Happy Birthday/Thanksgiving to Me!

Just a quickie today as this weekend will be a busy one! My birthday was on Thursday, which by chance was also American Thanksgivng, so I figured if other people were taking a holiday so can I. Below are some lovely cards and plants that I received




And being part of the birthday swap I also received some lovely postcards









Said it was a quick post!


Sue W- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Birthday Postcards

Not mine, as my birthday is at the end of the month, but for others in BQLPC who also have birthdays this month. What is it about November that there are 4 birthdays so close to each other?

In order of dates here they are:

 Diana's

 Avril's

Inge's

This year there was no theme set by the recipient, so it was our own choice of designs.  I'd made some earlier this year with a Japanese theme using some fabrics from a Japanese fabric charm pack which I used for Diana's card.  Avril's used some fabric with dressmaking motifs on and I managed to find some stamps on a sewing theme too.  One of my early samples of machine embroidery was used for Inge's card. 

There will be one more birthday at the end of December which is done and ready to post when to time comes.

Yesterday was spent making the Christmas postcards and now have made 14 cards with a Christmas collage theme, so lots of bits cut, fused and stitched.  Made quite a mess with working on these, but now they are done I can have a bit of a tidy up.  So that is all my postcard making done for the year.

Seriously Christmassy Post

Hard to believe that Christmas is just a few weeks away, but have to start getting ready.  I'm taking part in BQL Postcard Groups big Christmas swap, which so far has 12 participants so 11 cards to make (but will make a couple extra for contingencies).  I made 4 by Saturday but since I took the photo I have finished a couple more.

 These are completed ones

and more in progress

I wanted to make Christmas collages using my assortment of Christmas fabrics that I've accumulated over the years.  They are appliqued onto a background mounted onto felt to give the effect of a picture frame.  It kept me busy on a very wet Saturday.

The next thing I can't show just yet, but suffice to say that I am taking part in another swap this time organised by Quilting Bloggers called Christmas Stocking Swap and I've been informed that I'll be swapping with Merrill from Melbourne so I'm looking forward to finishing them and sending them all the way to Melbourne.

It doesn't happen very often, but I did a proper bit of embroidery for the stockings while I was watching Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday evening.

On Friday I went to the textile art course that I signed up to and this time we made some silk paper using gummy silk fibres, which are dampened and ironed to bring out the gumminess of the silk to create a sheet of silk.  This was coloured with spray paints.  I only decided to take a photo with my phone after I sewed some ribbon yarn onto the paper.

If you thought these colours looked lush, then wait until what I did after lunch

Using encaustic wax in blue, orange, copper and gold colours and working the iron into the fibres changed it completely.

I had a Google about gummy silk fibres and just had a go on Saturday morning with an assortment of fibres that I have in my stash to see what would stick together or not.

 Tussah silk works quite well and the orange and pink pieces worked and held together OK.  The yellow piece did to begin with but its beginning to come apart so not so good (I didn't know what type this was)

A couple of other indeterminate pieces in red and blue didn't work too well either.  What I may do is needlefelt these and the silk will hold together better, but I had a lot of fun find out what worked and what didn't. Seeing these photos, these pieces are a riot of colour; one way of brightening a rainy Saturday morning.

Trains, Planes and Quilts

Last weekend was probably our last weekend away for this year.  David and I, for various reasons, have only had one week's proper going away holiday this year (to Cornwall in September) but have had quite a few weekends away this year.  We joined Peter and Diane, my brother in law and sister in law in Knaresborough for the weekend staying at a B&B there on Friday.

On Saturday we went to York travelling on the train from the quaint station in the town, but before then we followed a trail of painted fake windows.  Knaresborough has a lot of Georgian buildings, which were subject to Window tax and in order to keep the symmetry of the houses but without paying more tax these bricked up "windows" were created.  These were used by local artists to get people to explore the town. 

Quite appropriately (as it's Bonfire night tonight) the window above right is of Guy Fawkes, who was born in York, but lived in Knaresborough, with a keg of gunpowder.

This was the station, Grade 2 listed building with old fashioned semaphore signals and the signal box was attached to another building at the end of a terrace of houses. 

 

It even had some friendly looking staff

 Once in York, as usual of a Saturday there it was heaving with people.  We wanted to visit the National Railway Museum, which is currently celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Mallard steam engine's world speed record, which remains unbroken.  With the Mallard were the remaining engines in the same A4 class locomotives, Union of South Africa, Sir Nigel Gresley, Bittern (from the UK), Dominion of Canada (from Montreal, Canada) and Franklin D Roosevelt (from Green Bay, USA).  The queue to get into the NRM was so long, we decided to have a wander around the city before going back in the late afternoon, by which time the queue had gone.  It was an awkward place to take photos and there were a lot of people- my camera got totally confused and they all came out dark, but my iphone managed OK, but these were the best I could get.

 This was Bittern (4464)

The star of the show - Mallard 4468

Sir Nigel Gresley (this engine was named after its designer)

Dominion of Canada

I took loads more, but don't want to bore you here.  I'll see if I can have another go at a photo collage to put them together.

On Sunday we left Knaresborough and went to Duxford, near Cambridge.  At the IWM Duxford was the Autumn Quilt Exhibitions held by Grosvenor Exhibitions.   I wanted to go here to see some of the Civil War Quilts made by Foxy Quilters of Barnsley.  When I lived in Yorkshire I used to be a member of Barnsley Creative Embroiderers and some of the ladies used to be in Janet Bottomley's patchwork class and I guess that Foxy Quilters came about from that class.  They are a talented group of quilters and their work shows.

A couple of my favourites.

There were some quilts by other groups too, here are just some of the photos I took

 And you can't go to a quilt show without any purchases.  Mine were small - a cutting board, a bag pattern and a couple of books.  Shows my diversity with an embroidery book and a modern quilting book.

Oh yes, there were planes too, if you didn't know about the venue (or didn't see from the link)
it is an aeroplane museum

Here's the Typhoon and it's engine beside it amongst the quilters in the eating area with the quilts on display behind it. Really unusual venue.