dandelion dreamer

Escape! Sun printing, Desigual inspired shirt and making faces!

2013-02-25T11:12:00.000+00:00

I have had a blissful weekend away with friends and sewed till after midnight. BLISS!!!!! Here is a quilt I made a while ago. The colour squares are made with sun printing using transparent fabric paint and then placed in the sun after laying on leaves to create the patterns. As the fabric dries, the area beneath the mask loses colour. how cool is that?

I decided that I wanted to add some free machine quilting to it so I used black thread and machined over the coloured squares fast, loose and free. GREAT fun!!

I will post a picture of it when I have added a hanging sleeve to it

Here is a face in the making for another project and as a teaching sample for my Fabric Faces

day school.

I enjoyed adding stuff to my Desigual inspired shirt. Here is a cupcake recipe...This was Hilary's idea. Fun isn't it?

and the cupcakes of course, all sparkled up with blingy bits....

I have added a little more stamping to the front and a splattering of beads and sequins....so I think it must be nearly finished!!

I will post my shirt when I have added the last few bits then I'm going to have a lot of fun wearing it!
See you soon
Moira x

Desigual Inspired Shirt

2013-02-22T12:43:00.002+00:00

I have been having great fun. Yesterday I made a start on embellishing an old F&F shirt that I was bored with. I bought a Desigual shirt last summer when I was in Barcelona and decided that I could have fun printing and machining on one of my old shirts

Here it is before I started....

I tore out a paper stencil and added this heart using acrylic paint......

On the other side I used a textured roller to add a background to work on....

The shirt so far.....

Next, some applique stars, a zig-zaggy thing and the word 'create'

Then I rollered up the paint left on the glass plate to make this background. Stamped it with black acrylic paint and machined it down using three rows of back free machine stitching trapping a few torn pieces of my hand dyed fabric in the process.....

and slapped on some flowery things.....

then it was time to free machine a few words around the heart....

and add a few words to the other side.....

And that is as far as I have got!

I'm off to Grafham Water for a weekend away and hope to get it finished while I'm there. I'm planning on lots of beads and sequins to add colour and glitz!

I'll share when it is finished

M x

My machine has been busy at last inspired by Alex Waylett!!!

2013-02-19T11:19:00.002+00:00

Oh what a lovely time I have been having. It was 'Textiles in Focus' at Cottenham Village College last weekend and I booked up for Alex Waylett's teaching session. I had a BALL!! She is such a superb teacher...I really do recommend her. Do take a peek at her website....her work is wonderful!

We started off by being inspired by pictures of Angie Lewin's work. Her screen prints are very simplistic and stylised and perfect inspiration.
I'm afraid I forgot to take my camera so I don't have any step photos of my work. We chose three shapes and cut them out of cardboard and then sponged around them with sumptuous paints in blues and greens

Next, we slapped paint onto the card shapes and stamped into the white spaces. There were a few commercial stamps there too so I added some flowers to my design. Why not?!!

I was so inspired that as soon as I got home I fired up my machine and flew around freely adding my trademark black detail to the design. It made such a difference! I even pushed the boat out and used GOLD thread too...now there is a turn up for the books! You cannot sew as fast with gold or it shreds so I was very patient and only had to re-thread three times!!! LOL. If you scroll up you will see some of the gold free machining on the other pictures

Finally, on Monday I joined a group of other people for a hand stitching morning and had fun adding beads and sequins to add some BLING!! Now.....I have to decide what I am going to do with it. WATCH THIS SPACE!!! I am away for a retreat this weekend and it is coming with me to be made into a bag...(or something....who knows what!)

Thank you once again to Alex for giving me the creative boost I really need at the moment x

The Fallen Angel Co is now on Facebook!

2013-02-10T23:29:00.001+00:00

Ho hum......I am feeling quite pleased with myself and have finally got my 'Fallen Angel' Facebook page up and running even though I thought about creating it in 2011! Here it is here Come on over....I hope you 'like' it!!

I'm just hoping it works. If I was really clever I could add a button for it on my blog but it is late at night and I don't think I am quite up to it!!

I've been away for a while as our girlie Claire has been in hospital longer than was planned and much later than expected. Life has been on hold for quite some time. She had her VP shunt replaced with a Miethke one a few weeks ago and she is so sparkly, lively and full of fun now her pressure setting is right. Inter-cranial brain pressure makes such a difference to personality....but sadly doctors do not recognise the fine nuances personality as being important....but they are to close relatives who see the changes but now hopefully, she will stay well and life will return to normal.

Normality.....this is something that you simply take for granted day after day. Boring, humdrum life...you know....doing the weekly shop, cooking, cleaning, getting your hand round the 'u' bend..... all that boring stuff that you wish you could break free from, but it all grinds to a halt when someone close to you is ill and you find your whole being tied in worrying about them and endless hospital trips, in Claire's case to London, which took whole days at a time. You long for normality to return...nothing spectacular, just that comfortable familiarity of day today ordinariness.

My creative being was stolen from me but now I'm hoping I might find it this week lurking in a pot of bright pink paint or maybe it will come out from my sewing machine needle if I invite it to try speeding across some colourful fabric. I think I shall set my alarm clock early and make myself leap out of bed and think YAY!! time to play, and if I find it, I shall blog about it!

I've cracked it at last!

2013-01-08T11:32:00.002+00:00

I've cracked it at a last!

I have moaned on so much this year about Windows 8 but finally....happily I have come to terms with it and understand what it is doing. AND I have had the mast amazing fun using the 'CyberLink YouCam' programme on it too which allows you to make avatars. Here is a piggy one that Hope made. You can waste hours playing with it!

Well, we are into the second week of the year...and yes...I have managed to make a new recipe each week so far. No time to photograph them though...I'm battling with creating a new website where I can sell my cards hopefully!

I have also made myself play around with the blogger dashboard and have learnt how to add borders to my photos...how sad is that that it has taken so long! Ah well....it is great step forward for me so I am doing a happy dance. I must keep on playing and learning new tricks. I have even added little buttons at the top of the blog page here that go nowhere.....YET! But they will....given time

Although I've not posted since the beginning of the year I have been busy. Tonight I am teaching a group of lovely local ladies how to hand knit beaded wire bracelets and spent to the whole day yesterday making up little kits for them Hard work but I hope they have FUN! That is what life is for....to share the fun and enjoy life

Right... now I'm off to enjoy lunch with all my Belstead patchwork girls!

Wallpaper Picture Frames....Framing Good Fun!

2013-01-01T15:55:00.000+00:00

At last....here is my mini tutorial on creating your own gallery walls. Happy New Year to you...whatever resolutions you have set yourself, have fun doing them. A frame above the door has since become a blackboard by the way....you'll see it below

by Moira Neal 2012

I have had so much fun doing this and so many people have asked me to share how I did it. Please credit me with this work if you intend to share any of my pictures or 'how to's'. Thank you so much

The starting point...walls stripped and ready to be papered and painted....

This is a tester of the lime green we chose....it really does not look so good here but when the sun shines it zings!

There are some wonderful printed wallpapers available with cute little picture frames on them. One of them is called 'Taylor and Wood Frames' by Graham and Brown for £16.00 a roll. Check it out here. I wanted to make my little back hallway a picture gallery but there are eight doors in it so I reckoned that most of the frames would be cut in half if I bought commercial paper so here is my answer.

Tony painted the walls with this terrific lime green paint...it looks awesome when the sun shines in the back door....a wonderful biting green reminiscent of the 1970's...oh those were the days.... The wall facing the kitchen was painted a pale shade of white. I decided I did not want to paint frames on that wall. You can have too much of a good thing!

This frame measure 34" x 36"

I painted frames on three of the walls and decided to add one huge frame on the wall by the back door which I can add 6"x 4" photos to. The other frames are for more special pictures which will be added over time. Hah! What is that I ask?

I LOVE blackboards and thought it would be fun to have one to use for special occasions like birthdays and special greetings. I use it for the menu if my grand daughters are coming for supper too and for the occasional interesting sayings. The most recent one...'some days you are the dog......some days you are the tree' had eight year old Grace stumped!

I bought a pack of 5 Sharpie pens and that was my first mistake. They simply did not work at all and I began to think I was making a big mistake in thinking I could write on my emulsioned walls at all. A few weeks later I found the perfect pens and nearly the whole hallway was done with just one.

I spent a lot of time planning the designs and drew pages and pages of ideas. Next I made some cardboard templates to draw the frames around. I bought a pack of Blu-Tac too and planned to place lots of cardboard templates in position over the wall. BIG mistake!!! The Blu-Tac pulled the paper off so it was back to the drawing board!

Having made plenty of mistakes on the way I can now share with you what works. The most important thing is to be kind to yourself. Don't expect to complete the wall in one go....allow it to grow and evolve and to talk to you. Add another frame or two while dinner is cooking.....enjoy the process. You'll miss it when it is over.....I'm now looking around my home for more walls to attack. I have nearly a whole pens' worth to go....LOL!

You will need:

Emulsion paint and some leftovers!

Very juicy black pen....mine was an acrylic water based marker with a fine tip by Montana and it cost £4.50

card for templates

Long ruler

Spirit level if you can't trust your eye

Start by painting the wall before you begin. This is most essential. The reason is simple....you can paint over any frames you hate and start again. I was delighted to find that the emulsion covered over the black pen with just two coats. See the picture below. This allows you to be free and DARING!

Paint a big piece of wallpaper with the emulsion paint too and use this as your practise piece so you get the feel of the pen before starting on the 'real thing'!

big mistake......naff little frame by the light switch! Also I HATED the two frames on the right

Tip: If there is a light switch on the wall, make it the focus of your first frame. I realised this would have been a good idea AFTER I started my wall and had to work around it. Apparently you can also buy a picture frame switch which would be even better.

Here you can see what happened. This is after one coat of paint was applied. One more coat and it had gone thank goodness!!!!! I got rid of the frames to the right as well

Here is the wall as it is now. I have not finished adding pictures but that will happen eventually. I love the fact that you can keep changing the frames. At last I am happy with this wall

Get the pen working by repeatedly pressing the nib to get the ink flowing. Make sure you keep the lid on when not in use as it will dry out quickly

Hold a card template on the wall, levelling it using your eye or a spirit level. If you prefer, make them all deliberately higgeldy-piggeldy as I did around the top of the walls.

Do not use a ruler or try to make your lines perfectly straight ....allow yourself to draw lines freehand with a slight wonkiness.....this will make your frames look quirky, individual and creative. It is a good idea though to use a long ruler as a guide when drawing a really big frame.

Keep it simple......start with a simple frame shape and then add to it. You can add a second line around it leaving a gap of about an inch (2.5cm) Next, simply draw circles/lines/shapes, inside the frame, all the way around.

You can see from this picture that my starting point for the frames was eye level...then I worked above and below making it up as I went along!

Here, I drew two lines to make the frame and then drew two more lines inside it and added details

I decided this one was to be another little blackboard....and I added a couple of hearts to the top of it as it seemed to need it and the frame on the left had some of the little bubbles filled in too!!

Group similar designs to give a cohesive look....saves you having to think of so many different ones!!

Remember to make frames big enough to take special picture

I hope this has been enough to get you started. Have fun creating your own wonderful gallery to fill with photos, memories or your children's artwork. Whatever you do, enjoy doing it! I'd love to see what you create.

In the meantime, I'm going to think about doing something similar in my front hallway and when I do I'll make a little video of the process...until then.....

believe in miracles...(I do now I have cracked Windows 8) and have FUN in 2013!

New Year Resolutions for 2013

2012-12-31T07:41:00.001+00:00

Plural…there are always an awful lot of them to make!! I have found myself slipping the past few months since Tony was made redundant. We don’t get up so early and some days, I have lost twp hours of my day before I even begin so number 1. on my list has to be:

Lapland

Disney Land

Right…I must go …there is work to be done, cards to be ordered, cupboards to be tidied and stuff to be hunted out to sell. What will be first to go I wonder?

Have a great night celebrating the New Year, or enjoy your night in, if, like us, you are not doing anything special this year. This is the first NYE spent at home for over 30 years!

I'm hoping to start selling cards and prints from my website this year....in the meantime, a list of dayschools is already online...check them out here

Farewell to Belstead and CUPCAKES!

2012-12-18T23:01:00.002+00:00

I have SO much creative stuff to share but my poor fingers can barely type as they are so chapped and cracked from all the scrubbing and cleaning I have done over the past 2-3 weeks! Our daughter and son in law have moved with their two little girls from the house opposite us to a bungalow just around the corner and yes, you guessed it, we have been helping them most days. Thankfully they are now finally installed. Phew!!
Here I am with all the wonderful scrapbookers at Belstead House, our last weekend there. It is closing at the end of December and I feel very sad about it. I was SO thrilled to be given the most gorgeous wallhanging made by all of the girls and put together, upstairs, by Emma on the Friday night. Thank you Emma :) Each 6" square is so very special...it really is a wonderful treasure and is hanging in my studio so I can enjoy seeing it every day

I'm sorry the photo quality is not very good. It has been pretty gloomy here for the past few days!

Each of these squares has such a special meaning to me.....This one is from Barbara...a Tangram with wings!

This is from Debs.....dangulators is one of my 'words' and I always have to add ribbons and pockets to my scrapbooks

A delightful piece of patchwork from Pam....with my word 'exiterated'....this seems to be a permanant state of affairs at Belstead....

gorgeous dyed fabric and more lovely dangulators from Lynda....

A very sophisticated square from Tracie.....so beautifully painted and such lovely words........we are all going to get together next November at Grafham water! The fun will continue

Sandie sacrificed a piece of screen printed fabric for me and she has printed my picture onto fabric too!!

and Claire added really dainty wire flowers to this lovely square.......:)

and I LOVE all those buttons from Pauline...........and another of those words!

Stardust, smiles and laughter from Linda....how special!

I laughed when I saw this square from Jill....complete with the doily challenge on it! Here she has used it as a stencil.....and look at the 'aged to perfection' confetti!!

Lots of woven ribbons, and upcycled bits and pices from Toni, Jean and Jacqui....remember those jointed shiny fishes?

and this gorgeous square made by Emma has a tiny pocket in it....

with a perfectly folded, hilarious piece about my name and its meaning, and me. LOVE it!

Jo made this square and this is a picture of me ckecking our lottery numbers in February. I was SO SURE we were going to win so we could buy Belstead but it was not to be......

and inside the pocket was this tag....and a lottery ticket for Saturday night. Sadly it was not a winner. LOL!

I feel so very, very special to be given something so beautiful! Thank you to all of you special people who made it and to Emma for putting it together

xxxx

and finally.....it was Barbara's birthday this week and so we celebrated early while we were all at Belstead

I baked lots of cup cakes before I left home and then, on Satuday, assembled them in my bedroom!

I made litte stands for each one using card roll from wrapping paper (NO LOO ROLLS!) cut into 2" length and painted them white then they were stamped with musical notes. This was to remind the girls of the song I wrote about Belstead and which we all sang to the tune of Wild Clover!!

They were piped with buttercream.....

and each one had a little flag of printed sentiments about friendship in them.

Barbara's also had 7 candles which we lit and were blown out immediately for fear of setting off the fire alarm!!!!!

Happy Birthday Barbara

xxx

Breakfast club story prompts

2012-11-05T18:56:00.001+00:00

I have had a great day teaching one lovely lady today how to free machine quilt and between teaching her and chatting I made this for 'Breakfast Club' tomorrow. It is a tin full of first line story promts for Hope and Grace

I printed out the ideas and changed the font to make them more interesting. Then I used my new water soluble wax crayons to add some colour and then gave them a brush over with water....

Next I free embroidered some leaves on old paper....

and gave them a wash of green paint.....

Voila! Job done. Now I'm flying off out to a firwork night do so no time yet again to vist AEMD. Bother!

Art Every Day Month

2012-11-04T23:10:00.000+00:00

Oh dear! Sue has reminded about my excitement of joining in with Art Every Day Month and it the 4th already. Well I have been creative and busy just not got around to uploading photos. I think this might be a reason for having one of those ipads. Then I'm sure I would be on the ball all of the time

Anyway....here is what I have done this evening.....
Nothing fancy, just a cover for my 2013 diary with a little heart danglerator on the page keeper.
The cover was made using pelmet vilene and black fabric bondawebbed onto it and then cut to size with a rotary cutter. I satin stitched around it and then sewed on the picture of my quilt 'Don't Forget ot Drop the Dogs!' adding a few pieces of torn fabric at the same time. job done. The most unimaginative diary cover I've made yet! LOL
Thanks Sue.... you have sprung me into action!

Coffee cake, a broken mop and a celebration

2012-10-09T23:52:00.001+01:00

I've just remembered THE CAKE!! Coffee and walnut ring

It is not often I have an excuse for baking but we all made cakes for the show and not a crumb passed my lips!

at the end of the show I found a mop and washed the kitchen floor and the mop disintegrated.....

all over the floor!!

saturday night....and it was a double celebration for Kate and Ed and Amy and Stu. My cake pops disappeared very quickly

Here is Amy cutting the cake. Anyone would think it was a stag do!! Those antlers were on the wall LOL!

Today was breakfast club and here are the wrist bands Grace made this morning. The kit came in a huge box and contained practically nothing! It would all have fitted in an envelope. What a con...oh well, they were fun to make

I 'm busy getting ready for teaching at Belstead this weekend. I'm dying to get to see all the blogtoberfest entries but no time yet. I'll get there soon I hope!

The show is over!

2012-10-07T23:10:00.002+01:00

These are some of the wonderful exhibition committee...Liz, Jane, Elaine and Daphne who put on such a super show. The quilt was won by someone local but not a member of our group

I now have just 4 days to get everything ready for next weekend when I am teaching scrapbooking at Belstead House which is closing at the end of the year. Tomorrow is going to be the start of some frenzied activity here....I love having to come up with new ideas and share them but there is a lot to do and verty little time. This weekend we are working on old board books.......but right now I need to go to bed!

PS I was amused to find that the 'Cambridge News' article had made its way into the Times!!LOL!

Love Heart Cake Pops for Kate and Ed

2012-10-06T19:27:00.004+01:00

A bouquet of cake pops for Ed and KJate's engagement party tonight!

Here they are in the making....first you have to dip the sticks into the chocolate and impale them into the cake balls.....

Then...swirl them in the molten chocolate and cuss under your breath as the little buggers come off the sticks! Sprinkle them with sugar lovliness....and stand on their heads on Love Hearts!

Then I stuck them into wet oasis.....wrapped them in cellophane....

Job done. Right...we're off... the champagne is nice and cold!

Page 3 girl!

2012-10-05T19:57:00.002+01:00

LOL! I am a page three girl!

The Cambridge News did a wonderful article about my web address mix up and gace our quilt show a huge plug!

We had a really successful first day and the weekend promises to be even busier as people flock to the garden centre to combine a trip to our show. I am off to find some more bits and pieces to sell. Have some lovely hand dyded blankets which I am cutting up into 4" squares. Yummy!!!!!

Here is the article written by Rachel Allen. Thank you Rachel x

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/What-an-exhibition-Quilters-in-stitches-over-racy-website-05102012.htm

2012-10-04T22:07:00.004+01:00

well it was a frantically busy day getting ready for the show. I was up at crack of 6am and frantically making instruction leaflets for some little weaving loom kits and weaving stick kits and it all took so much time!

Anyway, I got it done and took it all off to the show which opens tomorrow. The David Rayner centre is super...it will be a great venue

I finally managed to get the photo I wanted to post last night. A couple of my little 22 page paper maze brag books all packaged up and ready to go. Tony cuts out all the mountboard for me and I machine stitch around each photo. One day I'll get round to doing a giveaway on my blog...these would be perfect!

I love, love LOVE making mini books. They are just right to fill with

memories of an event and cart around in your handbag

Now for a funny story.....our quilt group made a list of local classes and courses and included me and my website on it. Unfortunately, they got a dot in the wrong place with disastrous results! A vary naughty website came up by mistake. ANYWAY...the next day a lady phoned up and spoke to Tony to say she wanted to come to our show. She looked on the website to find out about classes and found my entry. Oooops! She explained all she wanted to learn was the sewing...nothing more and did we realise it had taken her to a porn site?!

Well...the local paper loved the story and I thought it would be great advertising for our show. Today I was photographed with my quilts and website so we'll wait and see what happens. Should be in the paper tomorrow night, perfect for a bit of weekend trade. We have a fabulous double bed quilt to raffle....I must take a picture of it to bloggerate.

Anyway..must go and get some more cards ready for the morning.

Wait a minute.....

Amazingly, I have just learnt a new trick! From the little photo icon I have found you can add an image from your blog. I didn't know that so I found this and had to laugh as it is pretty similar to my Don't forget to drop the dogs quilt. LOL!

I know...during Blogtoberfest I shall make myself learn something new every day.

Tomorrow I will show you the coffee cake I made for the show

2012-10-04T00:30:00.003+01:00

aaaaaargh!

this is not the picture I wanted tio upload but it is gone midnight and I feel like Cinderella but determined to post something for day 3!

I wanted to show you the brag books I have

been making

Yes...i know it is really day 4 but I have plenty to say later on once the quilt show is set up so I shall be blogging again soon

Thank you for your lovely comments....I'm hoping to get to visit everyone during the weekned

Weaving hand dyed old cotton sheets!

2012-10-02T23:43:00.002+01:00

ok...here we are on day 2 and I have just 20 minutes of the day left to blog so making it QUICK!!!!!

I have been making waeving kits to sell at the Cambridge Quilters exhibition this weekend and here is a piece I made before I got it off the loom today.

It is going to be a little purse

You'll have to wait till tomorrow to see it finished

I LOVE hand dyeing old cotton sheets and they are perfect to weave with so I've been having a ripping time!

Now then....it is

Bedtime!

Quilt in the making

2012-10-01T23:15:00.001+01:00

Happy Blogtoberfest!

It is day one and I thought it would be fun to share the making of my

don't forget to drop the dogs' quilt. It was a delightfully messy process, has taken me weeks and is still not quite finished. It did make me finally get ot grips with my new sewing machine though

The background was microwave dyed and ended up very splattery looking. The powder had not dissolved completely before the cooking process. Result...interesting..... As most of it was not going to be seen I decided it did not matter one iota!

I added two strips of white for the shelving.......

then set to work adding the colourful jars of hand dyed fabrics.......

behind acetate! This was tricky and made the whole quilt ridiculously difficult to work on later as it could not be folded!! Masking tape held it in place as I stitched

a few 'metal' pots were added.....I only allowed the Bondaweb to stick the pieces around the edges

then I stiched around leaving gaps at the top.....

for the brushes, rulers and my old, left handed scissors.

Oh they don't make them like they used to you know. Wilkinson Sword scissors are now totally left handed meaning oldies like me cannot use then any more!

The rulers are made from oiled brown paper.....

The work area is completely out of proportion and pretty randon.....

and Mavis is wearing earrings from a Christmas cracker! LOL

Her dress was printed with funky foam shapes

The other poor dog dreading taking his turn

The Cambridge Quilters show starts on Friday and I still have so much to do. I'm busy making weaving kits to sell so will be buring the midnight oil a few times this week!

Blogtoberfest and Don't forget to drop the dogs!!!!!

2012-09-30T22:55:00.003+01:00

Woof! I've not been here for a while and now I find it is a new bloggeroo and I have just been hunting about trying to make sense ot it all.

It is BLOGTOBERFEST in the morning and I have to have it figured by then. Let me see if I can upload a picture...!!!!

SUCCESS!
This is my quilt for the Cambridge Quilters show next weekend. I have always thought what a ridiculous expression 'don't forget to drop the dogs' is so HAD to make it into a quilt. It will be available as a card too for those who understand it!!!!!
Anyway...it is the first of a dozen ideas I have had. Watch this space. I had hoped to use Blogtoberfest to get a grip of my website but that will have to wait till next weekend. Will be busy doing other things
See you tomorrow!

Cupcake cake!

2012-08-22T10:46:00.000+01:00

Claire had a birthday at the weekend and Hope wanted her gift to be a cake and here it is!

we had such fun making it. The girls started last week by making gluten free cup cakes and freezing them. On Saturday it was time to make the chocolate cake and ice the cup cakes

each one is different....

and they all have little flags in them with a special word handwritten by Hope

(I bought the flags from The Works by the way)

The cakes were spiked onto barbeque sticks that have a wired paper calyx to hold them in place and stop them sliding down...... it was all very precarious but quite spectacular. Claire loved it!

later, we took the cupcakes off the stalks and surrounded the cake with them so we could light some candles and sing happy birthday!

The sun shone and it was HOT, HOT, HOT, here in Cambridge!!!!!

I have been busy working on woven fabric bags too since I last bloggerated but I shall show you them another day.....right now I really must go and do some work

Our 'New Life' and a gorgeous mini book from Gina Ferrari

2012-07-31T23:38:00.000+01:00

What an amazing week we have had Tony had a letter last Tuesaday talking about redundancy....but first I want to share this delightful surprise.Yesterday, a lovely package dropped through my letterbox from the WONDERFUL Gina Ferrari. I won a tiny hand made book in her giveaway....it is so cute. Just imagine the size....it fits in a matchbox. Fiddly or WHAT?!! I have never made any little books that small but maybe I shall be tempted! Just look at the hand stitched binding.

Thank you, thank you Gina. You have made me feel very special xx

And now, our life changing news....
After a meeting at 4pm on Wednesday Tony came home looking quite happy.....he has been made redundant and has been given gardening leave for 10 weeks so this is his first week of freedom. Yay!!
There are so many adjustments to make but it is going to be so much FUN having him here. Just last week I said how lovely it will be next year when he retires and we can have breakfast in the garden every morning.....and now we can. I never expected it to happen so suddenly. One minute he was counting down the weeks till next May when he will be 65 and the next, he is here and we can start making plans!
Maybe.....just MAYBE we'll be able to get a camper van and drive around to coast for a few days at a time selling my cards, walking along lovely empty beaches, sketching, reading, taking photographs....who knows? The next few weeks are going to be quite excitig as we plan out our future and make a few changes. I'm hoping to develop his flair for cooking curries!!!!!

Breakfast Club has been re-named adventure club after the week we had breakfast in the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden! Last week Hope and Grace were busy making cards and gifts for their mummy. Grace wanted to paint a canvas.....

and sew on some little glass flowers.....

using tiny gold beads to hold them in place

Then she made a card using my card making bits and pieces!

When I was in Scotland I bought a weaving kit with a cardboad loom and Grace loves doing it! It is quick and easy. I have been experimenting with torn, hand dyed fabrics to see how they work out. More of that another time!

A couple of weeks ago we had a few camera disasters. The first was Tony's camera when he took hope and Grace on the dodgems. He didn't realise it was in his pocket and it got bashed and the screen broke.

The next day, my camera developed a total sysatem failure. Luckily, it is still under guarantee. A few days later, camera number three developed a fault too. It has been an expensive time!

We have been having lovely weather here in England recently...AT LAST!

I bought the girls bubble blowers and they has great fun playing with Rosie and Tizzy......

Here is Gareth taking a break from capturing the action!

Poppy Love!

2012-07-11T12:06:00.000+01:00

I had to run back for my camera this morning when I saw this!!!!!

He looks as if he is just about to give this poppy a big, slobbery kiss!!

Ok...so it's Ladies Day at Ascot and what every best dressed slug is wearing this season. Pink is the new black

The finale was so perfect..there he was with his prongs out, stretching up higher and higher....and then the wind came along and blew the poppy head which slapped him across the face and flung him to the ground!!! LOL!!! I missed the best shot of all. Bother!

I'm off to Scotland for a few days of wet and soggy weather....but as they say, a change is as good as a rest!

Messing About on the River.....Adventure Club Stone Painting and Japanese Footwear Fashion!!

2012-07-05T10:57:00.002+01:00

Oh what a wonderful weekend away I have had. Sandie organised a creative break on the river in Essex and there just four of us but we had such fun! Ruth started us off making a bunting from coastal magazines and this inspired me to make some cake bunting....as you do! I printed CELEBRATE onto punched card circles and machined them together and tied them to barbeque skewers. Oh that cheesecake tasted so good!

CELEBRATE!!

Sandie had typed out a 'photograph thirty things in 30 minutes' challenge which I LOVED! one prompt was 'you' so here I am with her list

water was another one......just look at that sunset...so beautiful

sky was also on the list to photograph...along with rope, blue, red, grass, reflection, still....and so many things. I am now busy making a little book filled with photos of our weekend. I shall sharie it another time

Here is a little cencertina spined album I made using envelopes.....

Jill gave us all some white envelopes to use in a project...

I painted mine with watercolours....

and used black pen to outline each flower....then I cut the flaps off each of the envelopes.
I made a concertina spine from card and stuck each envelope to one side of of the v shapes. (Look at the top picture)

To make the covers I painted two more envelopes and cut mountboard to fit inside them. I stuck some double sided tape along the flap and cut a mountboard spine for the book

The tape was peeled off and the spine piece pressed in place onto it.....

here, you can see the mountboard spine covered with the envelope flap.
The other one was stuck on top to secure both the covers and that was it. I added tags and now the hard work starts deciding how to fill it!!

Grace's stone

We painted stones over the weekend which gave me the idea to do the same with Hope and Grace when they came for Breakfast Club. We have re-named it Adventure Club and it gets more and more fun as they get older. This week we had breakfast in the summerhouse before we painted the stones using nail varnish.....Ruth's idea...thank you ruth!

Here is Hope's stone
Next week, I'm hoping the weather will be good enough to have bacon butties in the field. If only it would stop raining!!

I just HAVE to share this....

My wonderful friend Hilary has just returned from Japan and was sporting the latest in fashion wear for all the young girls aged 20-30....frilly socks!!

Here she is demonstrating how to use the slimy, disgusting cucumber printed pads she bought for me for a laugh.....she then read the Japanese instructions that say 'do not get in the eyes'!!!!!
They are designed to put on your feet or cheeks. LOL!!

I am feeling very proud of myself that I have finally managed to work out how to upload pictures again. Phew...it was an uphill battle!
Now I must go and start work on the quilt I am making for the Cambridge Quilter's exhibition. I can't wait to share it with you when its done

Barbara Maynard Memorial Trophy!

2012-05-02T22:45:00.001+01:00

Whooppeeee!!!! I have won the Barbara Maynard Memorial trophy for my jubilee card made for a WI competition. I never dreamt that my wacky wobbly black lines of stitch would go down so well!

....but I did make the crown with sensibly straight stitches...I LOVE the huge sparkly di-di I found for the top of the crown. The red, white and blue parts are confetti fabric I chopped up. I covered it in tulle and free machined over it with invisible thread. The crown was made seperately from gold lurex on pelmet vilene and sequins added with tiny seed beads to hold them in place.

and look at this. Full marks!!! WHAT? Never, in my life at school did I ever get full marks for anything so I was totally knocked out...I just need a gold star now to make it complete!

Best of all, the trophy was presented to me by Adam Benson of Country File and he kissed me on BOTH cheeks!!!!! No photo...BOTHER!!

I have been teaching free machine quilting to a group of 16 quilters in Wing. This is a sampler of what students could make during the day. They produced some wonderful work and it was like being at playschool in the morning as they all got started and I gave them warming up exercises. Finally, I am offering dayschools in my studio for four people at a time with lunch included. The day starts in a fun way to get complete beginners off to a flying start.

Playschool for grown ups!

I had a birthday a week ago and was thoroughly spoilt by Hilary and Alicia with chocolates and flowers.... Tony and I went wirth them to see 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen'. I laughed and laughed. I love going to the cinema to be entertained. Tony was not so impressed.

We went to Frankie and Benny's afterwards for drinks and just as we were finishing, Happy birthday music came booming out and I was presented with this little dish of chocolate brownie and icecream, compliments of the house.

I shared it four ways. Yum!

Just as we were leaving I was presented with three helium filled balloons too. Wow! I've never had those either.I think I must have lead a very sad life. Here I am wearing a reel of audio cassette tape on my head. Hilary insisted on giving me some old tapes to re-cycle. She wants me to come up fun ways of using them up so she can dump her entire collection of 10,000 tapes on me I think!

Happy days!

Oh dear! I just had to share this with you. I was making a gingerbead cake and it was all going so well until I went to turn it off and turned the knob the wrong way! Out flew the batter and splattered around the kichen. I grabbed the know and yanked it the other way and shot the machine into reverse. YIKES! More splattering. After doing it THREE times I finally gained contol.

I washed the worktop and as I was standing at the sink I heard an ominous thud.....

as an egg chucked itself on the floor in utter disgust!

but Rosie came to the rescue. Phew!!

This is a footprint in the sand from a weekend at Skegness that I never got round to blogging about....

and finally.....Rosie's fur that I have been saving in two carrier bags was pushed into all the bramble bushes around the fields next to the house and was gone in 24 hours. Awwwwww....think of all those smelly, cosy nests in my neighbourhood!!

See you soon I hope!

Gun's Lane Close, re-discovered

2012-04-01T22:54:00.001+01:00

The 28th March 2012 was really, really exciting for me. You see, the previous week, on Tuesday, I had an 'aha' moment as I walked around our field down past the willows...that grow in a line....beside the sunken rut...that is clearly an ancient roadway. I put the whole lot together and worked out that the willows and the roadway were one; united in the passage of time of hundreds of years but still there, like a footprint that refused to go away. Last year, in this magical area we found two species of orchids too.

spotted orchid

bee orchid

the two 'ditches' that have appeared over the years flanked by pussy willow trees

The field on the right was called Gun's Lane Close

I contacted out local historian and she came with me to inspect my roadway; the two distinct lines that have risen up over the years in the fallow field at the end of our road. She looked at them and decided they were Victorian drains. The field was subject to flooding. I was despondent. Flattenend. I was expecting her to say it was a Highway to somewhere mega important. Damn!!!!! A few minutes later she reflected. She remembered that she had seen a map of the area where another field cut into ours. Yes. This was the boundary and the ditch had been filled in and all that is showing now is the drain on either of the old ditch...and the willow trees....just as they must have been, hundreds of years before. They have grown here, pollarded before they even began life. Extrordinary. Year, after year, after year they must have pushed up shoots and been cut down repeatedly but they never gave up . Never. Here they are, just as they were then. Lush and magnificnet. In a line, bounding either side of the 'ditch'.

There is one willow tree that stands alone, away from the 'path'. Later, about an hour later, Eleanor re-appeared with a picture under her arm and two copies of ancient maps. My field was on it and there, quite plainly to be seen is my little area....'Gun's Lane Close'. It is THRILLING!!!!! On a separate aerial photograph, there is a second line where the top boundary is shown......and that magnificent willow is standing on it.....a remnant from olden times.

At last I have the answer. I have felt for many years that there was something special about this little bit of the field; the way the willow trees were growing in a line. I have picnicked there with my gandchildren over the years. It has a peaceful calmness about it, a certain indescribable magic; now I know why.
PS A few days later I discovered a further four trees that are growing in a row, but I have not identified the species yet. I'lll get a picture up soon!