More Notebooks

As promised a couple of weeks ago, some more of my books.  They are all made from scratch with paper and card as before, but I've used different techniques for each of the covers.
The largest one is hand embroidered on silk paper.  The one with the bookmark is painted on cotton, using a wax resist and the third one is made with scraps of fabric from other projects machined on to scrunched up brown paper.
One has been made traditionally with a spine, as before.  The other two have softer covers.

A Feast of Cream

A few more of my embroideries, rescued from the chaos of my work bench and set out on display.  The two circular ones are worked, in various weights of cream perle, on a very rough silk noil, with padded calico applique on the larger one.  The cube is on canvas, using some of my favourite canvaswork stitches and the three dimensional piece is on calico, with a silk noil base.  

Balloon Bowl

My work bench gets itself into a real muddle sometimes, so I've spent part of the day un-muddling it.  In so doing I unearthed my 'balloon bowl', made some years ago now, in which I store all sorts of small soft things. The base is calico over papier mache and the surface decoration is partly raised stitches in various shades of cotton perle and partly lace knitting in cotton yarn.  Wrapped cords edge the embroidered sections. 

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.

Blue Moon

We have the second full moon of the month tonight - officially known as a blue moon.  Very fitting, in many ways, that it should coincide with Neil Armstrong's memorial service.
This month has been a bit of a curate's egg ... good in parts.  After all the rain we've finally had a couple of weeks of sunshine and my garden is looking almost happy again.  We've started on a major redesign of a couple of areas so there are bare patches, which I hate, but it's only temporary.
Coming up next month is the start of my next OU course, the long awaited A215.  After that is an embroidery course at West Dean which I just managed to scrape into and need to start preparing for quite soon, if I'm not going to be out of my depth.

Now I can relax.

I've finished Block Two and posted everything on the forum.  I've also finished my first eTMA! 

Cut off date is not until late next week, so I shan't send it yet.  Nice to know I have a bit of breathing space.

I shall spend some time catching up on my present making.  The knitting and sewing have been a bit neglected in recent weeks.  I have embroidered cards half finished and bits of knitting to be sewn up. 

When I've done all those I can start on something a bit more challenging.