The Classes are Ready

 The free classes that come with my Dissolvable Delights book are ready. You will find them on the d4daisy site www.d4daisy.com  Just follow the links from the online classes button.



Instead of a yahoo group I'm going for a blog as a means of contact. If smallish pics are sent to me I will post them and the comments will be used for general course chat. The blog can be found at www.d4daisychains.blogspot.com

I have put up two lessons at once - one on mixed media and one on design and stitch. There is a pic from the design and stitch one on the right and one from the mixed media on the left. Hope you will all join me.






Yesterday we treated ourselves to a day out on an art crawl (like a pub crawl but without the booze). It is the first week of Dorset Art Weeks and we had a great time.

Yes, a lot of eating was done. The scones were devoured at Poundbury, near Dorchester - the new-ish village built on Prince Charles' land, according to his, rather traditional, tastes. It is a mix of styles from small artisan terraces to posh Georgian town houses. Even Waitrose has an entrance with pediments and columns! I think it looks a bit of a hotchpotch and it has a strangely deserted air - as though an alien abduction had taken place. I think new communities have to grow rather than be planted. Anyone else have any views?

Lunch was rather more to my taste. Armed with sarnies from the aforementioned Waitrose we took off for the wonderful coast road that runs above Chessil beach. You can just see the sea behind the sandwich (who says my priorities are skewed).

We sat on a bench, serenaded by a couple of Robins.The grub was good, the sun was warm, the view was heavenly - what bliss.

Before lunch we had made a visit to the studio of quilter Kate Dowty - see below. She has written workshops for us and I love her work. The detail on the right is from a larger piece entitled Cliff Textures.

At the bottom is a detail from a lovely stitched concertina book. All Kate's work is so beautifully finished - this is something that I am not good at. Must try harder.

The next venue, also near Dorchester, was the Allsorts exhibition by a varied group of artists. In a barn, it had a unique approach with a fence lined with bras.

It was a lovely, varied exhibition with quilters (great stuff from Hilary Gooding in particular. I was also very taken with Joy Frampton's felting - see right.

Joy had a piece of work in my Embellish and Stitch book but I had not seen her larger pieces and garments, which were lovely - see right.

We had some disappointments as we hadn't checked that a couple of venues were closed. in fact the one I really wanted to see, in Abbotsbury, only opened at weekends. One wonders why they bothered!

All was not lost, however, as we had time to visit the wonderful Abbotsbury gardens - see below.


















 In the pic on the right, you can see a little dot in the middle, through the trees. This is Saint Katherine's chapel and the view has been engineered so you sit on a bench and see it framed by trees.

Needless to say we had an ice cream and today I am on starvation rations. Must have put on pounds!

Once More Unto the Tip Dear Clive

Couldn’t decide whether to sit in the summerhouse or write a blog post – here’s the compromise.

 

I spent yesterday giving it a good spring clean (the summerhouse, not the blog), spurred on by the rumours of summer arriving later this week. All manner of strange things had accumulated in there over the winter so a big sort out was in order. ‘Everything must go’, I said. Clive was a little taken aback when he realised this meant the carpet as well but I had discovered a wooden floor underneath. He cheered up immediately when he realised it meant another trip to the tip.

Please note that the splint is off and I am learning how to use my new thumb. It is stiff rather than painful but I am doing the exercises and it is loosening up. The splint must be worn at night for a while and I am not allowed to drive or use scissors yet. Both of these things are on my personal wish list but the phsyio says not until my reading on her ‘gripometer’ improves.

We had a lovely time visiting Bedford branch of the Guild on Thursday. They are a super bunch and much fun was had. On the way we stopped for lunch at Waddesdon Manor, a National Trust pad. Lovely garden – don’t you just love this bird made of bedding plants.

They were setting up an exhibition of modern sculpture and it was very interesting to watch the exhibits being unpacked and set up. This huge lorry was unloading them and then a massive drill was brought in to stabilise the bigger ones. The drill bits were so huge that I thought they were one of the sculptures!

 I do like this one.






 

We stayed at a Premier Inn which was in the middle of a country park – big lakes with lots of birds and a marina with narrow boats. It was so good that we decided to go back for a weekend some time and explore further.

The classes are written for the Dissolvable Delights book. I got so carried away that there are two separate classes for the first lesson – one on mixed media – leaning towards rust and one on sketchbook to stitch techniques. This features my left hand drawing attempts while my hand was out of action. To be honest they don’t look much different to the right hand drawings – I had hoped for a more abstract effect.

I do love working in sketch books and have resolved to do more. Do you ever find that you start work on one subject – in this case pacific tribal art and discover motifs that link with previous research. Val CH and I did a lot of stuff on ancient Egyptian themes. Look how similar they are. Once again  the famous blogger rotate strikes. I even saved this one twice, with a different name.

Smudge has been on a long holiday with daughter Claire. This was partly due to the tick invasion and partly due to being away a bit. Tomorrow he is home, with anti-tick spot stuff administered by Claire.Birds- take cover!!!

Comments

Sorry, I’ve been remiss in answering comments lately. Will get back in the swing of it soon, Heather.

Gill – I think we are more likely to be featured in Britains biggest chukker-outers. One of the advantages (?) of downsizing.