Art In Miniture

Art in miniture

Hand and machine stitches

Painting in detail

Taking ideas from my sketch book

More stitching on this

I have been working on my stitching this week fitting it around children and visiting friends.

On Wednesday and Thursday I had two children's craft sessions to run at the local leisure centre.

We made Halloween inspired necklaces on one session and masks on the other.

Seeing the children so happy and eager made me want to continue with my own work when I got home.

I am a very visual person and always need to work my ideas out in my sketch book first.

I have never been able to follow a pattern , in fact I'm hopeless.

I have to make my own up.

Tonight there will be no sewing as I'm off to see the new James Bond film.

Sewing can wait for Daniel Craig!

Lastly I must say thank you to Tricia who has given me an award.x

Flower Power And Snow!

Hi,

I Had a brilliant time with my sister in London at the weekend.

We visited Dulwichpicturegallery , which is local to my sister.

A small but very interesting gallery.

The current exhibition is What Are You Like? Self Revealing Portraits by People In The Public Eye - a collaboration with the House of Illustration, presenting a collection of 'self-portraits' by an eclectic group of public figures; each contributing a composed of favourite things.

We also visited some great vintage shops, I was in heaven!

Today I have listed some new flower brooches on etsy while it has been snowing!

So it looks like you need your winter woolies, why not add a flower to brighten up your scarf or coat?

Random Facts and Flowers

Firstly thank you to piccalily&blossom for tagging me!

Tagging Rules
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog
2. Share 7 interesting/random facts about yourself on your blog
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post, leaving their names as well as links to their blog
4. Leave a comment on each of their blogs to let them know they've been tagged!

Sorry not sure who has been tagged or not, just let me know if you want to join in.

OK here are seven random facts about me.

1.My passion for embroidery started at an early age, watching Jan Beaney on Pebble Mill At One with my Mum.

I was off school with chicken pox!

2.I worked as a manager for Laura Ashley for Eighteen years ( Home Furnishings)
Part time the last ten years to fit in with my two children, every weekend, evenings etc..
As soon as my husband got back from work it was my time to go to work!


3. I gave it up to work in an inner city school assisting in textile and art classes.
Hard work but I get weekends and school holidays!




4. I have always wanted to do an applied art degree, just can't finance it.




5.My favourite shops are vintage and charity shops !



6.I started a lunch time stitch club at school.


7.My favourite programme was Inspector Morse.


Hope that was not too boring!


The felt flowers above will be at a craft fair on Sunday, my friend Jane is taking them to a fair in Rugby.
I am going with my daughter to London to visit my youngest sister, can't wait to see her.


Bye for now.x

Painted Stitches

Hi,

The next stage of working is painting.

So this is a painting I have been working on along side my textile work.

Again the light is so dim , nearly dark! when I took these pictures.

Hope you have a good start to your week.x

Shopping List Saturday ( Sunday )

Hi,

Sorry this is a bit late.
I had a great time in Birmingham visiting vintage shops and the flea market at the custard factory.
A good selection of vintage clothes and some hand made items.
The flea market is open Saturday and Sunday.
Everyone is so friendly and helpful, well worth a visit.

Turqouise is one of my favourite colours and here are some wonderful etsy sellers who have used this colour in their work.

1.askey's Do you like my shoes Mini Print. Yes I do!

2.seaurchin's Porcelain Pendant with Glass - Apple Green Crater.

3.hmsdesign's Sparkly Seaglass Card.

4.heidimoon's clay bird pendant necklace

Hope Charlotte at fancypicnic likes these items, as she started Shopping list Saturday.

Do check out the other blogs on my side bar who also have their own lists.

Now it's back to house work for me!

Lovely Post And Work In Progress

Taking shape

Stitching on felt

Brooch from Julia

Hi,

I had some lovely post this week from Julia missfrugality , we swapped brooches.

Thanks so much, I will be wearing this tomorrow as I am off to Birmingham for the day.

I will be visiting the Rag market, museum and the custardfactory

This week I decided to go back to this painting as I wanted to try it out in felt.

It helps me to come away from work sometimes and then revisit it.

I still have a lot more work to do on this but you can see the first stages.

I can't wait to get into the stitching, my fingers start to tingle!

Stitch marks to me can be as expressive as the marks I make with my brush.

You should see my frantic machine work as I build up the layers.

The hand stitching becomes the rhythms and patterns flowing through the piece.

It may well be Sunday Shopping List this week as I am out all day tomorrow.

Hope you have a good weekend.x

Sunny Sunday

Inspiring trees

Brooches

Felt and embroidery

What a beautiful day, blue skies and lots of sunshine.

So I took a few pictures as the light was perfect.

You can see the hand stitching on my felt work.

I also finished off a few brooches.

I must say thank you to Gunnels for giving me an award for my blog, she has beautiful embroidery work.

Have a good start to your week.

Shopping List Saturday

A touch of sun kissed yellow for shopping list Saturday.
All these items are on my wish list!

1. This beautiful expressive painting is by sagittariusgallery.

2.joanjewels makes one of a kind art glass.

3.I love this mellow yellow calendula flower pendant by Gillyflowerjewellery

4.The colourful therainbowroom makes natural goats milk and shea soap and then felts with merino wool and silk.

Hello Charlotte from fancypicnic who makes the most beautiful jewellery and who also started Shopping list Saturday.

Sorry this is again Saturday Night Shopping, due to having family visiting today and I was watching the X Factor, I blame my teenager daughter for that!

Colourful Thursday

Hi,

This evening I have been working again on my embroidery paintings.

It was dark when I took these pictures so I propped them up on the sewing machine.

It's amazing how many ideas come from one painting, I wish I had more time.

I sometimes work also in reverse and paint from my embroideries.

Is my mark making like I paint or is it like I sew?

It just flows from one to the other and evolves as I go.

I will add to etsy tomorrow.

Painting With Threads

Just a quick post to show how my embroidery is coming along.

I wanted to use the strong , rich colours from my painting so I have embellished pure silk on to the wool felt.

I wish you could see the lustre of the silk , it is so beautiful to use.

It measures 10cm x 13cm.

A few more stitches to add and then it will be finished.

I did the original painting in Italy, a wonderful place called Alassio.

Little Art Works And Me

Painting in sketch book

Embroidery on felt

Dusted!

Today I actually did some dusting, I know it's amazing when I have so much stitching and painting to do!

Here I am on the mantle piece , yes the black and white photo!

Taken about 1969.

Not sure I'm brave enough to show a picture now, but maybe I should as I'm only going to look less young the longer I leave it.

Note I say less young, sounds better than older!

Now I know I'm getting older, when my thirteen year old daughter comes home with her new purchase ....Leg Warmers! they are all the rage apparently.

I have been working on this small art piece 8cm x 8cm approx.

My larger embroideries take months of work so I'm trying out different ideas using my paintings as inspiration.

What do you think?

I may add a few to etsy and see if any one would be interested.

I will be working on some ideas from this painting next.

So hope to have some thing new to show you soon.

It's been raining here most of the day so a good day to be creative.

Bye for now.x

Shopping List Saturday

Today I move from purple to green for my selection of hand made pieces.

Thank you to Charlotte at fancypicnic for promoting etsy sellers and other fantastic blogs who also choose items from talented artisans.

You can find the names of these blogs on the side bar of my blog.

1.Treecycle based in South Yorkshire is owned by Andy who is a talented wood turner.

2.This sweet little bird would be lovely as pin cushion and is made by Strawberriesandcream

3.This heart felt brooch is made by Julia of materialised

4.I love this Garden Print by lilypang

Painting And Some Stitching

I did manage to get to life drawing this week but we had a lady with clothes on!

So this is more of a portrait.

I painted with acrylic and used some oil pastels.

She looked quite a formidable character, a stern staring expression.

I hope she never sees this!

To brighten up the page here is the felt picture I'm working on.

I am now adding some hand stitching, sorry the picture is not brilliant as the light was fading.

I will take some more pictures tomorrow in daylight.

Lastly my friend gave me this pattern from the 1950's.

I love it!