HD All the unwanted bits

You might remember that last week I made a fabric bowl. Well the girls I was making it with started to throw their 'waste' bits away. I rescued them and this is what I produced.

TUSAL August

Well sorry I forgot to post my TUSAL progress last month, but here it is. It looks as if the jar is full but there's plenty of room. The top piece is an offcut from a project that wasn't used and will flatten down quite a lot. I can't believe how much I've collected in just two and a bit months. There'll be more this weekend when I come back from Wooler where I'm doing an EG workshop with Helen Cowans.

Fof Q update

Thankyou Tracie for a great day on Saturday. Tracie is a fantastic teacher and helped us all paint some fantastic pieces. Even my FiL thought the butterfly looks very real.

Here is Tracie with some of her work.









This is the piece I created. The only stitching - at the moment was to stitch on the butterfly. I intend to stitch the whole onto another background with some wadding so that it becomes a small art quilt. I've also bought some materials to create the rusting effects you can see in the background of my piece. I want to quite a few experiments with this technique and have quitea few ideas running through my head.

The quilts were fabulous - as usual. I was so surprised to see a small block the same design as my very first ever quilt . It is based on an exploding square and I made mine for my DS a few years ago. If you would like to see my quilt then go here. Yes it is a King size quilt. It was a mammoth undertaking and took me about 3 years to complete.

Festival of Quilts

I'm away from home for a few days at FiL's in Leicester. Tomorrow I have a Day masterclass at The Festival of Quilts with Tracie Huskamp from The Red Door Studio I'm quite excited about it as I've never done a Mixed Media workshop before although I've been playing around with MM for a few weeks myself.

In the evening I'm meeting up with a friend in Nuneaton and on Sunday I'm going back to FoQs just to look around. I'll let you all know about it with a few pictures after I come back.

ATCs

If you have been following my blog you will know that I've just started exploring the wonderful world of ATCs and Art Journaling. If you want to know more then look at Frieda's Blog she has some fantastic examples of ATCs and some Journal Quilts. They are fantastic.

Here are just some of my ATCs. They are a series of 8 and the first two have been given to my friends Sue and Lee.I want to keep at least one of each series and this time I remembered to take photos. The last set I forgot before they went out.





















Here are the two I'm keeping for myself.
If you would like one then I might just have one for you. Just let me know and I'll make a draw at the start of September.

Bowl

I made a soft bowl a long time ago from 'Fast Fun & Easy Fabric Bowls' by Linda Johansen. On Thursday we made some more bowls here are mine.













ROFL it's actually only one bowl. It is reversible. I used fabric hand dyed by Helen Cowans and the other was one I bought from E-quilter quite some time ago. I choose the piece that toned in best with the other two as the whole piece had a lot of colours in it.

This small post card was made as a thank-you to a friend who lent me her flat in Edinburgh. DH and I had a lovely time at the start of The Fringe Festival.

Oops

August is slipping away quite fast and the weather is starting to take a turn for the worst. While still quite warm and muggy the rain didn't really seem to want to stop. I had a short time clearing out the pots in the shed. The cucumber plants needed to be potted on and the water in the self watering trays needed changing. Why oh why do some of my pepper plants have little bugs on them. The ones on the kitchen window-sill don't have them and one has actually got a baby pepper starting to grow.

We went up to the start of the Edinburgh Fringe over the weekend. It was great fun and my did we walk. We saw one free show and several stand up and an improvised show, that was good. The best was a flamenco circus. 6 dancers/musicians who were also jugglers and acrobats. An excellent show. The Royal Mile was heaving. We had a great time.

I've been working on a new set of ATCs (Artists Trading Cards) They are not complete yet and I will have two or three to give away. If you're interested in getting one then please leave me a comment and send me a private email with your snail mail address. I'll get DH to pick some names out of the bag at the start of September. Sorry no photos until they are complete and sent off. I think there will be 10 in the series but the theme is embellishment so most of them have a few beads or dangles on.

I think I told you that my bark vessel is complete and I'm busy finalising the written support work for it. Here are two close up pictures of some of the details on it.
I've finished my turquoise bracelet and I'm so pleased with it.

Last night I started a soft bowl, I'm still doing some machine embroidery on it before I stitch the pieces together. I'll take a photo when it's finished. I made one several years ago and it became quite distorted after having heavy things (like fruit) put in it so this will be a replacement.

That's all for tonight must go and have some beauty sleep.

August

Flaming August? Well yes it was yesterday. DD is up from London for a few days and we went to The Summer Flower Show in Gateshead. We had a lovely day, wonderful flowers, lots of crafty items and plants by the pot-fulls.

We watched a demo on potting up hanging baskets by a local garden center. Even though I've done HBs for years he gave some good tips.

I bought, some new parsley, curly and flat leafed as I've used up all of mine and the stuff I grew from seed seems to have disappeared or isn't really ready to be cut. A new Abutilon, a baby bottle brush, another plant I can't remember the name of at the moment, a few bulbs and two cyclamen corms and finally at the end of the day we picked up - literally, three big glazed pots for ten quid. I have to say the herbs were half price as it was near the end of the show, the bulbs I got 10 for the price of 8 and the two very strange looking cyclamen corms I got a BOGOF. (Buy One Get One Free).









In the craft sales tent I got a lovely new necklace - it took me ages to choose which one and DD got a large ball of 'wool' to try out my big crochet hook.


Stitching wise I can't show you any pictures as I'm working on some new ATC's, the first lot went before I had time to take photos. I've completed my big knit bag. The two pictures show a before and after felting.






My painted pots are increasing in numbers and my first proper picture pot now has my shed and arch, the start of the fox gloves and some tobaco plant flowers on the arch. I never thought I'd be able to do realistic painting but Sandra - my tutor - is encouraging me all the way. Many thanks Sandra.