Scoring in Extra time

Our planned weekend away has been cancelled and I have been given some extra time to complete my exhibition pieces. 

So, yet another 'Midnight's all a Glimmer' for which the other two were trial runs. 

But more exciting for me, and I don't want to sound smug or self satisfied, but here's "Peace comes dropping slow' and I have to say I am delighted with it. rather poor photograph in raking sunlight.

Update: I took the photo below in dull weather today. Click to enlarge.

 I used palest colours and light coloured velvet and added machine embroidery which was a joy to do. I used the little seedhead motif to evoke  the 'slow dropping' floating down feeling. I kept the colours very pale and added tinges of ..yes you guessed it- ochre, teal, grey, cream, aqua.

 Each one is different and instead of using the holey felt I went back to the (despised in some quarters) blank white canvas and they just began to speak more clearly. I chose a grid pattern because it reminds me of Mid century fabric patterns, it pleases me. 

How does that happen? I had no idea what the outcome would be when I started.

Below is my very favourite one.

 Its almost too sunny at the moment to take decent pictures. I might try more later. In fact I'll bore the internet to death with them!

 In the meantime

..anyone want to buy some holey felt?

Hello

 Well its been a long time since I was here because I've been a busy bee. Sometimes lovely weeks come along when quite ordinary events happen and make you feel good.  Along with all the events I've finished another piece for an open exhibition locally. Its another version of 'Where the Cricket sings' and is smaller and goes alongside 'Midnights all a-glimmer'. 

 I'm just showing one or two details.

 I really must change my palette don't you think?

 But I do love these colours.

 Here they are together.

 Embroidery 2000 are gearing up for our next stage of the exhibition which will be at Astley Hall Coach House Gallery, Chorley, starting on 9th July and open weekends 12-5, until 4th September.

The Gallery is big so we are all doing more work and putting some older work in. I've made several floppy pieces of cobweb felt as the basis of a piece called 'Peace comes dropping slow' . My other piece with that title was a bowl so I've renamed that and transferred the title to this one. I'm going to add some small delicate motifs and hang it from a batten in layers. Fingers crossed. I'll bore you with a load of photographs.

 I put silk fibres on the felt and graded the colours .

 Its holey!

 I suppose the veils of morning would have been the perfect title but I've already made that piece.

 For photographing I've hung it inappropriately fro my flowery ironing board!

 Here's one of my nice events of the week: Dexter. He came for the day and had hundreds of kisses. He's the most kissable doggie I've ever met. We had a lovely long long walk. It wasn't going to be long but I bumped into an old friend and her son and we walked for miles, so when his minder came for him we were out!

 Another day my husband had to take a painting back to Didsbury so we picked up my son and went for lunch to 'The Art of Tea' a lovely 'shabby ' cafe with a second hand bookshop in the back. I googled it and it hasn't got universally good reviews but we thought it was great. Lovely staff and delicious food.

 Rocket salad with sunflower seed dressing. 

Last weekend was Art and Garden and as usual its a beautiful event. Here's my tree with brooches. I sold quite a bit of stuff but not as much as usual. 

 So many people who were there said it didn't matter f they didn't sell anything because they love it. 

I agree.

And here's my next door neighbours' honeysuckle growing over their back wall. The leaves looked a bit wiggly and I thought it was diseased  but I've never seen it so fluorescent.

Add in a Confirmation where I was the sponsor and had a lovely time afterwards drinking wine with the parents, a workshop with my embroidery group and a plea to take part in a good craft fair in November, and even the weather hasn't dampened my spirits.

I do have a cold though.

Sniff.

Glimmering

This is my favourite bit of one of my latest pieces in the 'Lake Isle of Innisfree' series. 

The new venue for the exhibition, which starts there in July. is huge and we will need more pieces and I am enjoying myself so here they are.

The line I am working on is 

'Midnight's all a-glimmer'.

I started with lots of very dark pre-felts and composed several backgrounds to work on. 

 This is a small one about 10 inches square. 

I've enjoyed experimenting with lights on dark and trying to make it 'glimmer.'

 Below is a bigger, longer piece with machine and hand stitch.I still have a little bit more finishing to do on this.

 Perhaps its not immediately apparent but I've cut around the shapes on some of the edges. Black is very difficult to photograph. When you look at black felt it draws you into its soft surface, but the camera just sees the light it reflects back.

I've got plenty more felt backgrounds ready for more stitching! Here's a bigger one. 

Can't wait to get 'glimmering'.

It occurred to me the other day when I was looking through my photographs, that I hadn't explained  the origin of 'Low sounds by the shore'

The colours and textures were inspired by this fantastic seaweed on 'The Flaggy Shore'

So colourful and bright.

Just thought I'd show the two together.

I had a recent request for a felt item from a very lovely lady who has bought a lot of my pieces. Remember the Pumpkin?

She writes the etsy feedback the way I wish I could write my descriptions! 

If you've nothing better to do, pop over to my etsy via the link on the right, and peep at my feedback.

Anyway I just thought I'd share the process.

Here's a bit of 'prefelt': that is, some wool that has been partly felted but still has a long way to go.

I cut a piece off and  I added some faint greeny-yellow stripes and felted it all some more.

 Here you can see the difference in size and texture once felted. Its shrunk lots.

 Here it is before being stitched into.........

...this.

She loved it!

Thank you for all the kind comments on my last silly post. I am hopelessly out of step with blog reading and everyone is so kind to take time to comment here. 

And for every published comment I have yards of 'anonymouses' offering me everything from dubious surgery to homes in France. Thank goodness for the blogger spam filter.

Exhibition and an expedition

This is at last the finished final exhibition piece. 

I called it 'Low sounds by the shore'.

The colours are like the seaweed on 'The Flaggy Shore' in Clare.

You can enlarge it by clicking.

I was unsure about the background felt, but enjoyed stitching the motifs onto the felt and embellishing them..in the traditional sense of the word, by handstitch. It was the first bit of sewing I'd done since 'you-know-when.' and it rescued me .

Its about 12 inches wide and 20 inches long. 

Regular readers will know I have spent a long time deliberating on the mode of presentation of my work. I initially wanted to use perspex and have them look as though they were floating, but that presented many problems so I settled for unpainted blank white artists canvas. 

Now I know this is not a conventional way to display work and I hoped it wouldn't be read as me being clueless choosing the first thing that came to hand and not realising it should be painted. 

Rather, I wanted the canvases being brilliant white,  the same colour as the gallery wall to make the work seem unattached.

So, we went on sunday to the Gallery and put up our work.

Its a super duper curved gallery space , very classy and very sharp looking. Its upstairs in Booths Supermarket (..the north's very own Waitrose) and there is a Booths "Artisan" cafe opposite so even more reason to visit!

The work looks great, very professional and  I must say I am  pleased with mine. 

I like it better than all the work I've done for a long time.

However when I read the first comment in the visitors' book my heart sank.

"Not keen on the white canvas....."

Well at first I felt sick.

However I have decided that its my choice, I like it and I'm sticking with it .

I'll try not to dither.

The Fylde Gallery, Booths Store, Haven Road, Lytham, Lancashire

Until 5th June

I dithered a bit last Thursday.

He:Well are you coming with me or not?

Me: hmmmmm ..can't decide

He: well I'm only going straight there, dropping the files off and coming back

me: Ok I won't come

He: well you can, we could at Gales on the way home

Me:But I have to get my pictures ready for hanging and clean up a bit.

He:Ok then

Me: But its a nice day ...

He: Well come

Me:Oh go on then..but I have to have a shower and wash my hair.

He :I'll wait.

So at 11 am we set off for Powis castle.

We arrived at 2.

My husband has worked there on and off for so long that he takes the beauty of for granted.

I have visited a few times but have never been round the house or the garden. We enjoyed the delights of the National trust tearoom and then he went to discuss things and I went round the gardens. I'll just show you. yew.

Its all built on terraces.

The yew hedges are spectacular and some have arches with seats cut into them.

But just look at this wisteria! I have never seen such such panicles..ooo er missus.

(I racked my brains for that word..even asked someone in the garden who thought about it too. Then how funny...thank you Jeanette Mistress of Longears for assuring me with your comment about the  lilac. But if these are panicles, what are racemes?)

Anyway whatever they are , they were BIG. And fragrant.

When I got back to the courtyard there was another treat in store.

Alan.

On the doorstep of the castle, displaying and rattling his plumage at

Mrs Peacock.

He didn't even move when we walked past him into the castle so we could see my husbands handiwork close to.

I have only seen photographs so it was good to see the coats of arms in context in the Long Gallery.

Back to the outside:

Whats not to love about a place with a shield like this? Look  at the chubby little silver chappie on the right.

Cute.

And of course the meal at Gales Wine Bar of Llangollen was just lovely..as usual.