ATC for Emmy

ATC for Emmy- bonded silk fibres handstitched to base layer of felt

ATC from Emmy

For some reason, my scanner chose to trim this one a little close even on the third attempt! This is an ATC trade with Emmy, isn't it wonderful. MyATc isn't quite finished so will possibly post it tomorrow.

Another Beach Hut

At the beginning of October, I posted about the new beach huts at Mablethorpe, well, here is another one. Constructed of wooden strips interleaved with what is ether perspex or glass, not sure which.

Once again, its sandrace time.

This time the photos are about the days when nothing goes right for some people..........Practise racing usually starts about an hour after signing on.

Today, nobody bothered to tell the sea!! this is nearly 2 hours after sign on!!

Some days its difficult to stay upright at all

Fortunately no one was seriously injured

sometimes the b**!*@r just will not start

and its a long push back to the paddock.

but the little'uns has a great time!

Nottingham Old and New part three

Of course, I had to SHOP!! Two 12 inch square sketch/notebooks with quite thick paper and a book on motorcycles from the £2.00 bookshop, a small notebook with handmade paper from Oxfam for 79p and a trip to the Textile Workshop at Sherwood ( who also hae a shop on ebay) where I bought dyed merino wool tops and space dyed Tussach Silk tops to play with.

Nottingham Old and New part two

Newer buildings include the multiplex cinema ( up to a year ago, we had season tickets and used to go straight from work on a Friday and watch whichever film started next) and the concert hall

Nottingham Old and New

Having had one of those weeks, what with new working hours and various problems ,I really felt the need to go out and shop this morning. So I hopped on a bus into town and remembered to take my camera, this time with the memory card in it. These are some of the buildings in Nottingham City Centre.
The market square has been opened out and is now used for entertainment, markets even ice skating at Christmas and we have a relatively new tram system.

As you can see, we have some wonderful old buildings amongst the 1960s concrete monstrosities.

Gone Reading

This arrived in the post yesterday so I will be busy reading tonight instead of blogging/stitching/housework etc he he he

ATC from Sweden

The Unlimited Textiles group swap this month is Art Nouveau and this lovely touchy feelyATC was waiting on the doorstep when I got home yesterday. I suspect that it has been made on an embellished with mixed fibres, machine and hand stitching and beads. Eva, I think it's lovely, many thanks.

what the words mean

Many thanks to everyone who has commented on my January Take it Further Challenge piece, I really enjoyed the challenge of having to try and design again.

Several people have asked what the writing says at the top of the piece. It is a Tibetan Buddhist mantra used in meditation and is written on a silver bangle that I wear most of the time. More details can be found here The Mantra Om Mani Padme Hum

January TIF Challenge complete

approx 10.5 inch square
hand dyed cotton, t shirt computer print, computer print on cotton,hand embroidered, machine embroidered and quilted and beaded. All items from existing stash.

Design source:admiration: The Dali Lama

The Pink Artist

THis appeared on Girl Gone Thread Wild last week, I though it was worth participating, check out the details link.

"the pink artist"

is a community of artists joining together
to create one joint art doll to benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
When doll is complete, it will be mailed in to Art Doll Quarterly™
before finally being auctioned off on eBay at a later date.
ALL PROCEEDS WILL DIRECTLY BENEFIT CHARITY.

Spread the word!
If you are a quilter, mixed-media artist, polymer clay artist,
painter, doodler, felting guru, pastel artist, doll artist, beader, collage artist,
abstract artist,stitching queen, yarn goddess, paper artist, rubber stamper,
photographer, digital junky, rusted ART connoisseur, crayon/marker
enthusiast, journal-ER, poet... you get the idea,
We need YOUR participation!

Create:
one 2x2 inch square with a cloth base using your chosen medium
in ANY way you feel inspired to do so for this project!
(ideas, but definitely not limitations might include... name of loved one,
motivational word, favorite quote, theme of LOVE, HEART, DANCE, BREASTS,
a face, an eye, a hand, a pose, a script that dances from your fingertips, a beaded symbol,
a thread embellished design, a photo, a digitally enhanced image, poetry you wrote or
a portion of a poem you LOVe, scripture, felted object (wing, heart), thick layer of
paint with rubber stamping, rusted object, a clay face...
let the THEME of LOVE inspire you). Sometimes just looking around your studio
or work space will INSPIRE you! See something sitting on your desk that you've been
wanting to use but didn't know what to do with???

Full details to be found here

Isigned up at the end of last week and will send 2 2inch squares. This is the first one.

Forgetful

Not much stitch this weekend as busy trying to install some sense order to our house yesterday (failed miserably) and went to Derbyshire today to our favourite book shop near Buxton, then on to Matlock to visit friends.

The plan was really simple, take camera, take photos of swollen river, flooded fields etc. Guess who forgot to put the memory card back in the camera!!

So no photos, no stitch, just a small piece of background fibre awaiting hand stitching.

mixed fibres bonded to felt

Charity stitching

Checkout ClevelandGirlie blog to see the 2 inch squares stitched for the Pink Artists doll project. For more details see Girl gone thread Wild.

ATC

I've not felt like stitching at all this week mainly due to feeling rough, far easier to wrap up and watch DVDs (no telly so I've never seen daytime TV) Anyway I have managed to finish these two ATC for Jill and Margaret for the unlimited textiles swap even though it has taken me most of the week.

Having fun

Having fun with this little design, machine embroidery on water soluble paper

transfer paints

At the weekend I was playing with transfer paints and Art Nouveau as a subject, even though this is just messing around with colour, I think there may be a piece of work in here somewhere.

Purple missus has just asked if this is before or after transferring to fabric. This is the paper before transfer- the colours come out quite different on the fabric but I just like the set as it is, will put it with my to do pile, near the top!

Take it further challenge

Typical, just as I thought I'd avoided the cold thats going round, I get a chest infection!! if I speak, I cough, if I move I cough so I'm barricaded into my work room waiting for the antibiotics to kick in so I can get back to work ( hopefully tomorrow)
Anyway, the latest from Take it further challenge, the piece is more or less finished, just needs backing and edging next weekend when I will hopefully feel more like doing it.

Forgot to say that it is around 10 inch squareish

moving objects

Several blog have recently published photos taken with a long exposure and moving the camera so here is a method we used at college a few years ago. Simply set your computer scanner in motion and move an object over the light. DO NOT LOOK directly at the light as I have no idea how much damage it may do. With the bottle, it was simply rolled along the scanner bed.

Take it further challenge

Starting to hand stitch at last.

New Blogger on the Block

Although we are both full of cold, Ian has today been helping Biker Ted set up his blog Biker Ted Diaries which will detail his motorcycle adventures over the last ten years or so. You can read the first installment here and there will be a lot more to come.

Postal Treats

At the end of last year, Fibre and Stitch zine net group had a challenge to make a box and all entries were placed in a prize draw and I won! much to my surprise as I am usually the one still holding a full complement of raffle tickets at the end of the draw also I'm normally stood next to the person who has won all the prizes. The box was made by Sue Bleiweiss and was filled with useful fibres and a Fibre and Stitch Tag.

Frosty Morning

Took this photo last Sunday whilst Ian was away at a bike rally and forgot all about it, I like the colour change in the sky.

You make my day award

Look what Anna sent back to me, I'm so lucky to be finding so many friends out here.

No stitching tonight, busy helping a friend by scanning some photos for his blog which hopefully will be up and running soon. I had forgotten how long this takes as everyone seems to be digital now.

Lise sent me this award at the weekend, unfortunately for one reason or another, blogger wouldn’t let me upload the picture. Probably so that I couldn't show it off, as this is theFIRST blog award anyone has sent me. It really made MY day!!

''The rules are: "Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about Blogland! Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so that they can pass it on. Beware! You may get the award several times!"
Some of you may have received this award already, if so, please do not feel any pressure to participate again.''

Now here lies the problem, my reader currently tracks 85 blogs, most of which I love reading and make me smile and to narrow it down is proving to be somewhat problematical to say the least!

So if you will forgive me, I will update this post tomorrow when I have a little more time to link in my favourites.

Ok here we go: Ferret, Magstitch, Emmy, Julie, Anna. Magaretr, Annica

Thank you, all of you.

Take it further challenge

Slowly coaxing my machine into working, it's still not happy but we are reaching an agreement, I don't shout at it and it won't sulk too much.

Nearly forgot

the location of our bike in the earlier post is Kagyu Samye Ling Monastary at Eskdalemuir, Scotland. Well done Lise, you were very close and thanks Biker Ted for not giving the game away.

Sulky sewing machine

Why is it that when I need to do some free machine embroidery, my machine throws a dicky fit? sews fine on the border which will be trimmed off but refuses point blank to behave itself on the main part of the TIF work. It is now sulking in the corner of the room and will be there until it behaves itself ( hopefully by Thursday) while I think about ATCs with the subject Art Nouveau for Textiles Unlimited. I may have to threaten to use one of the old machines that are lurking in the next room.

This lovely warm ATC is from Annica in Sweden, isn't it great! I do love receiving work from other people, really makes my day.

Elephants

Annica of Fab Threads asked what the other design is in the previous picture, answer elephants!!

Elephant design

Elephant hanging

different methods of embellishing elephants

based on a string print block

Take it further challenge

Well, my camera doesn't like reds but here is the fabric collage sitting on my pin board waiting for stitch and embellishment. Finished size will be around 12 inch square I think.

Take it further challenge

design in paper

fabric and paper

fabric tryouts

fabric tryouts