BUSY DAY AT THE GUILD

Progressing fossils for my personal theme. Loath to use the top fabric as I loved it from the moment I unfastened the stitches after dying but it had to be done at some point!!!!. Pleased I used this piece as found it to be very effective giving an extra textured look to the development of the design. Not slacking even though half term.

PRE RAPHEALITE EXHIBITION

Thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition last week, as busy as the David Hockney, but not as inspiring for me. My favorite was April Love by Arthur Hughes beautiful.  We also visited Westminster Cathedral which has some fabulous mosaic art in the chapels. Good place for inexpensive lunch if in Westminster area, cafe in the basement of the cathedral soup, rolls cake and tea for 2 under £10. We went up the tower of the cathedral but not a lot to see as a bit misty but could make out most closer landmarks.
In the evening we went to Bistro 1 on Beak Street our favorite place for good value meal before the train journey home.

Pre- Raphaelites at the Tate

Travelling to London see the exhibition at Tate Britain next week, looking forward to the day, will it be as exciting as the David Hockney last year?????  www.tate.org.uk

FOLDED BOOKS WORKSHOP

On Thursday I went along to Catherine Slater's workshop at Littlethorpe Village Hall.  There were seven of us from the Castle Textile group attending, we had an excellent day producing two completed books with hard backs and seven master copies of book pages without covers.
Catherine showed us how to colour tissue paper, stiffening it with light weight vilene.
Some of the folded books she showed us looked very complex but when broken down, step by step the complexity disappeared.  Once we understood the folding procedure, any size book could be made,
We all had an enjoyable day with an excellent tutor, who gave lots of ideas to create our own unique books with our own personal finishes. Thank you Catherine.  I can thoroughly recommend this course and look forward to the dates for a felt making workshop in the spring tutored by Catherine.

C & G PANEL - TROPICAL FISH

My panel was to be based on a fern leaf which my daughter had admired at a hotel, but as usual things changed along the way and the fern leaf drawings became the skeleton of a fish which became fishes.  I thoroughly enjoyed producing the panel as I dyed lots of fabric to get the right shade of blue for the sea, measuring and recording the amounts of dye powder used.  The stitches used were simple backstitch, fly stitch and laid work, using variegated threads for the effect of light n water.

C & G 3-D ITEM - SEASONAL LIGHTS

After purchasing a piece of metal mesh at the November 2010 Knitting & Stitch Show in Harrogate I took many months to decide on this project.  My initial idea was based on trees during the seasons of the year on curved sheets joined together.  The sheets did not work as the one at the back could not be seen in detail.  Each sheet became a tube with LED lights inserted & displayed on black marble.  My fingers and hands were sore for many weeks whilst the piece was under construction but the final result was worth the pain!

C & G ACCESSORY - Blue Bag

I had a struggle to creating the tote bag, having an idea to use the iris of the eye for my design on the bag. I used a pair of jeans mixed with my Shibori dyed fabric and calico in the construction.  The bag had to be large to carry large items to class.

After many weeks of of deliberation the bag was finally competed to my satisfaction and has proved to be very useful.  Thanks again to Janice Gunner for her guidance with the Shibori.