Absence and Award!

I have not been in my studio for two weeks. The reality is that I probably wont have much studio time in March.

However, despite not being here Threadspider has passed on this to me.

Which I really appreciate.

The idea of the Excellent Blog Award, is to award it to 10 more people whose blog you find Excellent Award Worthy.

I would like to pass this on to:-

Seth at the Altered Page
He writes a very interesting blog, I particularly enjoyed his "pulse" series of interviews.

Jude at Spirit Cloth - her blog and her stitching are a mediation

Michelle Ward - whose work I think is amazing and she is so generous, with links, techniques and her writing.

Monica Magness at Girl gone thread wild. My experience of Monica's blog is one of such joy and vibrancy. In particular the Artists Squares she has organized.

Kate Smudges - who has just celebrated her first anniversary with her blog Kate Smudges in Earth, Paint and Life, and I feel that Kate's blog is like sitting down with a friend for a cup of tea

Also - Sandy at Garden Path. I have only recently started following Sandy's blog, and I am enjoying her images and her Haiku.

Apologies for the brevity of this post - normal creative posting will resume when my muse returns from being out to play!

Wolf Moon

Wolf Moon is now finished - in this picture it probably does not look a lot different than in the last post - but there is more stitching on it. I don't know why but all the close ups I took of the piece today showed a real haze on the layer of organza (with light reflection I suppose) - but it is not there at all when you look at the real piece. It is quite hard to photograph - which will be a problem if I want to have giclee prints made from it. (OK not a problem - a challenge!)

The full moon in February is known among other things as "Snow Moon", or "Ice Moon"
It is hard to think about a "Snow Moon" given the wonderful sunshine that we have had over the past few days, so I think the inspiration for this moon will come from the snowdrops in the garden.

Tomorrow I am going to spend some time in the studio working on this theme!

What has happened to the spell checker on blogger?
When you are dyslexic it is a real problem if it doesn't work!!

No Apologies

Well - actually I do have one apology to make - and that is I am so sorry that I have not replied to all of you who took the time and trouble to leave a comment on my last post.

So thank you;-
Shirley, Dobby, Sharon, Threadspider, Paula, Judy and Linda I valued your input.
I have not looked at the piece since I posted it - and as I said in my last post I have done a bit more stitching.

BUT THE SUN CAME OUT

So I have been working in the garden and at the weekend we walked.

"A little piece of Heaven"

I feel so much better now that I have had some sun on my face. When we walked at the weekend , the weather was so wonderful that we were in T-shirts. What bliss.
(humm - the spell checker on bloggger does not seem to work - apologies for spelling errors)

Comments Welcome

This is where I am up to with "Wolf Moon" the "mount" around the edge is only paper. So that I can get an idea of the composition of the finished work. The piece has not been pressed - so it does look a bit creased!

I am now in a position where do I .............

1) leave it as is with minimal hand stitching

or

2) Do hand stitching all over

Detail 1

detail 2
(Actually the wolf has a little bit more stitching on it since the photo)

Your comments are welcome

Candlemass

Good walk to-day.

This is a vain attempt to loose weight before one of my sons wedding ...
7 weeks to-day - eek

Pink

"It is better to light a candle,
than to curse the darkness"

I read this earlier in the day and it seems very apt for me right now.

Following on from my last post - I am still sad for my youngest son, who is now travelling lighter than ever - as the burglars also took his suitcase!

But in "blog land" today I came across this on Monica's blog. (girl gone thread wild)

Monica is going to make a doll and a quilt from 2 inch squares sent to her by fellow bloggers. The square can be in your chosen medium, with a cloth base, so Monica can sew the square to the doll - please see her blog for inspiration.

The doll will be sent to Art Doll Quarterly, and then auctioned. The proceeds will go to help fight breast cancer.

The square must be with Monica by the 1st March 2008 - so there is plenty of time if you want to contribute. Do check out Monica's blog for all the information. HERE

I started my squares to-day.

2 inch squares - work in progress.

Please click on the images for a larger view.

The Sun Came Out To-day .....

The sun came out to-day so I went for a good walk with a friend. Sunshine Exercise and Good Company - just what I needed.

There was a lot of water in the river, after the rains we have had.

I was so glad to see the sun.

Sress!!

Stressed today!

I am setting up an ETSY shop for Giclee Prints of my work.

In the past I have had giclees professionally printed of some of my embroideries. They generally tended to be steady little sellers at exhibitions and fairs. However now that I am not out at shows any more - I thought that ETSY would be the way to go.

It took me half a day to get one picture up there! Not because it is hard - far from it - really the whole process seems quite straightforward. I think I was stressing too much over whether the colour reproduction of the photo was accurate and trying to get the text correct.

Phew - well one up 4 to go! Anyway I wont direct you to my ETSY shop just yet -because "Cherry Toes" is the only thing there - but I will put a link up when I get it all sorted.

Work in Progress - Wolf Moon

I have started on a new piece of work - from the journal page that I did on the 8th January.
Yesterday I dyed the fabric, today I started laying on sheers and organza fabrics and tacking them down. The finished piece will be slightly bigger than this - approximately 12 ins x 12 ins.

I usually use a scoured felt - prepared for dying as my background fabric for a piece of work. Felt is a wonderful ground fabric when you are doing a lot of Free Machine Embroidery, and building up layers. I use heat fix silk dyes, and acrylic paint to add colour to the background fabric.

TIP - If you are tacking fabrics down before free machine embroidery - use a thread which breaks easily and is a good colour match to the overall picture. When you do dense FME it is impossible to get all the tacking out - especially if like me you work in layers. I tack fabrics down - and then overlay more fabric on top. If you use tacking thread that matches the picture - when you have little ends that refuse to come out - they look meant!

Destroy to Create

Interesting day in the studio today - I really wanted to push the development of the images from yesterday and the day before - as a double page spread in my 2008 "Moon Journal".

I also wanted to push my sewing machine as well - because - as yet I have not had time to see what it will really do. I decided to see what the "built in quilting stitches" would do. And I really rather like them. The machine also stitched nicely through the layers - which were - woven paper, painted bondaweb, inkjet transfer on muslin, tissue paper and vyline.

I always find synchronicity interesting. I spent the day yesterday in the veg. garden sorting it out after the high winds and lashing rain we have been having - and I still didn't get to plant the onions. To-day I received a "planting by the moon" e-mail and low and behold - it is tomorrow that is a good day for planting onions!

The page developed further as the day progressed - there is still a couple of things I want to add - but the note about it being a good day to plant onions is down the left hand side - and next to it, is an abstract design I drew, painted and cut out from a sketch I did last summer - when my onions went to seed.

Purple Missus (Lynda Monk) left a comment yesterday - saying she would of been more than happy with the first image on yesterdays post - I think the sub-text of a lot of my work process is "Destroy to Create" and "What happens If ..."

Sometimes this doesn't work at all - but if you push and push - Sometimes the results are wonderful.

Is this is a wonderful page - No it is not - but it is a very useful page. It has some excellent starting points to build on. Which - for me - is a good reason to keep an "art journal"

My mind is buzzing with ideas to develop from what I did today. I know my machine just a little bit more - and perhaps - most importantly - I can plant my onions either to-morrow or Saturday!

Developments

Here are some developments on the picture I posted yesterday - with a view to using them as starting point in my art journal.

The picture above - is simply yesterdays image with the contents of my "to do" list scrawled on top.

I took this page and two photographs of onions that I took last summer. Then I cut these into one inch wide strips and wove them together to create a new back ground paper.

This back ground I will be working on further tomorrow - but I did scan it and alter it in photoshop, and type a journal entry for today on it.

Unfortunately - I have just slopped my cup of tea on my computer keyboard - so need to go and dry it out!

Detail

This is a very small detail of a development page of the wolf moon image posted a few days ago.

I was working on this image for the "travelling sketchbook" I do with Linda.
When I had finished the page - I scanned it to make a copy. But my scanner glass is so mucky with paint and fibre - that I had to edit it in photoshop to get rid of the bits of fluff around the edges of the picture.

As I had it blown up really large - I noticed this wonderful bit of texture. Sometimes little areas of texture blown up make wonderful starting points. I think I may print this bit off, to use as a background for a page in my art journal.

I want to thank Sharon and Shirley Anne for giving me a "You Make My Day Award" I am touched - and I appreciate it very much.

As I nominated a couple of folk on the 9th January post - I hope Sharon and Shirley will not mind too much if I do not pass it on at this time. But I would like to thank you all who continue to read and support my blog.