Look Where I've Been Today ....

I went along to this event at Toddington, near Winchcombe in Gloucestershire despite the showers and had a ball looking around the beautiful vintage and hand made items, some from my favourite bloggers: The Sea Garden, Hen's Teeth, Nostalgia at the Stone House to name a few.  There was much gorgeousness to be found at every turn and it would have been easy to spend LOTS of dosh but I controlled myself and settled on these lovelies:-

old embroidered runners and traycloths, vintage French fabric and antique lace, as well as a  lovely inspiration pack from The Sea Garden.

There was also a pop up vintage style tea shop - Lavinia's - and the event was very well attended. I have already used one of the items this evening!

LONDON 2012 - OUR OLYMPIC EVENT!

Mr V-B and I set off yesterday for our first ever Olympic event - the Canoe Slalom at Lee Valley Water Park near Hatfield in Hertfordshire.   The atmosphere was great and at times, there was lots of noise from trumpets and vuvuzelas!  The course was very rapid and the paddlers very skillful to stay afloat and in their canoes.  Unfortunately, David Florence, the British hope only made it as far as the semi-final and France's Tony Estanguet won the gold medal.  Fortunately, the rain held off until the final race had just finished and then the heavens opened and there was a mass exodus as the stands had no shelter, so unfortunately we didn't see the medal ceremony.

Here are a few photos from the day:-

Free Motion Stitching Experiment

As part of the online course I'm doing at the moment, we had to do some free motion stitching.  These are a few of my experimental pieces from yesterday:-

The small piece at the bottom is 5 pieces of white tissue paper machine stitched; the piece on the right hand side has bark paper on the bottom, followed by a piece of fancy, sparkly paper and a piece of crinkled voile on the top, all free motion stitched.  The longer panel is 5 pieces of white tissue paper stitched into a grid pattern, which formed a lovely surface upon which to stitch so I decided to embroider some flowers in the colours of the page it is to be mounted on.

The panel with a little more embroidery - not quite finished yet.

I have a few more ideas of layers that might be good stitched together, which I will try next.

More Work On The Ledger Pages

I have been very fraught this week, trying to make several different ledger pages using different techniques.  Some of them haven't worked out right and I have been quite frustrated but think I have settled on what I am fairly happy with now.  Here are some piccies:-

Lots more angst in the pipeline  .....................!

A New Class

I started a new online learning class a couple of weeks ago, run by the very talented Karen Ruane.  As you know I love embroidery and have in the past dabbled a bit with watercolours, so the idea of having a ledger to record stitching samples and other beautiful design methods really appealled to me.    I can't give too much away as the course is still running but here are my first two pages:-

This first exercise was in colour matching from a chosen image and then with progression through to stitched samples using specific stitches.  I  also added some collaged images and silk sari ribbon.

I had a piece of textured wallpaper which I liked the shape of and thought it would look good with some tissue paper, gesso and white paint.  I also added a bit of lace to make a nice textured piece for my ledger.

I'm just about to start the second exercise so will post when I have done my pages.

What's Out In The Garden Today

I popped out to have a walk around the garden this morning and saw so many lovely flowers out that I had to go back in and get the camera so that I could capture them before the wind blows them to smithereens - it's blowing another gale outside today.  So here's a little collage of my pretties:-

A Big Catch Up

No, I haven't left the country - well, only briefly.  This might be a longish post so you might want to get yourself a cuppa and see what I have been up to.  First of all, we had a long weekend in Brussels in March (it's now the end of May!) and though we left unusually hot, sunny weather in the UK, Brussels was cold and grey.  Here are a few photos from our trip:-

We then had another break down in the lovely rural Essex countryside to see family and attend a funeral and although it rained most of the time, it was nevertheless a peaceful few days.  Here are a few more photos of different jaunts out and about including:-  Waterperry Gardens, Rousham House and St Osyth.

And lastly, photos from last week's visit to William Morris' beautiful Oxfordshire home, Kelmscott Manor:-

Creativity-wise, Nada, I'm afraid.  I have been having a very muse-less time just lately and although I have tried to pick up various projects to work on, I have had to give up on them due to lack of enthusiasm and inspiration.    However, I did stick at one project for a short while and did a little more work on my Spirit Cloth.  To see how it started click HERE.  It still isn't completely finished but is getting there very slowly.

 

I feel bad as  I know several ladies have made a few different cloths in the time it has taken me to do mine!
I even got as far as piecing together another one, which is going to be more unstructured and not so pretty- here's a sneak peak:-

Watch this space ........