Another Sample.



Still on the theme of fields, but going a little more abstract this time.  It's a two layer piece.  Organza loosely embroidered with a single blackwork thread is laid over a charcoal sketch on textured paper.  It's difficult to see from the photo but the threads which lie above the organza make interesting shadows on the paper layer.  I'm pleased with the sample, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to scale it up to a larger piece.

In other news, my end of module assignment for the open university is now completed and ready to send.
There were times when I felt I'd never get this far, but A215 is now done and I've registered for my next module, starting in October.  This time I've chosen EA300, Children's Literature.

Something Different.

Something I 'm not normally drawn to do is paint instead of stitch.  In this piece I've covered the canvas with scrunched up scrim, added some teased out fibres of Mulberry bark and applied gesso, thickly in some places, thinly in others.  I had expected to stitch into it, but found myself using acrylic paints instead.  It is an aberration, but I rather like it.  At present I have it on the wall above my work-bench.  Some days I rotate it, which gives it a different feel.  I quite like that it hasn't yet decided which way up it wants to be!
In other news, my TMA has come back, with the highest mark I've yet had on this module.  This is good, obviously, but it's also bad as I had more or less decided not to bother with the rest of the assignments.  So much to write in so little time means other parts of life are neglected.  I don't need to complete the course, I don't need the qualification, I only started it for fun.

My New Home!

Three days of sun have given me a chance to catch up with my spring seed sowing.  Previously this would have ment camping out in a corner of the greenhouse, but last autumn I aquired a purpose built potting shed!  My little palace is fully equiped with a bench under the sloping window and shelves on the back wall.  Three transparent bins, under the bench, hold compost and a large potting tray keeps everything tidy.  I've even brought in an old wooden chair for coffee breaks!
The greenhouse is now bursting with freshly sown trays of flowering annuals and early veggies.  All my autumn sown seedlings have been moved out into cold frames until they are ready to be planted in beds and borders.
Last year our tiny village found itself included in a new National Park and I've been invited, by a local stitching group, to produce a few small pieces for an exhibition to mark our new found status.  The idea is to interpret aspects of the Park in stitch, in as abstract a manner as we wish.
In other news my latest A215 Creative Writing Assignment for the Open University has been sent off and I await the result.  This one called for 1,500 words of Life Writing and I was quite pleased with it, but I can never be sure how my tutor will respond.

I'm Published Again!

Those kind folks at Ink Pantry Publishing have chosen more of my writing to be featured on their web-site this week. 
Three small pieces taken fom work I did for my OU courses, A215 and A174.  They fit together quite well as they have a through-line, or common theme.
In this case a beach.   I grew up near a beach and always enjoyed it best on wild and windy days.
Take a quick look if you have a minute or two to spare.
If you missed my first story, published on their site last month, you'll find it here. 

A Need for Notes

Notebooks are a lot of fun to make.  I mean the ones you make from scratch, with paper and card.  Once you've sewn paper pages together and cut your bits of heavy card for the base of your cover it's just a case of choosing which technique you want to play with for the top of the cover.  I made these two by bondaweb-ing fibres from mulberry bark and small pieces of torn scrim onto calico, adding some machine stitching and painting over the whole lot with metallic acrylic paints.  The finishing touches are a few hand stitches and some beading.

Why do I need more notebooks?  Because the dreaded Poetry section of A215 is finally ended and its TMA submitted so now I can move on to the Life Writing section, which should be a lot more fun and will undoubtedly call for the use of shiny new notebooks!

I'm Published!

February is a busy month.  There is, of course, the start of the new lunar year.  There is also Pancake Day, Valentine's Day, my son's birthday and his wedding anniversary - sixth this time round.

But this year we have to add the first online publication of one of my short stories by Ink Pantry publishers! 
It's a piece I wrote for an A215 TMA and is what our course text-book describes as fiction based on truth.

200 Years

You've endured my OU versifying, so today some prose.  A short piece I wrote for a tutorial last year.  It seems appropriate on the day when Pride and Prejudice reaches its two hundredth anniversary.
We were asked to write a character sketch based purely on physical movements and sensory description, mine recalls a time, like Austin's, when young ladies had hours to occupy.

~~~

 Her fingers brushed the beautiful fabrics.  Flimsy, gauzy fabrics that gave subtly changing colours when laid one upon another.  Emily’s fingertips gloried in the feel of such finery.  She knelt, heart pounding, at the table on which the chiffons and silks lay, regretting, as she did so, the rough texture of her own linen skirts.  The faintly perfumed aroma, unique to fabrics of this quality, filled her senses. 

Startled by a sound outside the room, she jumped to her feet, smoothing her starched apron and feeling her cheeks burn hotly red. She shouldn’t be in this room.  This was the room where the young ladies of the house spent their free time, fashioning such tiny fripperies as were necessary in their world.

She had no free time, her world didn’t allow it.

Garden Birds

Spent an hour this weekend completing the Big Garden Birdwatch.  I do it every year and usually manage to tick most of the boxes.  Except I'm never sure about dunnocks and we hardly ever see a starling now. 

This year was unusual in that we have no long-tailed tits as yet.  Most years a whole gang of them arrive together and set about pecking the lichen on my old quince tree.  Maybe the colder weather has held them back this year.

As well as our usual tally of blue tits, bullfinch, goldfinch, magpies, robins and doves, the woodpecker and jay put in a timely appearance.  Sadly our visiting pheasant arrived to late to be counted!

One

atop three,

one under,

arrangement of pigeons

in a birch tree,

waiting out the falling snow

Two more,

next door,

new

seen only when

I shift my

view.

Three now,

four under

re-huddle, re-shuffle

re-rack

two who had flown

are now come back.

Another Treasure

Another of the very early daffs flowering in my tiny greenhouse at the moment.  This one is called romieuxii and is a beautiful pale lemon colour.  Like cantabricus it is a native of Morocco.

Today's poem comes from an activity in which we were given a long list of wierd titles and asked to write to a few of them.  The one I chose first was 'What the Cow Thought About the Rain'.  My inspiration was the old country belief that cows sit down when rain is on the way.

There’s a smell in the air,

a change in the light.

A promise of rain

that just might

fall.

I’ll first choose my spot,

safe under that tree.

Then race there,

who wins?

Me.

Ruminating, while sitting

on my warm dry grass.

Waiting among daisies

for the shower to

pass.

Some I Made Earlier

Sticking with the loo roll theme from yesterday I've collected together a few of my tiny containers.  One is still plain calico, waiting to be embroidered.  Others are gesso and zapped 'xpandy paste'.

Our snow is slowly melting, it's reached that in between state where the magic has gone, but the muckyness has not yet arrived. 

Watching a Jay moving around my garden, this morning, I found myself versifying.  Not for an OU assignment, just for my own amusement.  I clearly have too much time on my hands!

Hopping, not stopping, chasing a worm.

Gliding, not hiding, above the snow.

Standing, after landing, in the bare leafed bush

Not whistling, but listening in the morning’s glow.

Snow Time

Woke up this morning with an idea for my next embroidery project.  Having all this snow on the ground seemed like an excellent excuse to make a start right away.  I'd been feeling a little guilty about not spending much time on my stitching.

I've raided all my fabric and thread stashes and put together a spring palette, which I hope to make into a small installation using ideas developed in my West Dean course with Michael Brennand-Wood.

On a 'craft' note, another one of my A215 poetry gems.  We were asked to write about an ordinary household object - for reasons having to do with size I chose a loo roll!

Cylinder of card,

open-ended,

versatile now disrobed

My son will

have you

Santa,

red crepe wrapped.

My daughter,

an angel,

doily clothed.

Myself,

more practical,

a starter home

For

beans,

both broad and runner,

or

Peas

Sweet.

Hidden Treasure

One of the bulbs flowering in my tiny greenhouse at the moment is a very early, very lovely, daffodil called cantabricus.

Whilst whizzing through the poetry section for A215 I came across one or two activities that I thought I might enjoy.  This little verse arrived when we were asked to write in 'another voice'.  The voice is of the blossom on my Prunus autumnalis, subjected to the very low temperatures we've had overnight this week.

So cold, last night.

Stars fearsome bright,

clear points of light.

Frost creeping over us, hurts

stiffening pink frilly skirts

Blue Monday?

The third Monday in January has always been voted the most depressing day of the year, but this year it falls on the 21st, which means we are already one month on from the shortest day.  That's got to be a cheering thought.  So maybe not so depressing this year!  My new year resolution was to blog more often, maybe today should be the start.

We're snowed in, but that's OK.  We're well stocked and the enforced rest has given me time to catch up with my OU work.  My TMA came back, with a higher mark than I expected, so I've decided to whizz through the poetry section, surprisingly I've managed one or two reasonably interesting short poems in response to a few of the activities.

I ventured down the snow covered back garden today to check on my greenhouses.  All is well, everything is surviving and some of the early bulbs are even flowering despite the freeze.

Decision time?

I've sent my TMA 02 off, four days early.  While I wait for results I shall give serious consideration to whether it's worth continuing with this module.  Our tutor group is still dismal, thanks in part to the attitude of our tutor.  With the OU there is always this element of pot-luck, which is a disadvantage of their system, because if you don't have a good tutor and your group forum is inactive it is such a huge disincentive.
Maybe I was lucky on A174.  The tutor and group forum were both good and the course itself was very enjoyable.

Autumn

Autumn colour has come late to our garden this year.  But over the past weeks it has arrived in profusion.  From really fiery reds to golden buttery yellows and every shade of russet-orange in between.
We have late flowers dotted around too.  Electric blue salvia uliginosa, deeply golden goblets of sternbergia, autumn crocus in shades of lilac and a beautiful palest pink schizostylis.
At last I have a proper potting shed.  I can now move all my potting paraphernalia out of the greenhouse into the shed.  This has given me enough space in the greenhouse to add more staging which I have started to put to good use already with autumn sown sweetpeas and root-cuttings from my favourite Japanese anemones.  Late cuttings I took from some tender plants are now advanced enough to come out of the greenhouse and be the first proud occupants of my new cold frames.
On the A215 front ... I've had my first TMA result.  Percentage was OK, but I thought some of the tutor's comments were a little subjective.  Our tutor group forum is still dismal, which is a real disappointment! 

Slow Progress!

Bulbs all planted, well except for the tulips.  I'm holding on to those until next month.  I've put the ones which came singly into pots, can't risk losing those outside. 
I have two greenhouses, one small and one tiny!  I've decided to convert the tiny one to a sort of alpine house, so I've cleaned it all out and started to stock it with the potted bulbs.

We're into the third week of A215 now, the work is as interesting as I had hoped, but the tutor group forum is depressingly inactive.  Only a third of the group have posted anything, and that only in answer to prompts from our tutor.  No-one is posting any of their assignments from the workbook, so there is no discussion happening.  So at the moment it's just me and the big red book.

Another Equinox

Study materials for A215 have now arrived. An all encompassing 'Student Cafe' forum has opened - much too crowded.  Already the attention seeking, would be dominant, male student has emerged.  We had one on A174, different guy but same tactics.  Covering the board with his threads and posting on as many others as possible, as many times as possible, even when he has nothing of any use to add to the discussion.
I shall wait for the individual tutor group forum to open before I bother posting anything.

Meanwhile I shall concentrate on enjoying the early autumn weather.  Bulbs of all sorts are arriving daily.  I must find time to plant at least some of them.  I have autumn crocus that should have gone in weeks ago, alliums, by the bucket load, daffodils and fritillaria, some quite unusual which come as single bulbs and need special care.  I also have a whole host of tulips on order but they won't be here for a few more weeks yet.  Come next spring and early summer my garden should be an absolute feast.