Sunset and Sadness

This was the sun setting at about 3.45 today outside my house, looking over the fields. The fantastic colours couldn't stop my sadness though as I heard about the untimely and sudden death of Sarah Lawrence of Crafty Notions.

She was such a very talented lady who produced stunning work. It only seems like a few days ago that we were chatting at Festival of Quilts. I am sending her family my sincere condolences and am sure that the many of you who knew Sarah personally will wish the same.

Godspeed Sarah x 

Daffodil Dyeing & Jumble Sales

 If you are a member of The Quilters Guild then yesterday or today a copy of The Quilter should have arrived through your letter box. Inside is the article on daffodil dyeing  that I have written. If you are not a member then I will be doing a little tutorial here in the Spring (advance warning to collect some daffodil heads). I just love the range of tones that you can get from this simple flower. I now have a basket overflowing with yellows, begging me to stitch them into them.

Last weekend I went to help at the Scout jumble sale with DS and this pile of clothing found their way home with me. So many lovely textures and colours just waiting to start a new repurposed life, these are mainly  cottons.

I got several pairs of jeans with fantastic pockets, just right for box making.

I also got some laces, embroidered hankies, and some linen place mats . I am well known for taking in stained and torn things like the table cloth below.

Finally a peek at my City & Guilds diploma work. This isn't a great photo but shows the midday and night time sky before I stitched applique cow parsley and sprouts over the top. I think you might get a better idea of all the stitching if you click onto the picture. Its nearly complete though - yipee!!

Curved Piecing Workshop

Last Tuesday I ventured up to Louth through the fog for a fantastic day teaching a workshop on free curved piecing. It was a group of very talented and enthusiastic ladies.

 Everyone quickly learnt the technique and began to make their own unique blocks.

 Everyone used different fabrics and some worked outside of their normal comfort zone. I loved the bright pinks with orange and my favorite lime greens. I also showed the ladies how to turn their curved blocks into sketchbook covers. I think the cover above is heading for a Delia Smith cookery book.

These two photos are from the end of the day, I did have others but they are very fuzzy as my camera battery went down to one bar. Thank you Lindsey Patchworkers for a wonderful day and good luck with your Lincolnshire Wolds Quilt.

Christmas Workshop

Last week I traveled up to York for the annual Young Quilters Christmas Day at The Quilt Museum. I stayed overnight at The Bar Convent. This as the name suggests is a convent which is the oldest one in England founded in 1686. It still is an active convent with a resident religious community. All the guest rooms do not have numbers but have Saints names, I was in St Aelred. The accommodation was really good and very close to the station if you ever need to stay in York.

We had 12 children in the morning and 12 in the afternoon, all completed the Christmas Bunting project and really got to grips with using the sewing machines.

They made a stocking, heart and bauble and attached them to a canvas strip.

Everyone made something individual and lots of sparkles were used.

Yesterday I traveled to Louth and did free curved piecing with a very creative group of ladies. I have photos to share but will do that tomorrow as "mum's taxi" is needed by DS.

Grand Day Out

Waring - this blog post contains no stitched images.

I went down to the Textile Group at Unique Cottage Farm studios today and the first thing I saw was the amazing grapes on the vines growing outside. It was great to catch up with everyone and share work.

It was also DH's birthday today and he had the day off work. This meant that we could actually get to have a meal together. He was very embarrassed when I got the camera out to take photos of the food. As it was his birthday I did a sneaky shot without the flash! Above was the started of goats cheese on a bed of Mediterranean vegetables and below the main course of tempura mixed vegetables with dipping sauces and a side salad. 

Once both boys were home we could light the birthday candles (ssh he is 44 today)

On a Thursday I drop DS off at Scouts and often pop round to see a friend. I was able to leave my log burner to go and sit by Jackie's log burner.

I am off again to York tomorrow for a YQ workshop on Saturday (oh yes and a tiny bit of shopping).

Back soon

Updated Website

Exciting news. DH has finally worked his magic and given my website a make over. There are still a few teeny tiny teething issues but all will hopefully be fixed in the next few days. It only affects the website if you use Internet  Explorer 6 (most of you should have updated by now). Go have a look and let me know what you think, let me know if you find any more mistakes or problems.Click here to visit.

Catching Up

I often have times when despite my best efforts blogging just does not happen. Life still goes on though at full pace, workshops taught, meetings attended, trees chopped down (don't ask about that) and making time for stitching. Last Saturday I went down to the Yarrow Gallery in Oundle to visit the Textile Lincs exhibition with Lorraine from the group.

 I had never been to this part of the country before despite it being relatively close to home. I do not have permission to share the fantastic work of the other ladies but I will share mine. The theme was Memory and my first piece was "Memories of home" as when ever I travel I miss the flat landscape and vast skies of home.

 This is a hand stitched piece and all the textiles are recycled and hand painted or printed. Tina gave me a small piece of a mohair scarf which became my rape field. It is mounted on a painted canvas.

 The second piece was based on a stack of love letters from 22 years ago and the memories came flooding back when I read through them as I stitched, sorry I don't seem to have a close up photograph of this one. I wanted to be able to show the writing so in a way this became reverse English paper piecing. Again this was mounted on a canvas and there are three "holes" which just seemed to work and give space to the work. Hanging below are love letters cut into heart shapes and stitched round.

This was a quilt that I had to pries away from DS2. He is very tactile and this appealed to him as it is backing with a brushed cotton lilac sheet I discovered in the charity shop. It is made from recycled sheets and shirts, all cotton. Each of these fabrics brings its own memories to the work, who has worn them? Who has slept on them? Where have they been? How old are they? I decide to quilt this very simply as I wanted the fabrics to shine through and not be covered in stitch. This exhibition is on until Saturday November 26th (see post below for times).

 I also received an amazing package from Ro Bruhn in Australia. I offered her some of my daffodil dyed fabrics and in return got some amazing sun dyed fabrics. They are all so gorgeous that I have tried to show them all. Thank you so much Ro, I already have an idea of how I will use them.

Memory by Textile Lincs

It has been a few weeks since I last posted as things have been a little pear shaped here. I just wanted to pass on the information about this exhibition by the talented ladies of Textile Lincs (I also have some work in this exhibition). I went down last weekend and it is well worth a visit. It is on until Saturday 26th November.

Week in pictures

I'm sharing my week in photos. Not many words though as I have got to be on a train in five hours to take me to York. 

More daffodil dyeing as I found a few left at the back of the cupboard (definitely none left now until next Spring).

After the blanket felting disaster I managed to dye these blankets with procion dye (lime and magenta)

For a Christmas project that needs me to cut out lots of circles. This will be used in York so I will show the completed thing next week.

More procion dyeing, this time on cotton.

Samples for the YQ Christmas day in York at the end of November.

Boxes from jeans and a dress, the instructions will be on an ebook that I am working on

I did teach several workshops and teach a Year 3 class but I can't find the lead to the Kodak camera at the moment. maybe I will share photos next week of these. And finally I got through a huge stack of paperwork this week.

Have a great weekend

Angela x

Felted blanket disaster....

Aarrgghhhh - I need this blanket for a workshop next week. This is only a small section of what I scrapped out of the washing machine. It did say 100% wool on the label!

Stitched Book Page

If you want to take a look at what else I have been up to take a look at the Expedition Blog.

Daffodil Dyeing

Last week I had a dyeing session using up the last of this years daffodil heads. I am amazed that I have any left as they have been used in many Natural Dyeing workshops over this year.

These are the dry heads before adding water.

Dyed fabrics and vintage laces. I love this image  (which is now my blog header). Beautiful natural buttery yellows.

Can you guess what this is?? It is a close up of some weld I am drying, it this will keep me going through the Winter if I have the urge to dye more yellows.

Have you ever......

Sewed onto your trousers?? (This is the 2011 Young Quilters Christmas project)

Reflections

Sorry no stitching today BUT DH and I had a very rare chance to spend an hour together without the boys. We walked down by Surfleet reservoir which is a kind of small inlet for boats. The weather was so hot and the water so still. I loved all the reflections and took lots of photos for possible design ideas.

I'm the shadow on the right taking the photo.

Not all the boats looked beautiful but there was so much texture that I photographed.

I'm planning a little change to this blog so come back soon and see the new look.