I have been back to the Church and I can't find my camera, I hope someone has put it in a safe place for me!

Happy Christmas bloggers!

Another session of bookmaking at Nickie's last night, we have made 14 books now, though some of these need the finishing touches, I can't post any pictures as I have left my camera at the Church. We are really pleased with how they have turned out, I hope Pauline like them when we take them to our next Fenn Edge Textiles meeting. It was lovely to spend time with Nickie playing with card and paper while life is a bit fraught at the moment. I took my daughter to visit her father in hospital again, and they can't do anything else for him, just a matter of time. When I have finished wrapping the last of the pressie's and delivering cards, I hope to pack some bits to take and sew at my Mothers.

Christmas preperations.

I am going to my Mothers for a few days on Christmas Eve, so I have spent today busy wrapping presents, buying lots of food for my home, for son who has chosen to stay here plus food to take to my mother to share the added expense of Christmas. In between this, I went to the local church this evening as they were doing Carols by candlelight and I was asked to make mulled wine. It was a lovely event and I have been asked to make the mulled wine again next year. While I have been wrapping I have got hubby cutting lengths of paper for me to colour ready for the next book making session at Nickie's tomorrow night.

Nickies again!

Last night was spent putting together some books. Nickie cutting and I was binding.

I have had my Bind-It some time, and had only made one book, the guest book for the Schoolhouse Arts exhibition in April. It really does go through the grey board and paper easily.We then started to make some 'buttons' to go on the front of the books, these have got to have additional colours added and we will attach them next week. I have put an eyelet in the back cover through which machined gold cords will be threaded and stitched as part of the closure.

These are the books so far, we both need to make LOADS of papers for the remaining covers.

Today Kezzy and I had to visit her father in Colchester hospital, on the way we went to Doctor Bernina a.k.a Martin Woods, what a lovely man, he got my machine working quietly within a very short space of time. The canvas above, is what I made for Kezzy to give to her father for Christmas. I started it last night by painting it with gesso, followed by a sky blue acrylic. When dry, I then covered it all over with white acrylic, but rubbed it off while still wet to reveal the blue but now its misty. This morning I carried on playing. Alcohol inks were applied to the plastic letter tiles, green acrylic was dry brushed around the edges to echo the green flower in the bikini, when dry this was over stamped randomly with turquoise ink and a Paper Artsy swirls stamp. It was then just a matter of putting it all together. The final touch, was a ribbon round the frame. ( The photos I used for the canvas were the last photos I took of Malc and Kezzy, before he became unwell)

I have managed to upload some pictures today. The first one is the completed wall hanging. The colours are the same as in the photo that I was working from,but the lighting has affected the colours. Cotton fabric dyed. Rough guide lines were drawn on with a soft pencil. Areas painted with fabric paint. free machined and the Markals applied on top. Fibres were applied using my embellisher. Lots of free machine and hand stitching to get the shading on the water.

The Guild is having an exhibition in Chelmsford library with the theme- seasons. I have taken some photo's over the last couple of days to get some inspiration.
Friday morning-frosty!
Tuesday morning- foggy!

Wednesday afternoon-sunny and fresh!

This is Sue Cranwell who came to our Guild on Monday.

Nickie was lucky enough to win this pair of earrings made by Sue, in the raffle.

Wall hanging finished!

It's been a busy couple of days! Any free time I have had over the weekend was spent on finishing the 'Sunset on the Nile' wall hanging. See blog 3rd September as to how it was made. It has taken nearly 40 hours to make! The edges have not been finished as it is going to be put in a picture frame. I cannot post any pics tonight as the link is not working. I will try to upload tomorrow as I should have some photos of the books that I am making with Nickie. With this in mind, I have stencilled some more decorated paper with the peacock feather and made some embossed frames to which I am will now add some Treasure Gold to highlight the raised areas.
I am unable to do any machine stitching as my Bernina is poorly, I am taking it to Martin Woods the Bernina doctor on Friday on my way to visit Kezzy's father in hospital. I am hoping that my machine is not too sick!
On Monday we had Sue Cranwell come to our Embroiderer's Guild meeting to talk about her work. She is a member of Fibrefusion and this is when I first saw Sue's work at Art Van Go, when the group were holding an exhibition there in 2005. This was when I was doing my City and Guilds and I loved her work on Rock Art. When I went to the next exhibition there two years later, she had done some wonderful work on cranes - you should see her sketchbooks! I was also able to book on the day class with Gwen Hedley that the Guild is holding in March.

Hylands House

Our textile group, Schoolhouse Arts had an appointment this morning for 9.30 to discuss the possibility of doing some workshops there. Unfortunately I didn't check my emails yesterday as I was out with friends, so I was up early and ready in plenty of time to find that it has now been postponed to the New Year. BUT, it meant I got the dreaded ironing done! Off to do some Christmas shopping and I hope that I will get some play time this afternoon before going out tonight, celebrating a friends 5oth birthday.

Books continued.

It was another night at Nickie's doing some more work to our book covers.
More surface decoration has been applied by stencilling or rubbing over
print blocks with Markals, treasure gold or heat embossing. When dry, they were either polished with bees wax or painted with acrylic wax. Finally they were stuck to grey board and left to dry until our next session when we hope to start binding them into books.

Playtime!

I have had two evenings playing- fantastic! Just what the doctor ordered! Work is all a bit fraught at the moment. All the T.A's are being moved around as we are top heavy with staff in the Kindergarten and the Juniors need more help. I have such a good team working with me at the moment and don't want to loose anyone, but I don't have a say in who is going to be in my class after Christmas. We got outstanding in all three areas in our OFSTED inspection in July with this team, and we have another inspection due next year.
Monday was our monthly get together to do our scrap booking.
I do this with my oldest daughter and it is lovely to have a common interest, she is not into stitching in any shape or form.
I was going to make a scrapbook for my mother's Christmas
present, but maybe it will be for next Christmas!
Last night it was round to Nickie's to start making books to sell to raise funds for the Fen Edge Textiles exhibition. We are using
brown paper to make the covers which have been patterned and painted.
Papers for the pages were cut up and coloured ala 'Francis Pickering'. We
shall do some more work on the books tomorrow night, as I managed to escape from work a bit earlier than normal to get some grey board from Hobbycraft. Off to colour more pages with tea now so it will be dry in time.

The best laid plans.........

I have not had my day stitching as I promised myself.
This was a sample I made the other night, as I want to make a vessel using Sutton Hoo as the inspiration. The right hand side was attached with hand stitching and the left side was by machine. The hand stitching is better for what I have in mind as it is more pliable and means that I don't have to make it square.
Thursday night was spent collecting all my evidence to go with my papers ready to hand into Court on Friday. It is surprising how long it takes!
I spent Friday evening getting my bags packed ready for Cottenham on Saturday.
An early start, but the roads were empty and we got there in time. It was decided that the 's' would be dropped from our name and we will now be known as Fen Edge Textiles. I have got to get my finger out! I have a lot to do by the next meeting. 2 A.T.C.'s for swapping, my 'dangly thing', a profile on myself and a photo(UGHHHH!!!!) asap for our website, which is under construction, some items to sell to raise funds to pay for our exhibition and develop my ideas for my vessel.
My day of stitching didn't happen as my son who has been decorating his bedroom had the carpet fitter in early this morning. He emptied his room into my playroom and bedroom. I was unable to get in through the door until this evening.
I also popped up to the churchyard today, as it is 7 years on Tuesday since my oldest son Ashleigh, was killed in a car accident, an event that was to change my life in more ways than one!
A few months after the accident, on a whim, I went to a quilt show in Chelmsford and I saw a quilt that a lady had made to celebrate her husbands retirement, lots of blocks depicting his hobbies and interests,(I wish I knew her name so I could thank her). I decided that I would make a quilted wall hanging to celebrate my sons life, but as his life so short and his interests were cars and music, I had a problem with a design. It was then that I decided to use a poem that one of the mothers where I work had given to me at the time of the accident, it was read out at his funeral, and I decided to translate this into my wall hanging. I went to my first the first meeting of the new patchwork group that Delia had started. She said to me that my stars needed points, 'why not foundation piece'. I have to say a big thank you to Delia, it was her words that made me decide I wanted to learn much more about patchwork and quilting, having only dabbled before. I have since done C & G, met lots of wonderful people who are happy to share their knowledge, been on courses as far away as Bramble Patch,been to inspiring exhibitions and shows and last but not least spent loads of money! I look at my wall hanging as it it hangs in the room where I sew, I know that it has many flaws, but it was the beginning of my journey.
( 1 large star represents each year of his life)
This evening, I managed an hour and a half of stitching on my Egyptian hanging. It's been some time since I have done anything on this and I need to get it finished this week so I can start on my Cottenham homework.

Withdrawl symptoms!!!!!

I have withdrawl symptoms. I have not had time to play with fabric, thread or paint since Sunday night. Last night I had Embroiderers Guild committee meeting. I like to do the minutes as soon as I get in ,just in case I forget what all my notes mean. They were emailed out just this side of midnight! Tonight I have battled for four hours with legal forms for a Small Claims Court Case- I have had dealings with a dodgy dealer. My head hurts with all the jargon. I hope to have some me time tomorrow!