MERRY CHRISTMAS!

A bit late I know but hope it was a good one all the same.

Hi!

I love it when the sky is blue and everything is white!

I like how the snow catches in the fence and tops the posts!

I just love the snow!

I'm not looking forward to the thaw, the mess, the flooding and the dark!

Took these when the snow came at the end of November. It looked lovely but now at the end of December it's a mess. It's been raining a lot, the snow is shrinking and some bits are just sheer ice. Not so nice now, but we did have a white Christmas, woopee! Sadly the snow novelty has worn off a bit now.

Anyway, hope you all had a great Christmas and here's to a Happy New Year!

x 

Stirling...

I can't believe it's one month on from being at The Emroiderers'Guild Summer School (Scottish Branches) at Stirling. Anyone would think that I hadn't enjoyed myself. Completely the opposite!!! I had a great time this year with Louise Baldwin as my tutor. I've loved her work since I did my City & Guilds so it was great to finally meet her and be in her class. She was brilliant! I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the results of my labour can be seen in the picture above. We were working from our own source. I chose to work from my photos of the May Island which I visited in June. I can feel a series coming on!!! .....
I hope to take some close up photos which I'll post sooner rather than later.
That's it for now,
Byeee!
:o)

Holiday snaps 2010...

Some of the wildlife...

They're back!    Same as last year.

Moonlight! 

Sunrise!

Sunset!

This one is just for show. Honest it's not real.

Spotted on the Isle of Arran, Scotland

The lovely old paddle steamer Waverley.

Some fine inspiration.

Interesting flotsam!

More from Arran...the unreal variety!! Pretty cute all the same.

Imagine my surprise when I found this on the shore.

"M" it definitely is.

 :o)

super trip....100...

The Isle of May National Nature Reserve in the River Forth.  Had a great day here on one of their open days. We went on the boat from Anstruther and this was some of the first close up views we had of the island.

The stars of the trip! We sat on rocks and watch the comings and goings of the puffins on their way to feed their little pufflings hiding underground..

I would have loved to have had closer pictures of the puffins. Much larger lens required!These were some Shags and a Razorbill with its little chick following him or her around. He was so sweet.

This was a family of Guillemot with their chick in the background. Its amazing how they look like little penguins.

Of course the extreem close-ups ended up being the seagull chicks. I have to admit that they look really nice when they were all fluffed up.

Heaps of inspiration on the island for textile pieces!!!

These were all taken in and around the Engine House which was on Fluke Street, fabulous name! Loads of peeling paint and rust. I can feel a May Isle range for next summer!!!I think I took as many pictures of inspiration as I did of sea birds, they didn't move! The birds had a tendency to turn the other way just when the camera went click so it was amazing that I actually have any bird photos!

Some local island text!

This was where an old railing post had been cut off. I know that railings were cut down during the war to be melted down for I think munitions so maybe this is what happened here. I would like to point out that this was learned and not from experience! Anyway I loved the areas of colour on the stone.

Well that's it for now. This as it happens has been my 100th post. I had thought to commemorate it with a giveaway but I've never done anything like that and am not sure where to start so for now I thought that I would share with you the photos of what was for me a fantastic trip.

I wonder when they take the bookings for next year!!!!!

Bye for now, I'll be back soon.

A selection...

Not a great picture but this is one of my unframed pieces that has been lurking around for a while. I had worked it on a backing of calico but all my unframed pieces are usually worked on a base of felt. This is probably why it was in the lurking pile! I added it to a piece of felt with the embellisher and some more rows of free machining, problem solved! I've mounted it on the horizontal for a change. There's a kind of landscape thing going on with it... with a bit of imagination!

This one is actually another one on calico but this time I've decided that I'll window mount it, so it'll not need to be put on to felt. It's very much a work in progress as I've not stitched the flowers yet.

I quite like how they look without the flowers being stitched (I'll take some more photos of them later) but I think that's because it's a close up which I find always looks way better than the actual size. 

I've used a mixture on this one of hand and free machine embroidery with some work on the embellisher as well. I love to combine techniques when it suits.

These are a couple of quite small pieces, actually I think I may have shown them before, or maybe on flickr... anyway I decided that they had too much work on them to be put on a card (I try not to do any hand stitching on my card pieces...a personal thing!) so I decided to whiz a zigzag stitch around the edges, add a brooch back and voila!...  a couple of instant brooches... As to whether anyone will want them or not remains to be seen but at least I'm happy as I feel like I've used them!

This is a before picture...

and this is the after...

The addition of a few straight stitches and some little flowers makes all the difference. I didn't notice until after I had mounted and packaged this one that I hadn't done any of my little French knot flowers. It obviously didn't need it otherwise I think I would have noticed at the time.

Some of the machining looks really messy when you see it in close up!

The photo above and the few below are from a landscape that I finished last week.

The colour doesn't seem quite right in these two photos. I may have had the flash on for this one as it was probably getting dark by the time I remembered to take some photos!!

The last photo here shows this piece before I did the extra hand stitching and free machining and I think the colour is better. You can see the extra details that I put on it in the close up photos.

I'm pleased to say that this piece sold at the Morningside Makers Market on Saturday !! I really liked it and wouldn't have minded if I'd had to keep it for a while....maybe this will be the start of a new series.......! :o)

Bye for now!

x