Had a great workshop today making tags with Angie Hughes with women in my EG branch. I did one with imagery from Shrewsbury and one with a picture of fishes on a pillar at Papplewick Pumping Station, steam driven, it runs 2 Victorian James Watt beam engines.
I loved Angie's lower case alphabet rubber stamps.
http://www.angiehughes.com/
You can see what Heather did here http://heatherramsden.co.uk/2015/06/27/day-178/

Summer

Tina Francis Tapestry blog update has inspired me to update my blog.

The going is tough at the moment coming up the the anniversary of my husband, Tom's, death on 18th June and with the weather now the same as when I was visiting the hospital this time last year.

I have been catching up with the Travelling Books for Birmingham Embroiderers' Guild and plan to get my home book up to date this week as I am off work. Travelling books is interesting- I've done 2 pieces based on lichen, Coco Chanel's little black dress, a piece based on Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale and a piece inspired by Maori tattoos ( the owner of the book went to New Zealand last year). Now I have another book to be inspired by for next month. I now work on 2 pieces at the same time- one for the home book and one for the travelling book. Pieces are A5 size max, so manageable to work with.

Here are some photos from Mum and Dad's garden.

Through Our Hands have an exhibition at Bilston craft Gallery. I particularly liked the pogaji patchwork with ink leaking down it and Laura Kemshall's quilt that has text 'Will thy restless heart return to mine?' running through it. It spoke to me strongly of memory and loss.

Finally, there is a fascinating building over the road from Bilston Craft Gallery with 'Science and Arts' over the windows and portrait roundels. Unfortunately it is increasingly derelict and now dangerous. There are 3 portrait roundels on the side walls. Here is one..

Time to revitalise my blog!

It's  been a while, but I thought I'd revitalise my blog.

In January I started going to the Birmingham Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. In March and April I did weaving workshops. The Saturday in March was spent preparing the warp threads and setting up the (borrowed) loom. In April, I finished setting up the loom and started the weft. The warp and weft threads are cotton and the colours are the colours of lichen.

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.