Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was my birthday and I'm now an ancient 55 - how did that happen - where did all those years go?  Anyway shouldn't agonise over that I did enjoy my birthday weekend even though the snow made the journey home yesterday afternoon a rather long one.

I booked to go on a weekend workshop at the Silver Thimble workshop situated between York and Malton and is at the Station House right by the railway line between York and Scarborough (though it is no longer a station). I'd also arranged for us to stay over at the Beansheaf Hotel on Saturday night just the other side of Malton and it was just as well as there's been some snow fall before we went and more during our stay.  There was more snow during Sunday after the workshop and with Christmas shoppers in York making their way from the city it was a long slow drive along the ring road to the A1.

Anyhow the workshop was taught by Pat Archibald on Ghost Images of the Orient, which is her method of using sheers and nets on a fabric background to produce "ghosting" images as seen here
if you look below the kimono to the Moon Reflections 1 & 2.  I chose a fan design to work on and this is my in progress here, the front image being darker, the middle being more faint and the top one you may barely see taking in the perspective of the design.  It was great workshop and has given me some ideas to work on my wall hanging.

When we stayed at the hotel we found this on our bed can you guess what it is?

It was a small dog made from a bath and a hand towel - never seen that before! After a lovely meal in the evening, we went out to more snow! But it was sunny and a lovely scene from the hotel. 

When we arrived home I found some postcards amongst my post to wish me happy birthday.  If you have been following my blog this year I have taken part in a Birthday Postcard Swap and mine is the last birthday this year.  So these are from (clockwise from top left) Ruth, Barbara, Claire, Carole, Janet and Plum.

I'd also found another black and white card, this time from Jacquie, which got me wondering why had I got 6 cards when I'd only sent out 5 and found that a one of the ladies from the other group in this swap had sent me one - so I've promptly put my spare black and white card in the post to here - good job I had actually made 6 cards.

The above cards are from Benta, Carole, Jan, Jacquie, Annette and Avril. They're a lovely collection of cards too.

Oops

On my earlier blogs I said about taking part in the Friday Night Sewing which was this Friday just gone, the 19th and I totally forgot!  I made up for it yesterday, making things that I can't show here because they are for Christmas presents!

However I have been busy with other stuff.  I've made a birthday postcard for Claire, whose birthday is today as part of the BQLPC birthday swap.  She opted for a Pot Luck card so I came up with the idea of using fabric from a charm pack of Japanese fabrics and this lovely one that reminded on Chrysanthemums (November flower) and that flower appears in Japanese designs. Appliqued onto navy blue I used white stranded cotton for the sashiko to go with it.  I hope she likes it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Since being in Yorkshire, one of things I like is Yorkshire Curd Tart, which I used to able to get when I worked at the bakery until recently.  So having Googled a recipe and found one on the Channel 4 website I made this and some tea bread too.  I don't bake that often but enjoy when I do.

I've also been back to the card classes at Elsecar and made these two cards.  The tri fold card was quite tricky but I quite like the effect of that.

And this is my go to sort of replicate the Christmas tree one.  I don't have a tree stamp so coloured some card green and made simple triangle trees.

I'm going to a workshop next weekend which I'm really looking forward to and hope to show something from that soon.

Photos of Edinburgh

Let's see if this works as I've posted onto facebook here.  But here's some more if you can't view through facebook. 

Map of Edinburgh outside the art gallery

Turret outside Holyrood House Palace, see the faint rainbow on the right

Views over Edinburgh from the Camera Obscura viewing point

Another view of the city

Edinburgh Castle

David at the Camera Obscura

Black and White

Just come back from a few days away in Edinburgh and David has taken lots, lots of photos and I've taken one or two.  A nice break away, even if it was cold, windy and rainy but what could we expect for November.

Before going away I posted off my Black and White postcards which I made back in September thinking I would be returning to paid work but that hasn't happened yet.  This I decided would be a bargello technique, joining strips of black and white fabrics and recutting and rejoining again.  Here's the orginal piece that I made and I cut the 6" x 4" pieces on the diagonal which produced 5 cards then had to make up a 6th with joining up 2 diagonally cut pieces that sort of matched.

This was the original Bargello piece

Cut on the diagonal into postcard sized pieces

One of the completed cards

As you can see from above I added some white flower sequins which just about show up and I used some black ricrac to edge the card.  This was the only card I had left as I posted off the other 5 without having taken a photo of them all before they wended their way to their recipients.

Another postcard that I've made has been a birthday one for Jacquie in the BQL birthday swap group and her birthday was at the end of October, as it was a pot luck request I decided to make her a card with autumn leaves on.  Based on what I'd seen in John Lewis store where some cushions with leaves and contrasting stitches were sold like this one here.  I used rusty/orangey scraps of fabric and embroidery thread to achieve the effect.

I've also been getting on with the big Christmas swap which will be posted in December.  They are all ready bar the stamps.  These ones will go in cellophane bags (which I haven't done before) and here they are waiting to go...

And for postcards that I've received from the Black and White swap these are some I got from Avril (Boo! in luminous paint) and Benta

 And below from Carole and Annette.

 I liked Annette printing on the reverse of the card (I've blanked out the address here)

As today is David's birthday (he's just a year older than me for a fortnight!) he received a surprise of his own in the post.

Pictures of Leo and Freddie!

The trouble with blogging is....

You get sidetracked.  I follow some blogs, that link into other blogs and you think "that's a good idea".  I've gone into challenges this way, though I have been strong and said "no" to myself I have more than enough to deal with, but it is interesting to see other people's take on the same thing.

Kate's site has a couple of things going on - a Stay at Home Round Robin, here, where participating bloggers are given instructions of the next round of a quilt each month and it's interesting that although the same design is achieved the individual's colours and interpretation creates very different outcomes.  She's also running Another Little Quilt challenge too which isn't on a theme but is a specific size. I don't know how she keeps up with it all, but there is always interesting things to see.

Through Online Quilting, Lis' blog, there's another, not so much of a challenge but more of putting aside time for quilting, with the Friday Night Sew In, which I think runs once a month. This month on the 19th will be the second time I've taken part and I do have a few Christmassy things to do. I have a posting from last month's Sew In here.

E-mail groups have been just as bad and someone on the BQL list had suggested to someone else as a small item to make to get back into the swing of sewing, like a mug rug (like a large coaster big enough for mug and accompanying biscuit) on this site, Pleasant Home.
 On this site are tutorials and photos of what people have made from them. Lovely pics and the thought "I want to make one of those" on the one hand and "no I've got enough to do" on the other.

No photos to share today (shame) as I don't want to spoil any Christmas surprises, but I have finished off the postcards for the forthcoming "Bit of Bling" swap coming up in December and sent of the Black and White postcard swap.

Better not get sidetracked then.

The weekends go so quick

Last weekend saw us going down South and visiting our 2 sons and their families.  Little ones grow up so fast and so much has changed in their lives recently.  Sophie our eldest granddaughter is now at school, our eldest grandson, Leo, is at pre-school and our youngest, Freddie is now crawling and walking around the furniture and Isobel, Sophie's sister is talking a lot more than when we last saw her.  It was also good to catch up with my Mum & Dad before we headed back up North again.

I haven't been up to much last week but I do have a new toy.  Nothing to do with sewing, but could come in useful perhaps.  I have a Big Shot die cutter, which can also emboss items too.  I had some in texture plates come with it which I tried out on some sketch paper.  I will get around to getting some dies to go in the cutter as I have seen some "stackable" ones of basic shapes that stack inside each other which will come in useful.  In the meantime here are my attempts.

These samples were from the basic texture plates

The samples were on green foiled card and on kitchen foil glued over card

 

And this is the Big Shot machine

Yesterday as it was a lovely if cold day David and I went to Skipton on the trail of sheep in the town.  These were the "Flock to Skipton" sheep and armed with a map of the town went looking and photographing the sheep. Quite a few of them are on my facebook page, so click on the facebook badge on my sidebar to have a look.  We could not leave without visiting a bakery shop - Wild's, of course - where we bought a Yorkshire Curd Tart. 
After lunch we went on to Bolton Abbey just a few miles further north of Skipton.

The ruins of the abbey are fascinating and both David and I were clicking away with our cameras.  The sky was turning cloudy by now and with the autumn colours of the leaves they made for some good photos. These ones below show the doors on the church adjoining the ruins I was quite taken with the fancy hinges - quite a work of art

And at Bolton Abbey we even found a beach!

More cards (again)

Seems that Blogger has picked up that I've done a blog post with "More Cards..".  I'm getting into card making a few more at class and having a go at techniques I've learned at home the next day.

So this was what I made at class - I think this could be a form of monoprinting - putting ink onto a craft heat mat and spritzing with water and spreading onto the card from the mat.  Wasn't too impressed to start off with, but with the stamping and addition of rubbing on more ink around the edges they were looking a lot better.

Here are samples from class:

A Christmas themed card, matted onto silver card on white cardstock

Another distressed effect card.

Then these were the samples that I made at home, bearing in mind my limited resources, though my collection of bits and bobs for card making are growing slowly. The first one I stamped and embossed roses and after the paint effect I stamped over pink roses, rubbed on stamp ink around the edges followed by a gold stamp pad on the very edge.  The purple bit is meant to say roses but these alphabet stamps aren't terribly good.

 And this one below I messed about with the stars stamp pad embossing some and stamping with a blue pad after and stamping with the remaining ink on so that some of the stars were faded.

I'm quite enjoying the Wednesday morning playtimes with the radio playing. There won't be a class next week ;o(( .  I'll have to find what I can have a go at next.

This and That

Here are the photos as promised from my last post from the Friday Night Sew In.

Before the binding was hemmed

...and after.

Seeing all those colours in the backing is rather startling, but it works well with the stripy binding.  

As mentioned in the previous post here are the Wiggly Bags.  They're now ready to go in the post.

 
Earlier in the week I had a go at painting having another go at painting with transfer dyes. Once the paper has been painted it can be placed face down onto poly cotton or any fabric with synthetics in the fibre and ironed onto it. Haven't done any transferring yet, just painted the papers in red, purple and lime green and mixtures of the three colours.  I also printed some papers using the shaving foam monoprinting method.  That's using shaving foam and dripping colours onto the foam before spreading the mixture on a flat plat (I used a glass table mat)before placing the paper on top.  As more prints were taken the more the colours merged and turned into a lovely pale green with bits of the colours in it.  I quite enjoyed having a couple of hours playing.  A reminder that I wouldn't be doing this if I was working.

Here are my papers using the shaving foam printing

Transfer dye painted papers drying on the floor

 

 

Papers made with acrylic paint rolled on with a brayer with elastic bands wrapped on it.

 Earlier today David and I went to Cannons Hall just outside Barnsley for a walk.  We'd passed before but never visited as the car park is pay and display and never having the right change!  Wonder how many other people are put off by pay and displays to go off elsewhere - we can't be the only ones!  It was a nice sunny autumnal day for a walk around the gardens and went inside the house for a wander round.  Whilst there I took photos of some metalwork sculptures made by "Paul" who was the person to contact to buy them.  They look really lovely so I couldn't resist taking the photos (shame I wouldn't have anywhere to put one).

Friday Night Sew In

No photos yet so I'll post those this evening.  Yesterday I took part in the Friday Night Sew In, though it was a case of sewing in front of the telly!  I had some binding to sew down after putting that onto a quilt earlier in the week and got it all done, so I am pleased that I set aside time to do this.

Earlier in the day I completed 5 "Wiggly Bags" to add to 5 that I'd done earlier in the week and before started on the quilt binding I'd threaded tape through the casings of the bags.  I found this tutorial a little while here on Florence's blog a little while ago and now I have some time out decided to make a few and will send off to the Liberty Rose Trust an organisation supporting children with cancer.


David and I are off to Peterborough today - he wants to go to a model railway exhibition and I'll go and have a wander around the town.

Will catch up with photos later.

More cards

I've been for a second cardmaking lesson last night and am really learning quite a bit.  I made 2 last night using Distress Ink pads in different shades and rubbing those on with a sponge pad to create a light middle and darker outside to the cards.  As last week I have a bash at what I've learned, but because I make do with what I've got the results are very different but quite pleasing.

This was a card I made last night with a pale orange to dark orange around the edge

Two shades of blue over the pearl paint and dark blue snowflakes

Out of class the cards I made this morning with a bird stamp embossed on top

I've used a dark purple pad to stamp the bird and embossing powder on top (which I shouldn't have done as the powder stuck to the bits it shouldn't).  Having learned that the powder wouldn't come off easily I then used a cotton wool pad to wipe away the excess and have a circle of it around the bird on the purple card.  For the blue one I stamped and embossed the stars first before running the ink from a blue pad over it.

As for sewing it has not been neglected.  Here's a pic of what I'm working on and since this pic was taken on Saturday I have now put a border on so the quilt is getting there.  Here it is - a quilt for Freddie - long overdue (the quilt that is - he is 10 months old now).  I can see myself working on this on the Friday Night Sew In which is this Friday 15th October - I'll go and correct that, what a Wally!