Being a Bit Cross and Reasons to be Cheerful

I am feeling a little cross as Twisted Thread has messed up the dates for my teaching trip to Italy next year. Last November they asked me when I was free and I suggested April 2012. I duly drew a line through the whole month as they rearranged the last trip. Now they say they didn't get my email (very strange as it was the same email as I notified them of my change of address and they have certainly been using the new address). I am pretty booked up for May so can't do that and don't want to travel in February, the other suggestion. I've also been turning down work in April so it is doubly annoying. I suppose I should have checked to make sure but, as there was no paperwork last time I went, it didn't cross my mind. Never mind - I 've already got a booking for a talk in the Wirral in April and I shall enjoy it just as much.

Reasons to be Cheerful 1

Anyway it's hard to stay cross when you pull back the curtains in the morning and see this young chap. He was eating the fallen sunflower hearts that the finches drop - must be hungry. I bet my neighbour with the chickens would not say 'Aah, bless'.

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Reasons to be Cheerful 2

I've been to Art in Action which was as much fun as ever, although a little light on demos this year. Found a fantastic collagraph artist, Sue Brown, and learned so much from her. She uses birds as inspiration.

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With my d4d hat on, I do hope to sign her up for a series of small books next year.

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It was good to meet Liz Clay (above) as she has written articles for WoW but we hadn''t met. She does great 3D stuff with felt.
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Reasons to be Cheerful 3

It was almost my birthday so Clive bought me this amazing piece of glass. It reflects its surroundings, upside down in the bottom, as well as the lovely swirl. Made by someone at Bournemouth and Poole College - they had a really good stand and are local to me in Dorset.

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I am trying to pick a colour for the sitting room carpet. I am going to base my colour scheme on Smudge as he has a lovely coloured coat of creamy, tawny hues with touches of blue-grey. As you can see from the following run of pics he is not co-operating in the choice.

.How boring - fancy interrupting my sleep for this....

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On the other hand it might make a good hiding place....

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..for surprise attacks.

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Hope the lady from the carpet department doesn't follow my blog!

Texture and Transfers

Just a quick line or two, mostly to tell Gilby how Jane makes her lovely figures - see comments.

I have just realised that the Festival of Quilts is only a few weeks away and I haven't ordered any of the stuff I need from the printers. Likewise I have two new talks to give (they are getting booked up, so do go to http://www.twistedthread.com/ if you would like to come) and they need a bit of polishing.

Plus I'm doing a two-day stint at Sutton Coldfield which I am really looking forward to - it is called Stitched Up and I'm giving another new talk on Friday 5th and demos on Saturday.

Added to this is the September Workshop on the Web which is our tenth anniversary issue and really special. It doesn't seem possible that it is ten years since I took that bath and dreamed it up while soaking! One of my better ideas and we've made so many friends through it.

My article for the next WoW is on landscape, using transfer (disperse) dyes. This one is waiting to be stitched.

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I would have shown you the whole piece but blogger will only let me put up portrait photos at the moment. If I try landscape it rotates them!

We took Jane Lemon to lunch on Sunday - she has been very poorly but is on the up now and ate a good lunch. You may know her better as head of the Sarum group of ecclisiastical embroiderers - they make breathtaking frontals. Jane has made some panels for Amnesty International and they are just so wonderful. I'll show you soon.

Comments

Thanks, Heather - still haven't finished the lampshade due to the FoQ stuff. It will come, one day.

JP: we thought we'd finished renovating and were going to leave the sitting room until next year but then decided that we'd put in a woodburner because of the huge gas increases. When we installed one at the last house, we cut our gas bill in half. This means redecorating, totally replastering, etc. However the painting is going to be done while we are at FoQ. The day after we get back it is in with the stove and the PV panels. Must be mad.

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Gilby - Jane Wild says that the method for her goddess fiigure is very simple as she just uses kitchen roll and wallpaper paste! She makes a wire shape first and reinforces it with a little chicken wire around the bum. Then wets the kitchen roll with paste until squishy (technical term) and moulds it around the wire. I think when it is dry you'd need PVA but not certain of this. Then it is painted. I can't help feeling that her knowledge of anatomy - she's a superb artist - plays a big part. I'll ask her about the PVA.

All Things Urchfont

I seem to have been spending most of my time at Urchfont college in the last few weeks. as many of you will know it's a great place to spend time. The accommodation is good, the staff are lovely and the food is much too good. I used to teach there but now I'm enjoying just being a member of a group that meets there three times a year. More on that later.

It was Open Day last Sunday and all the groups that meet there had a stand to display their work. This is our group text.tiles 21. Our theme was green (there was a group groan when we heard that but we rose to the occasion) and the colour unification did help with the display.

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Don't you just love Jane Wild's Goddess with Drum? Not a great photo as it doesn't capture her voluptuousness (is that a word?) Detail below.
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Tutors from the classes that Urchfont run were all there, too. Sian Martin's Distant Stitch was there for a Summer School and had a wonderful slide show running. Hazel Credland showed some lovely work (below) and Lynn Horniblow was immediately signed up for a Workshop on the Web article on her super machine embroidered tassels. Just right for December
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We also have Lizzie Lane in that issue. You can see a detail of her piece on the lost art of handwriting below. Lizzie is a member of MEG - the machine embroidery group at Urchfont.

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When our group meet, three times a year, we try to have a theme for each meeting, as well as doing our own work. This time it was using stiffening products to make 3D shapes so I had a bash at a Moroccan lampshade to go with my hall lanterns. the ones I saw in Marrakesh (why didn't I buy one?) were made of skin but mine is the veggie version. I used Abaca tisssue with silk paper and used PVA glue as the stiffener.
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It was stamped with a Moroccan style pattern, thanks to a super new stamp from Ario, and it looked quite authentic. In the pic below I am stitching wrapped wire to strengthen the edges and enable a bit of shaping.
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The plan to is to use it with an Indian lamp - a relic of Clive's Indian childhood. It's made from a polished coconut with brass inlay and Eastern style feet. This always lived in the garage in the last house until Clive wanted to sling it out and I had a proper look at it and decided to promote it to the house. I shall attach it to a proper shade to keep it away from the light bulb. Hope to post up the finished piece soon.

Anyway it was a lovely couple of days and I'm now home, with thousands of jobs to do, most of them boring.

Comments

Thanks Heather.

Clare - your piece was lovely and it was such a lovely day. We did enjoy it and it sure was hard doing the judging, Alex.

Thank you for all the advice on PV panels, Gill - both here and in a series of emails. I think we are going ahead as this is our last house, I hope. We have also decided to have a woodburning stove. We weren't going to, as we don't have a chimney, but I have found a very modish one that looks like a large, shiny, black baked beans can and the stove pipe goes up through the roof. The last woodburner we had cut our gas bill in half so we hope it will be the same here.

I'm off to finish the lampshade now. Back soon.