Christmas Cards and New Year Greetings

 This is the Christmas card I made for an exchange. It is silk dupion on linen with vintage kimono shibori fabric for the flame. The holly and bow are from vintage cotton fabric.

This is the card I received in the exchange. It was from Faye in Australia and is of gum flowers. They have a white dusting for real, which resembles snow. She also sent me some Australian and New Zealand fabric.

I had an email from my cousin Loraine that reminded me about my blog. I will try to keep up with it more frequently in 2014. Happy New Year!

The indomitable Flylady says that you are never behind, just jump in wherever you are. I suppose it can apply to blogs too as well as decluttering and house cleaning. Just as in those areas the thought was liberating. And I'm over the idea I might only be talking to myself. The idea  of the blog is to help my creativity, so here goes!

I have been fascinated by lichen for a number of years since I found coin size pieces of crusty lichen- one yellow ochre, one green and one grey white- on a crumbling 16 th Century brick at Rufford Park near Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire.

I had only seen crusty lichen until we went to the Lost Gardens of Heligan last year and was fascinated with the foliate and fernlike lichens on the trees there.

When I put up one of my photos as wallpaper on my laptop I discovered mauve as well as greens in the lichen.

I'm amazed a piece made it into fabric and stitch at last!

OK. So I've been MIA for too long and need to catch up.

Inspired by blogs Annabel Rainbow , who had her quilt censored at a US exhibition and Val Littlewood  who I met at Easton Walled Gardens on Wednesday.

Binca

My branch of Embroiderer's Guild is getting involved in a local festival at Cotteridge Park- CoCo Mad on 6th July.
I have been designing and stitching on 6 count Binca fabric using big plastic needles and double knit wool. Even so I managed to go wrong on the blue one. The purse is big enough to take a mobile phone.
I have written instructions on how to thread the needle, start off and finish off the wool.

Progress on Klimt Piece

I have outlined the shapes on my Klimt piece with gold, silver and bronze Kreinik #8 braid in running stitch. I will take it to my EG branch tomorrow evening and think about what to do next- if anything.

I saw a great Klimt woman figure by Janet Humphrey yesterday too. I want to work on my sketch and let the Klimt ideas mull over.

The last picture is of the needle case  and silk purse I got at Living Threads yesterday. The needle case is by Adela Davis and the silk purse by Sally Webster.

Living Threads Exhibition

Today Heather organised for us to go to the Living Threads Textile Group exhibition in Long Eaton. Her kind parents drove up from Bletchley and picked up Margaret, Heather and me to go.

There was no photography at the exhibition, but it is amazing how an art exhibition makes you look at everything in an artistic way.

The exhibition was in the hall at Trent College and I was taken with the ironwork on the stairs an the cracked and broken paving slabs. I also found a putty coloured crusty lichen. I think the hall was the same vintage as my old school hall at Dover Grammar School for Girls and reminded me of it a little.

I loved the work of Alysn Midgelow-Marsden. ~~There were 4 hangings based on beaches, bays and coves in New Zealand. Alysn's Blog shows these pieces.

I also loved the work of Janet Humphrey. The Klimt woman was awesome and her pieces based on the bottles of lotions and potions your granny had were lovely and nostalgic. Janet's website has kits of some of her designs with handdyed lace and other bits in lovely pastel shades and digital images and words on fabric. I loved Janet's brown hare.

I did some sketching. I always do if you can't take photos. Sketching is always good cos it makes you look at things properly.

I got some ideas from couched metal thread work to maybe put into my Klimt piece I started last week.

Seeing the lichen reminded me that I still have to make the leap to fabric with my long brewing ideas for a piece based on them.

The leap to fabric is always the difficult bit! Then once you do, it seems to take no time at all.

Yesterday we had an Embroiderer's Guild Day School with Angie Hughes. 'Inspired by Klimt', she taught us to use trans-foils and foil sweet wrappers with Bondaweb onto velvet.

The top picture is of the piece that I started and my test piece.

The second picture is of Angie and the bottom of some of her Klimt inspired work.

It was good to spend the day creating something!