First up a full length shot of my fairy.
This is a view of the back showing her wings and the flower detail I added to her dress.
A close up shot of her face.
Some shots of all the fairies and angels that were made in the class.
Lastly Lois had lots of wonderful dolls for sale, including some wonderful witches and ghosts perfect for this Halloween season. I fell in love with this adorable ghost and he just had to come home with me.Last night I officially became a member of the Swindon and North Wilts Embroidery Guild, another lovely bunch of stitcher ladies! I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone over the coming meetings. I've signed up to do a day workshop with them in November which I'm looking forward to.
Speaking of workshops I've had two cancelled on me these last couple of weeks grrr, both were being put on by the same organisation and had to be cancelled due to lack of numbers. It's such a shame as I was really looking forward to both, one was Creative Knits and the other was a felting workshop. Nevermind in a couple of days I'm off to take my Janet Bolton fabric collage class so that should be great!
As I don't like to blog without pictures I thought I would share a couple of pics of a beautiful bouquet I had from my work friends last Friday. I think I mentioned a while back that I had a promotion a work, it's hard to explain but at the time it was a part time promotion and last week that became a full time promotion, sadly it meant moving to another team. Even though I've only moved a few desk rows down my old team gave me a wonderful card, some flowers and gifts to celebrate my new job, they are so sweet. I don't always like my job but thankfully i work with some lovely people which sometimes makes all the difference when you are having a bad day!
Before I go, if you are feeling Autumnal I just have to say you must visit Mark's blog (link in the side bar) as at the weekend he went out with his camera and took some lovely pictures of all kinds of fungi which were sprouting in Savernake Woods.
Polar Bear
OrangutanTo find out how you can help save the worlds endangered species visit here.
| You Are From Neptune |
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Here is my piece stitched in herringbone and chain stitch. A couple of the ladies pointed out that it has turned out to be the perfect size for fitting into a CD case, which was a challenge set at the first meeting so I plan to make a second piece as a backing for exactly that purpose :)
Gemma and I spent a while talking about knitting too as Gemma had a fabulous hand knitted top on that she had made and directed me to the Cricklade Needlecrafts shop so that I could buy myself a skein. Gemma you were right the lady in the shop knew exactly what blossom meant! I also came away with some sock yarn and a pattern as I have been itching to try socks for a while. Gemma if you are reading the heel part sounds very complicated so I may be pouncing on you at the next GWE meet with a half finished sock for some help!
It really was a lovely afternoon, and at least I have one reason to look forward to going in to work tomorrow, which is to book the afternoon off now I have the date of the next meet. Thanks for introducing me to the group Maggie!
Apologies for the bad picture quality it was a dull day when I was trying to take this photo (we've had a few of these recently, lol!). G is for Girl, green and garden. H is next, I have started them but I expect it will be a few more days until they are finished and ready to post about, especially as I have about three other half started things to be working on too. I've chosen a pretty obvious H for anyone who wants to try and have a guess...
It was quite time consuming cutting all the leaves and then handstitching them, but I enjoyed every minute (it was just so nice to have some creative time) and I am pleased with the way they turned out.
Originally I had hoped to make and donate 30 hats, they only take about 30 mins to make from start to finish so a perfect in front of the TV project. So far I have made about 15, although I have a reasonable yarn stash, I have already made a hat with all the different types of yarn that I have and I don't really want to make too many duplicates as I think I will get quickly bored with that so I might just leave it at 15.
On a totally different note I just realised that I forgot to tell you all about my meeting with the wonderful Maggie Harris last week. I have been admiring Maggie's blog for sometime and asked her whether she knew of any groups that meet in the local area. Kindly she told me about the Swindon branch of the embroiders guild and I went to their meeting last Monday. It was such fun, all of the ladies there were so friendly and very welcoming and we had a lovely talk from Jenny Smart a local spinner and weaver. I had a great evening and hope they will let me become a permanent member of the group.
I think maybe I'll make some jam and perhaps a couple of apple and blackberry crumbles. I have it in my head that I might squash a few onto some fabric too just to see how well the colour takes. It might for some interesting results, my hands were certainly a nice shade of purple by the time we were done.
We think he probably belongs to the farm that was up the track from where we were walking. He was such a friendly cat and followed us for ages. It was such an unusual pleasure to go for a walk in the sun accompanied by a feline friend. He was definately a fiesty little chap and hissed down a couple of dogs along the way. I think a few people thought we were a bit odd taking our cat for a walk so I had to explain a couple of times that he wasn't actually ours, just keeping us company for a while.
We sat by the stream that Mark is photographing above for a bit of lunch. Not only is Mark a great photographer but I think he might have a career in sculpture if he try, here is the rock frog he made while we were just hanging around.
I am entirely unfit at the moment and had to sit around a beautiful mountain lake enjoying the sun while Mark climbed to the summit. You can just about make out his silhouette (he's stood on a huge boulder) against the skyline here.
To help keep myself busy I took some knitting with me. Innocent Smoothies are having their knitted hat campaign again this year to raise some money for Help the Aged. You can find all the details here. Last year I bought some of the hatted drinks but this year I thought I'd join in and make a couple. I don't usually post pictures of myself as I'm horribly ashamed of how I look being far too overweight but what the heck, here I am knitting up a storm in the lovely Beacons landscape.
First up here is one of the cards I made for the Cats and Dogs swap we had a while back at Artsnthemail. These were great fun to make. Took a while cutting and fusing all the pieces, especially on the dog and then appliqueing them down with tiny satin stitch. I finished them off with little felt noses and goofy button eyes. Next up was the Something Beginning with F swap. I decided F is for felting. For ages I have dreamed of getting an embellisher machine but sadly they are way out of my budget at the moment so I'll still keep dreaming. Instead I decided to try out the budget option from Clover.
Actually it was a lot of fun to do but quite time intensive for even the small areas that I was working on, but I really like the soft felted finish. Here is the result.
F is for felting and flower, actually the flower didn't work too great I think it might have been the pink on orange colour. It seems to show up a bit better in this picture than it does to the naked eye.
I really enjoyed hand stitching these little fellows, from a pattern in the current issue of Classic Stitches. I worked them over 22 Count Hardanger. I've done a lot of cross stitching in the past as this was my Mum's favourite pastime, but never anything as small as 22 count, I'm not sure my eyes would hold up to doing a large piece on this type of fabric.
Also a bit of creative recycling going on for this card as the background fabric used to be a pair of my favourite trousers (pants) which I recently wore a hole in. I was sad to see them go but being a larger lady at least has some advantages, I now have plenty of this beautiful fabric to use in future projects ;)
Here is a baby postcards for an internet friend of mine Dawn who just had a baby girl. I had fun getting pink hands dyeing the cheesecloth for the background :)
Also an embroidered dress that I made for a 'Fashion' swap, with a little help from another rubber stamp that I had in my collection. Sorry about the picture quality but it's a grey day here today and if I try with the flash on there is just too much glare.
OK how about a quick quiz? Tonight I am working on a postcard swap the theme is Something Beginning with E. Anyone want to try and guess what my E is?
| What color is your soul painted? Purple Your soul is painted the color purple, which embodies the characteristics of sensuality, spirituality, creativity, wealth, royalty, nobility, mystery, enlightenment, arrogance, gaudiness, mourning, confusion, pride, delicacy, power, meditation, religion, and ambition. Purple falls under the element of Earth, and was once a European symbol of royalty; today it symbolizes the divine.
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 Quizzes and Personality Tests |
Just one of the hundreds of magnificent steam engines on display.
There were dozens of engines roaming around in the heavy haulage ring. This picture gives an idea of how steamy the event really was!
There were many old traditional fair organs to be seen throughout the fair. This one looked spectacular all lit up at dusk just after sunset.
Next theme is Something beginning with D. I had a few different ideas before remembering a beautiful mermaid rubber stamp that I bought from Patti Culea's collection. Now you might be thinking what has a mermaid to do with the letter D. Well nothing really but the idea of the stamp is to help you create a wonderful paper doll which seems to be all the rage in the papercrafting world at the moment so D is for Doll.
Boy did these little mermaid's take me an age to stamp, colour and stitch but I'm really pleased with the way they turned out.(The stitching detail shows up better if you click on the picture for a larger image). It was an enjoyable afternoon sat at my machine with the Marie Antoinette DVD playing in the background. (If you haven't seen this movie it's worth watching for the beautiful costumes and sets if nothing else). Anyway I hope that my swap partners don't mind the fact that the mermaids don't strictly fit into the 6" x 4" format. I think it gives the cards an added bit of fun.
Today Mark and I are off to the Dorset Steam Rally as Mark is itching to do some photography so far the sun has been shining this morning so hopefully it will be a great day.
Mark had the day off work yesterday so we decided to go to the beach. We didn't start out until late in the day but luckily in England you are never too far away from the beach. It took us about an hour to get there. We spent the afternoon lazying on the sand reading and chatting. We watched a beautiful sunset before heading back home. The perfect way to spend a lazy day.
' Kittyfly' 6" x 4"
I blogged about these 3 ATCs ages ago bit never quite got round to finishing them off. We have an ATC trade coming up at ARTSNTHEMAIL so I decided to finish them up for that.
I also finished up my 6 tree postcards for a BQLPC swap. Although I really liked the tree design itself I struggled to think of a way to finish the cards off. Finally I decided I wanted to add some simple alphabet beads to fill up the bottom corner. Of course I didn't have enough of the letters I needed so I decided to have a go at making some of my own with Fimo clay and rubber stamps. They turned out sort of ok, unfortunately I managed to over cook them believe it or not I started out with white and green clay but ended up with brown and black buttons, ooops. I did think of starting over but to me it seemed a shame to waste them and I think they look ok if not what I had originally intended,lol!
Here is my machine all ready and looking forward to leaping into action, I plan on putting it to good use tomorrow afternoon (actually I think it's past midnight so that maybe should be later this afternoon, lol!)
The Lemur enclosure is a lot of fun you can actually go in and walk among them. You are supposed to try and keep aout a metre away from them but with lots running round sometimes it's hard to avoid them. One little guy came and started licking my toe! Luckily for me they are vegetarians so he didn't fancy taking a bite!
Gorilla hide and seek?
A lonesome prarie dog, keeping watch
Some colourful oddities from on of the fish tanks
