Looking back

I realised this week that I am nearing my 6 year blogiversary, when I went to check what date my first post was I ended up spending a couple of hours reading through old posts, what wonderful memories it brought back, and it also made me sad how my blogging has changed over the years, I no longer visit favourite blogs and comment instead I rush through Google Reader updates trying to catch up with way too many blogs, but as soon as I cull some of the old ones I soon fill up my list again with new interesting blogs that catch my eye.

I have also been very bad at blogging the last year, but it was so wonderful to read through past blogs I want to get back to regular blogging, and hopefully this blog will also shame me into getting through a large pile of fabrics I recently discovered, just as my first blog helped me get back to my textiles after a long period of not doing anything after some health issues.

One of my blogs back in the first year was talking about cutting out a jacket from a Marcy Tilton pattern.

Just before Christmas while looking for my festive table runner in my deep airing cupboard, I pulled out all the usual bedding from the front and found all of these goodies behind.

The above mentioned jacket :(


3 metres of Batik fabric, bought last June, 3 metre lengths of various cottons ready for the dye pot, habotai silk, slub silk and a batch of silk scarves ?



What was a peach silk single bedspread bought many many moons ago from a charity shop for 10p dyed purple suppose to be made into a robe and still waiting, a sari a gift from a friend I was going to make a tunic, a large sarong destined to be a top and a piece of chenille



Next a huge bundle of table linens, both inherited and charity shop finds, I have since found another bundle. Not many of them are in great condition and I wanted to use them to make a long kimono type robe using the best bits of embroidery patched together.



This was started when I was doing my surface design C&G back in 04/05 unfortunately it didn't run after we finished our first year.
I can't remember what I planned for this, I do know it was inspired by a wonderful postcard of contemporary Inuit art. I think I need to hunt for the postcard and see if I get inspired once again.

Lovely day

Its good to be back, a fluey type bug that lasted for around 5 weeks before Christmas left me with a bout of Vertigo, so instead of heading for the workroom after the holidays with all the ideas buzzing around in my head I was doing lots of sitting down instead, the tablets have worked and I am back to normal !!!

Thankfully I was well enough to attend the Embroiderers Guild members day yesterday, as well as our monthly evening meeting where we have a speaker we also have a members day one day a month and one member shows a technique that the rest of the group can join in with or you can take your own project and have a lovely natter.



I was the volunteer demonstrator yesterday and I chose to show some simple folding booklets and a gift pouch.To keep the requirements list simple we used 12" x 12" scrapbook papers, but you could go to town with hand painted papers, magazine pages, Tyvek or Lutradur 70 which folds well.
The first booklet was the Tim Holtz style ATC holder, for the little one at the front each page is made from an A4 sheet of paper,perfect size for an ATC,
the two behind show the same pages made up with an A3 paper



The next one is a folding booklet where you can just pop a photograph or small stitched sample into the corners adding as many pages as you want and fold up accordion style.



We also made a small accordion booklet with a pocket and a small gift pouch.
I hope the ladies enjoyed it because I had a great time, lots of laughter and a very productive day.

To make the day even better, when I arrived home my new toy had arrived which was amazing as I had only ordered it the day before at 9am, and due to an error on my part the address was incomplete as I was out I didn't get the message to phone the company until 3pm, and they still managed to get it to me the next day with regular updates letting me know the progress of the order, the tracking number and free P&P, so a huge thank you to CardCraft-UK
I will certainly use this company again



I have lots of ideas for using this machine, I plan on trying out lotsd of different materials, I know it will cut Grungeboard, thick card and thin felt I will keep you up to date on my progress learning to use it :)
With this and my new printer and all the ideas flooding in the last few months I have plenty to keep me busy.

Avaiable to purchase now at reduced price. Stitching the Textured Surface £15 that includes postage and packaging.
Fibre In-Form

Oh Dear

The North Wales Embroiderer's Guild held their Biennial exhibition on the 28 th and 29 th of October.
I didn't get to take any pictures as I forgot my camera, the exhibition was fabulous and gets better and better, thanks to all the hard work of the exhibition committee.

For lots of pictures and more to follow check out Croesew the official guild blog, Margaret (Digital Gran) writes this blog and took an amazing amount of photographs.
I did a little stewarding over the two days and on the Saturday did a demonstration working on kitchen foil with alcohol inks and organza I also took lots of samples of fabric with kitchen foil and tissue paper coloured with inks, dyes and paint.

I met lots of lovely people and some were asking how these were made, for any one reading this to get an idea check out this FREE chapter on Fibre In-Form's Inspired Surfaces,
'A Fascination With Foil'

The only trouble with demonstrating is the mess I make pulling things out to take with me, always way too much, and an even worse mess when I get back home.

I am hoping by showing the mess it will shame me into clearing up as I have put it off for the last week :)

This is what my sewing table looks like, to the right of the desk is a small cupboard and my computer desk with just as much mess piled up and around them, I had already cleared away the piled up ironing board in front of them.




The messy worktable doesn't look much better

Left



Middle



Right



and the floor in front of it isn't much better.



Right off to tackle the mess, but maybe a little coffee first :)

Helfa Gelf

A few weeks ago I took part in Helfa Gelf/Art Trail, This event is held every year and artists all over North Wales take part, opening their studios to the public every weekend for the month of September, for those that don't have studios groups get together to exhibit in various venues in the area.

I joined 5 other artists Arial Arts to exhibit in St Johns Methodist Church for one weekend.
We had over three hundred visitors over the 3 days and met some really interesting people.
I really enjoyed the experience exhibiting with other artists.

We had demonstration tables with a good mix of techniques for people to watch

We were so busy talking to people I didn't get many pictures and some didn't come out very well.


We each had a board 6' x 4' , I decided to keep my work to my Lutradur pieces, luckily the colours flowed well with my neighbours.



Miriam Forder Textile and Mixed Media Artist,
I couldn't get a close up of Miriam's beautiful work as the demonstration tables were in the way, Miriam demonstrated the embellishing machine and lots of the visitors were fascinated to see the fabric being created.





Ronnie White, Textile Artist and Painter,
Ronnie demonstrated Nunu Felting and created some lovely scarves.




Jain Koffler Painter,
Jain demonstrated Encaustic Art and held every ones attention with her beautiful landscapes.




Jude Winnal Ceramics,
Jude was demonstrating with paper clay and produced some wonderful pieces, we were all wanting to try each others techniques, but managed to restrain ourselves.





Alana Tyson, Textile Artist Painter,
Alana demonstrated Lino cutting she makes the best lino blocks I have ever seen, very detailed images of people taken from her own photo's.
This picture doesn't do justice to her textile work, you can see more on the Arial Arts page



A couple of pictures of the sales tables, sadly the rest didn't come out

What a Week

Its been a very interesting week, the weather was glorious and luckily my DH had three days off,we chilled out on the Wednesday then to Ikea on the Thursday, bought lots of goodies, two bedside tables, picture frames, a lamp and a throw, white magazine holders and little boxes that fit perfectly into my new shelf unit, it was too hot to go to any other stores so after a nice lunch we came home and flaked out :)

Friday we decided to play tourist and went to LLandudno, picked up my mum on the way and headed for the pier.



This view is from halfway down the pier towards the Great Orme,I spent many happy hours playing here as a child, we liked this bit of the old beach as there were not as many visitors and lovely big rocks to clamber over.



Looking back from the end of the pier towards LLandudno prom, walking along the pier always brings back happy memories as I used to work in the cafe at the end in the ice cream kiosk during school holidays when I was 12, 13 and 14,and I loved it, everything was 3d or 6d, nice and easy to add up, LOL



I spent Saturday and Sunday pottering around sorting my magazines and shelves so nothing creative this week, time to get back to work.

Last weekend was the Helfa Gelf/Art trail, I will do a separate post on that,once I have sorted my photo's.

Helfa Gelf

Helfa Gelf / Art Trail | North Wales' biggest Open Studio event

Helfa Gelf Art Trail: the annual North Wales Open Studios event. Visit real artists in their studios, watch them work and stay around for a chat

Helfa Gelf

Its the last weekend of HELFA GELF

I will be exhibiting with the group Arial Arts, check us out HERE

There are six of us all together creating textiles, ceramics, paintings, prints and more.
If you are in the LLandudno area this weekend find us between the two Marks and Spencers stores.

St Johns Methodist Church
53-55 Mostyn Street
Llandudno
Conwy
LL30 2NN