St Ives

What a magical name that is!  I never tire of thinking about St Ives and I don't think we will ever tire of going there.  I took so many photos that I've made a few collages to give a taste of some aspects of the town.

Over the course of 2 weeks we saw several faces of St Ives from flat calm sparkling sea to something a little more boisterous.  Having said that it was never really rough.

The photo at middle bottom above is the view we had from the sitting room of our rented cottage.  It was an upside-down house with the kitchen and bathroom downstairs and the bedrooms and lounge upstairs. 

These are just a few of the wonderful textures we saw throughout our stay.  I have many more to show and I'm hoping I will be able to use them as backgrounds in my digital art, when I ever get round to doing any! :)

These are just a few of the images that speak to me of the harbour in St Ives.  Fishing for crabs is a popular pastime around the harbour and this little pink bucket soon became full of crabs who couldn't resist the squid bait.  I think they all got put back into the water.  The seal is a regular visitor and I think we saw him every day.  The cottages in the middle photograph sit literally on the beach and at least one is a holiday let.  In this high tech age it is interesting that the shipping forecast is written on a chalk board on the pier every day (except the weekend!).

What else can I show you?  There's so much to choose!

An Open-Top bus runs around the coast until the beginning of October and we took a trip on it to Lands End, the most westerly point in England (hence the photograph of my DH looking like ET!).  It turned into a glorious day and after lunch at the hotel in the photo we had a rush of blood to the head and decided to walk (!) along the coastal path (!!) to Sennen Cove and get the return bus from there.  

We walked up several hills,

 

 Enjoyed the view towards Cape Cornwall

Eventually walked down the hill into Sennen Cove and enjoyed a welcome cuppa and some cake.

This was the window in the cafe we had our cuppa in, very appropriate.

Suitably fortified we caught the last bus to return to St Ives.  But first,

a hair raising journey passing very close to buildings in St Just and taking care to avoid any roadside hedges and overhanging branches.

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On the way we passed this ruined engine house that had once graced one of the many tin mines in the county.

  This village is only 4 miles from st Ives but may as well be in another world.  I think they are Cornish miles, twice as long as a standard mile judging by the time it takes to drive them, avoiding oncoming traffic and being careful not to scrape the roadside walls disguised as hedges ;)  If you google 'Cornish Hedge' you will find lots of images of different styles of hedge.

This lovely patchwork of fields is just outside Zennor and I hope that it will form the basis of a quilt before too long.   Zennor is home to the Wayside Museum and also to the Zennor Mermaid. You can read the story of the mermaid here.

Going back to the collages you can see how clear the water is in St Ives,

These beautiful rocks and seaweeds are alongside a jetty in St Ives,

and this is one of the crabs that didn't get away!

I'll be back soon with more images from our hols and I'm sure my DH will be adding his pics all the time. 

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 :)

Blogging break

I'm taking a blogging break as I'm going to be very busy so I thought I'd leave you with this lovely dandelion clock.  Tick tock! :)  See you soon. 

Goodies in the Post

Isn't it nice to get goodies in the post?  Carole Brungar who has been running the Journal workshop here had the great idea to organise a swap of napkins (serviettes) among the girls doing her journal making class.  I dutifully sent off my 10 napkins and today I've received a beautiful selection of napkins and some very useful papers for adding to journal pages.  Some of the napkins will be pressed straight into service and I don't think the lollipop is going to last long either!

A couple of weeks ago we had to go to Essex to take my Mum home after she had been staying here so I built a detour into the journey to visit an exhibition by Fen Edge Textiles at Maeldune Heritage Centre in Maldon.   Fen Edge Textiles are mentored by Pauline Verrinder so that should tell you how professional the work in this exhibition is.  The works in the exhibition were on a theme of 'Yesterday' but as you may expect the interpretations were many and varied.  I was only able to take a few photographs but I can recommend this exhibition to you if you live within reach.

My photograph doesn't do this beautiful wall hanging justice, you really need to see it.  The piece was made by Sharne who blogs as Sharne's Bits and Bobs and you can find it on her blog here and on earlier posts.  I thought at first that this was one piece of organza but Sharne has expertly blended the colours to make a seamless flow of colour change from top to bottom.  On the windowsill in the photo above you can also see a vessel made of the flowers which is also on Sharne's blog.  

A lovely part of the exhibition is a collection of insects with a twist made by the group members. 

I think this one is an interpretation of a horsefly!

I love the 'dragon'fly :)  Dilly, are you looking?

Finally these re Sharne's King Henry and Queen 'Bess' Monarch butterflies which she blogged about in August.  Sharne and all the artists have invested so much effort in these fun figures.  The exhibition continues until the beginning of October so if you live near Maldon do go and have a look.  You will be greeted very warmly  by the members of FET who are stewarding and there are some lovely sketchbooks to look at too.  Altogether a well organised and friendly show.  Maldon is well worth a visit too being an old historic Essex port.

I am pleased to be able to tell you that my  friend is finally out of hospital and is now in a nursing home close to home and friends.  Not sure how long G will be in care but she is very happy to be out of hospital and she is looking very well.  Noone seems in any hurry to rush her recuperation but she is making the effort to have little walks along the corridor.  We went to see her at the weekend when she was in another home waiting for a place here and we were able to give her a wheel out in the sunshine.  I don't think she will mind if I show you a photo. 

 Bless her, she's a fighter!

 

More digital fun

Linda Matthews has again posted a Photoshop tutorial today and I have given it a go and am very pleased with the result.

This was the brushed border I made following Linda's very clear instructions.

I combined it with this berberis, or is it cotoneaster?

Having combined the two images I decided to apply a 'difference' adjustment and I'm really pleased with the result.  What do you think?

Linda links to a great site where you can download all sorts of fun stuff to use in Photoshop.  It's Obsidian Dawn.  I think I may need one or two lessons in computer technology as I seem to be challenged when it comes to unzipping files and loading the contents.  Now, where is that computer expert better known as my brother when you need him? ;o)

PS  Here's another Photoshop thing I did all by myself!

Just altered a beach photo with a difference blend and added the St Ives view and reduced the opacity.  Simples! 

Digital Playing

I have been promising myself for ages that I will make the effort and get to grips with digital photo manipulation as I want to incorporate my own images into an art quilt.  In the course of my blog hopping I have been following Linda Matthews' blog and she is very generous with her tutorials.  This evening I finally got round to tinkering with one of the tutorials on her blog.

I took this photo along with the following two,

having decided to use my own images, although the text image came from the site Linda links to. (It think).

The result, after a couple of attempts is this

It's not perfect and I couldn't do it again without Linda's instructions but I am chuffed with myself and I shall be trying a few more.  :)  Baby steps!

Stay Home Round Robin and Good News

I've not had much time lately for anything earth shattering in the creative department but I have managed to complete the next part of Kate North's Stay At Home Robin.

I'm making this up as I go along but it sort of told me it wanted the red batik repeating so I went along with it.  I didn't think about it too much just pieced scraps of the fabrics I'd used in the first square.

I've also got round to making my second book using Carole Brungar's methods.  There is a link to the sketchbook course in her right hand sidebar.  

I used mountboard (mat board) for the covers and the spine is three layers of cloth.  The pennant on the front cover is the one I won at the Festival of Quilts and I'm really pleased to have found a use for it.

The pages are a selection of watercolour pages that I had painted previously, tracing paper, sketch paper and greetings cards.  I'm going to add some lacey bits but mostly I will leave the pages blank to be worked on later when I next go on my hols.

Energy is sadly lacking at the moment and a certain lack of interest in much at all but I am trying. (Very, some might say!)  The best news this week is that my dear friend is finally out of hospital! Yay!  She still has a lot of recuperating to do but at least she is out of the hospital environment and she is much happier for it.  Thank you everyone for all your good wishes over the last 7 weeks.

Ooh!  I nearly forgot!  Welcome to my Followers number 100 and 101!  How cool is that?  More than 100 followers for my inane ramblings :o)  Thank you everyone for being interested in my little corner of the world.

Sketchbook Project

Where has the last week gone?  Flown away, that's for sure.  My friend is still in hospital (!) but she is making good progress and there is a glimmer of hope that she may make it out of there and into respite care soon.  We're now starting her 7th week of being in hospital and it's too long, she needs a change of scene.  Thank you everyone who has given me so much support and sent good wishes to G.  She is delighted by the good wishes I give her from my internet friends.

I am bitting and bobbing about with little projects at the moment as I have my Mum staying for a few days so my sewing room is out of action.  I have finally been doing a little work in my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project.  As you may have read elsewhere the paper is very thin and doesn't support wet media very well. Consequently I have been sticking pages together and then applying collage.  

This is the front cover which you may have seen before.

On the right hand side above is some "travel lines" which I did on a journey to Berwick on Tweed.  Margaret Cooter had the original idea for this and has done a lot of work with travel lines.  I hope she doesn't mind that I have played with the idea.  The marks on the left hand page have come through from the other side of the page as I had not at that point pasted the pages together.  (I will have to photograph that title page next time).

This 2 page spread isn't complete yet, but then that's in the nature of a sketchbook, isn't it?  On the right I have cut up and woven *2 identical photographs of a journal quilt I made last year.  I feel it needs something more but I don't yet know what.

* Edited Monday 6 Sept.  What was I talking about?  It's not 2 identical photos at all, it's 2 different photos of 2 journal quilts!  What am I like?!  Must have been a long day yesterday ;o) 

This was done as a 2 page spread and came out of a challenge on GPP Street Team.  This is a great site if you are lacking inspiration and want to play.  I've used torn strips from various sources including textured papers that I have made previously.

On the right a pencil sketch and on the left a page in progress.  I like the fact that pages I had originally coloured randomly are providing a base for future work.

On the right, a collage made on a print of my quilt with various papers and painted Yupo.

Not sure about these pages, the left is a play with paper and painted lutradur and on the right I had previously painted the pages and then decided to cut holes before I stuck them together.  More work to come.

Finally, the back cover which needs finishing to strengthen the spine.

I have loads of pages to work in before the January deadline but at least I feel as though I've made a start.  The theme of my book is "This is Not a Sketchbook" so I feel free to do anything I like.

I have a busy, mostly non creative week coming up so don't be surprised if I am a bit quiet again.  Have a good week and if you are in New Zealand near Christchurch take care and keep safe.