Gifts,Walk And Brooches

Tree brooch

Dancing Stitches

Our Walk Across The Fields (very muddy)

Trees!

Kenilworth Castle Today

Gifts

Hello

Hope your festivities are going well.

I must say thank you to Alex who sent me a secret Santa gift.

She sent me this beautiful hand made pottery, felt book, bracelet and chocolates!

My gift has gone astray across the Atlantic to Paloma!

Hope it gets there soon Paloma

Today we were out in the bitter cold, taking our dog Bertie for a walk across the fields.

Need to walk off all those Christmas calories!

Our walk takes us past Kenilworth Castle , we are so lucky to live near such a beautiful historic Castle.

If you ever come to Warwickshire you should visit.

I have been working on a few bits of embroidery, a dancing figure and another tree brooch.

I do hope to get back to a bit of painting and drawing this week, my husband gave me an easel for Christmas!

Inspired By Christmas

Angel Worked In Split Stitch

Working On Frost Tree

Tree By Moonlight

Hi,

I hope your Christmas preparations are going well.

Luckily we are almost done, presents wrapped, house decorated and food cupboards stocked up.

My daughter will do some Christmas baking tomorrow and I, frantic cleaning!

I am inspired by the magic of Christmas, so here are some pictures I have been working on.

While working on these trees, I was reminded of a programme I watched as a child called the Singing Ringing Tree, a magic tree in a fairy story.

How I loved this programme and now with the internet, I can find all these images from the programme which I watched in the 1970's.

Funny how memories are triggered and all of a sudden I have gone back in time.

I wish any one who reads my blog a very Merry Christmas.

Threads

I have been sorting out my work table today.

Since I had my embellisher machine, which was a surprise Christmas present last year from my husband, I can never seem to throw out any scraps of thread or fabric away.

I think I may have some kind of obsessed thread fetish!

I'm sure I may have said that before...sorry.

Even when I'm at school I check the bins after the textile classes to save thread.

You can imagine what the children quite happily chuck in the bin and I'm the one who is fishing it all out again!

I keep a lot of old trimmings and threads in my Marshall & Snelgrove vintage box.I believe this was an old department store in London's Oxford Street which closed in the 1960's.

Threads are exciting because they can become anything I want them to be, is that my fascination?

Even the smallest amount can transform from a twisted scrap to an image from my dreams .Here are some more threads that have become trees.

Embroidery Painting

Sold

I'm working from one of my paintings at the moment.

I will try and add my Christmas brooch to etsy and do my shopping list Saturday tonight.

There are never enough hours in the day and the light is not good for taking pictures.

I had better start making our dinner otherwise it will be cheese on toast tonight!

Christmas Trees

Such a busy week but we did manage to put the Christmas tree up.

The little felt angels and choir boy I made when my daughter was small.

Out they come every year, a reminder of the time I spent at home before the children started school.

Yesterday evening I was at the Warwick Art Centre to watch sing along Mamma Mia, the film with subtitles for all the songs.

A group of us went and we decided to dress up !

My friend said that every one dresses up for sing along, so I made a real effort, rummaged through the dressing up box, and wore a sequined crochet skull cap, sequin top, flares with butterflies printed all over them and makeup seventies style, you know, lots of blue eyeshadow.

I didn't manage the silver boots though.

When we arrived at the cinema we were the only ones dressed up!

We did have a great time, lots of laughter, singing and dancing which is what we all needed, a real tonic when the days have been dark and cold.

To add to the Christmas cheer I have made a Christmas brooch.

Hope all your Christmas preparations are going well.

Shopping List Saturday ( Sunday )

On shopping list Saturday I am featuring Woolly items, ideal Christmas gifts or to treat yourself.
I think we all need to wrap up warm as the cost of heating is on the up.
Quite often I will be sewing with my scarf or fingerless gloves on!

1.leafgreenhandmade has this warm chunky scarf.

2.monda uses recycled wool jumpers and has made this wonderful Christmas stocking, not to wear of course but to hang up on Christmas eve!

3.This vintage inspired cloche hat is just my style and is available from ekawear

4.jezzabell has also used the past for inspiration with these beautiful Victorian style crochet mittens.

Other blogs are also featuring talented etsy sellers which are listed in my sidebar.

I had better get back to my own making of gifts etc..

Have a good week.x

A Trip To London And Work In Progress

21st Century Embroidery Brooches!

Headdress Early Dynastic, about 2600 BC

Wall Painting 4th Century AD!

Siren by Marc Quinn

Venus In The British Museum

Big Ben

St Pauls

Tate Modern

Buckingham Palace

Hope you get a feel of London from these pictures.

It was grey, wet and cold, but very exciting!

I love the buzz of the city, beautiful architecture, museums and we got to see the Christmas lights!

Tate Modern was interesting but some of the art is quite disturbing.

I know it has to reflect all sides of life but I just find it difficult to appreciate it.

If you ever visit London, you must visit the British Museum.

Firstly, you can take photo's and secondly it is so inspiring.

They have on show until the 25th January five major contemporary works including the solid gold statue of Kate Moss by Marc Quinn.

Do you think she can really bend her legs like that?!

Of course I was transfixed by the ancient artifacts which some of them incredibly would not look out of place today.

Take the 4th Century wall-painting from a Roman villa which had a 1960's flower type of design and would look on trend today.

I loved this lapis lazuli and carnelian bead headdress with leaf pendants,again this could be worn today as a necklace.

I have quite a few more pictures from the British Museum and I still need to tell you about the National Gallery and Portrait Gallery.

I will save that for fear of boring you.

Again I leave you with the embroidery work on my sewing machine which is in progress.