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We took quite a few photos from the coach just to have a record of the wonderful colours. amazingly not all were blurred.
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It doesn't look much but this is our hotel, looking very much like a log cabin.

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These quirky guys were part of a sculpture trail on the riverside in Perth.

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Unfortunately I didn't make a note of the artist who made this sculpture in Rodney Gardens in Perth.

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Just so you don't think the sun shone all the time, we had some showers which fell as snow on the higher hills in the glen.

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I was intrigued by these rusted fence posts - I'm sure they will come into a design sometime.

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Hmmm! How many of us could do with one of these at home? (Thanks to my DH for the photo).

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This beautiful mist filled valley is hiding the lovely town of Pitlochry.

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ATCs

As I have been away I don't currently have any craftiness to show you. However, I realised that I haven't yet posted the ATC I made with one of the blanks Kate sent me. The block arrived unadorned and I added stitch and a few embellishments. I've sent it back to Kate and I think she liked it.

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This ATC was sent to me by Jacqueline in a one for one swap. My ATC is currently winging its way to her so no photo here.

My photo does not do this ATC justice as it has a lovely shimmer to it from the organza and sparkly fabric. The mesh fabric is more yellow than brown.

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I was going to blog how excited I am to have bought and received Julia Caprara's book "Exploring Colour" but my excitement has been tempered by the news that this highly talented artist died on Friday. I never met nor took classes with Julia but I have admired her work from the first time I saw it at the Festival of Quilts the first time I went. Her sketchbooks were on show and the work in them was amazing. So much colour and so many ideas. This lady is a great loss to the world of embroidery and colour and I extend my condolences to all who mourn her.

A Bientot

I thought I would post a little bit of Autumn colour (albeit Austrian and French Autumn colour) as I won't be around this week and I thought you might like something colourful to look at. See you soon!

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I'm in the Club!

No, not that club, way too old! I mean Maggie Grey's Catalogue-in-the-Garden club. I've done two because I like to hedge my bets! Ouch! They've both been dunked in a bucket of water and are in varying states of decline. All over the country and possibly the world, otherwise sane ladies (and who knows, maybe even the occasional gentleman or two) are planting catalogues and phone books in their gardens and nipping out in the dead of night to throw buckets of water on them in the hope that a wonderful work of art will materialise in November. Watch this space, and Maggie's blog and if you want to join in you'll need to buy Maggie's wonderful new book. Who me? Course not (hmm) I never buy books! Much!!!

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Glossy brochure.

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Not so glossy brochure.

Felt making

I told you this was a busy few days didn't I? I've had a really lovely day today and it's cheered me up no end. A friend of mine invited me along to a felt making day which had been arranged locally. The tutor was Jane Marrows who is based in Sneinton Nottingham and is a member of Sneinton Artists .
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The workshop was held at the Scout Hall in Bottesford village and we had a leisurely start with a cuppa. Jane then took us through a short demonstration of how to make a fairly soft felt. I had been worried that the procedure might involve hours of rolling and pummelling but far from it.
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We laid out 3 layers of our base wool (white to begin with), each layer at right angles to the previous one and the fibres overlapping each other by roughly a third so that there are no gaps.

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The fibres were then covered with a layer of net (nylon fabric), wet with hot soapy water and rubbed over with the back of the hand (in my case). It didn't take very long at all for the fibres to start felting and after about 10 minutes of rubbing and manipulating we were able to rinse the felt and set it on a windowsill to dry.

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As you can see we set up the base layers and then made a bit of a design with coloured wools and other fibres including angelina.

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For my second piece I layered coloured wool fibres and then used snippets of silk, yarn, angelina and silk mawatta cap.

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This piece felted up even quicker than the first piece! You can manipulate it further to firm the felt up but I quite like this soft finish.

Felting 2

As you can see we had a lovely bright, large hall to work in and there were just enough ladies to make it a friendly sociable morning. I think there were about 16 of us altogether. This was not a club but a group of ladies, friends of friends, who got together to put on their own workshop with an invited tutor.

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My friend, who had invited me, used beautiful Autumnal colours for her piece. It is amazing that this mound of fibres compacted down so far.

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The net was pulled back to check on the progress of the felting.

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After the felt had been rubbed under the net we rolled the felt up and squeezed it and rolled it to encourage the felting to complete.

Felting 3

The workshop lasted for two hours and it was the quickest two hours I have known. At the end of the two hours we cleared up and then enjoyed an excellent lunch provided by the organiser and her friends. Very civilised and a lovely change from rushing off at the end of a session without time to chat!

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As you can see there were some beautiful and colourful pieces of felt produced You should be able to see my friend's lovely Autumnal felt. I love the heart shape too. Jane was an excellent tutor and went round encouraging and advising everyone. She had brought examples of her work with her and a very tempting array of wool fibres, silk fibres, buttons, sequins, inspiration packs and mini felts. Yes, I was tempted. No, I'm not posting my sins this time lol

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Above and below are my pieces, not quite dry and photographed in very bright sunlight this afternoon. I was trying to think of the sea when I laid out the left hand side of the piece above. The right hand side was just a play.

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I will have to photograph the piece above again as it is drying out with the background looking much darker and the red silk showing up more.

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I treated myself to one of Jane's mini-felts as it reminded me of a stone wall, even though the colours are not "wall-like". It's about 4 inches square and I'm sure will inspire me to work some more at this magical felting.

Hand Made Book cont.

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my handmade book. The papers I used for the cover was made at another workshop recently with the same lady who showed me how to make the book. We took simple cartridge paper and used Lumiere paints to paint it or sponged the paint on. We then sprayed it with inks into which powdered pigment had been added. In fact most of the added pigment was powdered sparkly eye shadow! Once dry some of the papers were scrunched up to give some texture and the surface was sprayed with a fixative.
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I had left the papers in our conservatory and found them later with the sun shining onto them through a small piece of stained glass that I have hanging in the window.

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The instructions for the book mostly can be found in this book which I had bought a few days before. (The tutor had a lot of book making experience). Its title is misleading as it is not about Scrapbooking so much as making all sorts of books from all sorts of materials. I've included a glimpse of a couple of pages as an example. Sorry they're small but I don't want to get done for copyright so I've tried to make sure you can't actually read anything.

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I'm not sure if the book is still in print. I got it from a local discount book shop.

Hand Made Book

I am having a busy few days with workshops over this weekend. That's the way things pan out sometimes. I have been wanting to learn how to make books for some time so I have taken a class today to make a basic book. Yet again there was so much going on that I did not get chance to photograph each step but it is fairly straightforward. Again, I will be making some more books so I will take step by step photos then. In the meantime, this is what I achieved today...
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The papers that cover the front and back boards are actually shimmery and have been stamped on top. The lozenge in the centre has been stamped, triple embossed and then stamped again into the embossing.

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There are 4 signatures inside and each has been stamped in the right hand corner with a related stamp, some of which have been embossed. This style of book has an open spine but I have also learnt how to enclose the spine which I may well do next time. For the moment the book has only been held together with an elastic cord but it could equally be held with ribbons or yarns and embellished with beads. I feel I am at the beginning of a long road but maybe I'll be able to make a few for Christmas presents. Watch this space!

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Just one thing, do any of you use a Crop-O-Dile? I had great difficulty today using a traditional eyelet cutter because my hands hurt when I tried to squeeze the handles, I didn't have enough strength in my hand to work it. Would a Crop-O-Dile be any easier or harder to use? I tried one of those pinger-type-cutters and that was worse as I couldn't hold it with one hand while the other pulled the spring back because again it hurt too much. Thanks for any advice you can offer.

A Pwincessy present

A few days ago I had a message left in my comments from the lovely Dilly, the very princessy dragon, that I was to expect a parcel through the post. Well today, when I got in from a workshop in town, a parcel was waiting for me.

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This pink ribboned tissue wrapped parcel was in the envelope.
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Inside was this lovely card of a sleeping dragon which Dilly had helped to make.

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The tissue held a lovely purple gift bag with pink yarn attached to it and inside the bag was a pretty pink wrapped package (have you seen there's a theme here?)

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Wow! What could be better? Gorgeous scrummy chocolate with a pink ribbon! So much pink! And a very special card from Dilly. The chocolate is handmade in Derbyshire and is a dark chocolate with Marigolds and Hibiscus flowers. I think I shall have to hide it away from my DH!

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Dilly, thank you so much for such a lovely thought. As always you have brought a big smile to my face and I will enjoy the yummy chocolate and all the extra tissue and ribbons. You are a very generous young wagon and a really speshol fwend who always cheers me up with your adventures and the byrds and flowers in your garden!