the Mixed Media household this week while my foot is still bruised but I have managed a little gentle sewing today courtesy of my left foot.  Kate's instruction for November for the Stay Home Round Robin was to attach 2 blocks of differing lengths to the top edge.  

These are the two blocks I made.  The lower block includes a snowball block, the first time I have made one of these.  I have a feeling the triangles shouldn't be quite so big but I'm happy with it.  The topmost block is made with free cut curved piecing again and I have tried to echo other colours and shapes in the rest of the piece.

This is how it looks now with the two blocks added.  I am so enjoying this monthly project! :)

I am probably teaching my grandmothers to suck eggs but I learned something at Sheena Norquay's workshop that may save my thread box from descending into a tangled mess.

We are all familiar with this type of cotton reel (above), but did you know they did this?

No, neither did I!  The end pops back in to hold the thread secure until you need to use it again.  Who'd a thunk?!

Fantasy Bird

No, not me, the workshop with Sheena Norquay.  :)  I have done very little today to rest my foot which is colouring up nicely, but I have photographed the piece I worked on yesterday.  We spent the morning making a quick sketch of our birds, either directly from Sheena's sheet of suggested bird parts or from our own imaginations.  Sheena gave us some good tips for placing the bird properly in the available space and after drawing the basic shape we transferred it to the fabric.

The rest of the morning was spent printing with various utensils like cotton buds, the rubber ends off pencils, screw ends, credit cards, sticks, anything to make the required marks really.

This is my cheerful little chap.  His beak reminds me of a Muppet character!  I forgot to take a pic before I started the stitching so you are seeing him with his embroidery (after layering with wadding).  

After adding the embroidery we cut back the wadding to the stitching line.  I am not sure yet whether I am going to cut out the space between the feet and under the tail.  The next step is to make the quilt sandwich and stitch round the bird and then quilt the piece.   I may well add a border too.  My brain wouldn't compute the border on Sunday but the light dawned today!

I didn't manage to stay until the end of the workshop because of my foot and fatigue but I feel confident that I can complete this piece and I'm looking forward to getting on with it.  

Sheena was very generous with the information she gave us and while I didn't learn the secrets of her design methods I did learn things that will help me with my future work.  She did talk about her inspirations and her talk on Saturday was very entertaining.  And I enjoyed the day, despite the foot.

On another subject, I've recently come across Kim Klassen's blog and am going to be doing a course with her on the basics of Photoshop.  The course starts on November 8 and is completely FREE!  You can read about it here.  I am reliably informed that Kim is a good teacher and she does have an impressive blog so I think I am going to learn a lot, especially as so far I can only do stuff with somebody holding my hand!  If you want to know about digitally altering your photos for your textile art why don't you join me?  It might help me keep on course :) 

Many thanks for all your good wishes about my foot.  It is growing some very attractive colours and I am being pampered by DH so there are some compensations!

Oops! I almost forgot!  Kate North is running her 'Another Little Quilt Swap' which is great fun.  This time you only need to make something A4 size so if you feel like playing along just click the link at the top of the right sidebar to get the details.  You can sign up now without any worry about dropping out as you are only committed  when you post a photo of your finished quilt. 

Colours of Autumn

There has been quite a bit of talk around the web about the beautiful colours of Autumn this year and while I was on my way to my brother's yesterday afternoon I just had to stop and photograph this beautiful avenue of trees in Woodhall Spa.  I had already driven down a similar avenue of glorious colour with yellow leaves fluttering down like a light shower as I drove into the town/village.  I don't often get up into this part of Lincolnshire and I was surprised by the beauty of the countryside up there.  If only I'd had more time to stop and take it all in!  I can see DH and I going back for a photographic shoot before too long.

Well, my weekend and workshop went off well, considering.  Considering what? Considering I fell out of the house as I was leaving Saturday morning, folded my ankle right over and ended up in a big heap with a badly bruised foot!  How did that happen?!  It could have been worse, at least I didn't break it!  I did a very creditable version of Hop-a-long Cassidy all weekend and did manage to make the workshop although I left early as my energy was waning and the foot was hurting.   Today I have been confined to my recliner on foot rest!

Sheena Norquay (pronounced Norkwye) was a very good teacher and I learned a lot of basics that I hadn't considered before as well as the techniques I had gone to the workshop for.  Unfortunately we were so busy I didn't get chance to take any photos but I will take some of the work in progress tomorrow and get it posted.  Sheena didn't allow any photography of her work so I can only direct you to her website for images.

You may remember a week or three ago I mentioned a giveaway that Cameron was having on her blog.  Well, I won! If you scroll down a couple of posts on Cameron's blog you will see the photo of her sister wearing the dress.

The lace is really pretty, especially the slightly heavier lace around the handkerchief edge.  The dress is a very delicate peach colour.  Thank you Cameron for a very lovely gift.  I will live with it for a while before I decide what to do with it.  It seems too lovely to cut up but I am a bit too old to wear the style so reincarnation may be its destiny!

While we were down at my Mum's the other week we had some help clearing out her shed:

This little fellow kept my DH company for quite a while and hopped about from place to place.  There was certainly a good supply of woodlice for him and even the odd worm!

We did find time for a little walk on the beach on a beautifully bright afternoon culminating in Apple Pie and Custard in the beach cafe. Yum!

You can see how different the beach is in the Thames Estuary compared with the beach in St Ives (below).

Plant texture and Busy Weekend

I've dashed in here with a very quick post as I am going to be very busy over the weekend.  In fact, I should be in bed now or I'll be useless tomorrow.  So, what is happening?  Tomorrow is our Regional Day with the Quilters Guild and this time it is being held in north Lincolnshire.  I'm really excited to be going as the speaker is Sheena Norquay whose work I have admired for a long time and on Sunday I get to do a workshop with her!  I am beside myself!  My DH thinks I'm moving house because of all the stuff I'm taking ;)

Fortunately my brother lives about halfway between here and where the Regional Day is being held so I won't have to come all the way home tomorrow afternoon and I get to spend the evening with my brother and his wife.  Beats driving home when you're tired and even better it means I don't have to have such an early start on Sunday. 

I still have loads of St Ives pics to show you but for now have made a quick collage of some plant shapes that caught my eye.  The dried wreathy, shelly thing at the middle bottom was on the wall in our cottage.

Lastly, tomorrow it's the birthday of someone very special so Happy Birthday to my very special step-daughter from her wicked stepmum ;) Xxx 

(She's going to kill me for that photograph LOL)

Stay Home Round Robin and Journal Quilt

I've just realised I didn't show you the next stage of my piece for Kate North's Stay Home Round Robin which I completed last week.

The instruction for this month was to add a strip 9" x 3".  I have continued with the theme of the red/orange batik but couldn't find anymore of the dark blue fabric.  Luckily I found the blue chrysanthemum fabric and decided that would work.  Some of the girls have been including circles in their pieces but I didn't feel brave enough to give them a go yet so I decided to balance the curved lines of the right hand side with very slightly curved horizontal lines in this strip which I added on the left.  I am really enjoying following this Round Robin and it feels less scary than working on somebody else's piece, although that would be a fun challenge sometime.

Yesterday I decided it was high time I got on with my Contemporary Quilt Group Journal Quilt for September.  Just running a little behind!

This is called "Scrap Happy" and it is what its title suggests.  I raided my scrap bags and only used fabric I found in them.  I used the 'mile a minute' technique (mostly) and was surprised to find enough matching pieces to do the repeats.  The backing, which you can't see, came from an offcut from an old embroidered tablecloth.  I now have three more to do, hopefully before the end of November so that they don't get lost in the lead up to Christmas. (Oops! Sorry, I mentioned the 'C' word again!)

Now for some really good news!  My friend Grace is home at last!  Her leg is healing well and she is getting about on two sticks.  She has carers going in but she is able to potter about fairly happily.  I would like to thank everyone for their messages of support and good wishes. :o)