In with the new ...

I can't put my finger on it ... I just feel that 2010 is going to be a good year!

It may have something to do with the fact that I feel really focused on my work at the moment and also that January always brings that feeling of there being plenty of time to reach all goals

Calendar for January





















You know I love my mosaics!

Well, on New Year's Eve I had a very belated challenge to produce some assemblages and a mosaic with a black, white and neutral checkerboard/New Year theme for Avant-Gardenist (interior design) and I thought it would also be nice to make a calendar for January in the same theme

Check





















1. Check 2. I think I grew 3. Curiouser and curious, 4. Old checkerboard marble floor, 5. Elements 6. Journal page 7. Yellowbird pendant 1 8. Skeleton watches & pocket keys 9. Cake - Checkerboard layer cake PH0843 10. IMG_3768 11. "Elements" ACEO 12. Newest domino art necklace 13. Knob

All credit goes to the wonderful and talented artists and photographers whose work is included here. Please click on the links to go to the artists' work

Happy New Year





















Happy New Year Treasures






















This assemblage was made on a draught board with lace and handmade paper. I used scrabble tiles for the "Happy New Year" and a collection of treasures that include a piece of pottery found on St. Ives beach, vintage silver buttons, snowflakes from Sharne and a beautiful sliver of crystal agate from the North Carolina mountains given to me by Cathie at Christmas - I wish you could see how it shines like a mirror!

New - Detail
















Ongoing challenges for 2010:

Sketchbooks - a page a day
Cottage - finished this year!
Gardening Monday - 1 to 2 hours on Monday morning
Inchy Challenge - try to make small scale art!
Mosaic Monday - more mosaics
Friday Flickr Faves - even more mosaics
WOW - Ongoing online workshops
Stitching the Textured Surface Workshop - need to finish samples in sketchbook
Crow Days - monthly textile art/craft play days with Jo

Inside a bundle




















New challenges for 2010:

Textile art piece with goldwork - I want to make a textile art piece for my parents' Golden Wedding Anniversary incorporating contemporary techniques, machine and hand stitching with some more traditional goldwork bits on it. I haven't started it yet ... it has to be finished by the middle of February!

Kiss Quilt - The challenge is to make a small quilt (only 50 cm square) on any theme using fabrics in only two colours and the stitching must only be straight stitch (can be hand or machine stitched). KISS stands for "Keep It Simple Silly". I think I can manage "silly"! The challenge is being organised by Dijanne and has to be finished by the end of March!

Festival of Quilts 2010 - I joined Annabel's group last August. I am making an art quilt for Festival of Quilts 2010 Exhibition. I have been working on ideas, brainstorming and gathering inspiration for my piece. I'm going with a St. Ives theme but will share my ideas with you later. I'm aiming to get mine done by the end of May

Work for Exhibition - Later in the year I will be creating new global warming work to go alongside my existing work for a small show of textile art in early 2011. I need to work on this between July and October

Distress
















Slow Cloth - a personal challenge. I'd like to have a larger piece that I can pick up and put down, a slow cloth that will take a long time to stitch, between projects, with lots of hand stitching and beading ... a sampler of sorts and something that I can take on holiday or pick up when I have guests staying at the cottage

Berries in a bundle
















The Erosion Bundle Project - The idea is to create an artistic bundle made from materials of your choice and then either hang it outside ie. in a tree, bury it in the ground or just place the bundle somewhere outside to be affected by all elements of Mother Nature, an experiment in decay and decomposition and what happens to the things inside the bundle

1 January - place bundle in nature
In between - share thoughts and photos
15 April - retrieve bundle from nature, open bundle
1 August - finish art piece using your eroded stuff and rejoice

Layers in a bundle


















I'm very excited about this project! I first got interested in this when Julie tried it last year!

I made a start on this today. I've made 4 bundles. Two to hang in a tree, one to bury and one to place amongst the leaves behind our shed

Inside my bundles I added various fabrics, papers, magazine pages, rusty objects, bark, rosehips, leaves, tea bags, berries, printed matter, seed pods, sycamore seeds, feathers, tie dyed tissue paper, snippets of text, photographs and distressed tags etc.

I shall put my bundles outside tomorrow - 2nd January 2010

















































Art dolls - always inspired by nature and the Mother Nature challenge in CPS I want to create a series of art dolls during 2010 with a nature theme

That's enough to be going on with but I know other stuff will creep in too!

Thanks for being so kind to read my ramblings
Have a lovely weekend

Carolyn ♥

Pebbles and Fairies

A bit of a [silvery] grey week in several respects - from Saturday to Thursday we had almost non-stop torrential rain and everything has seemed dark and dreary in the cottage most of the week. St. Ives had flooding again down in the town, despite the new and very expensive flood defences being completed, with many shops at the bottom of Tregenna Hill closed due to flood damage. My week has gone a bit like this ...

Monday
No "Gardening Monday" because it was too rainy but the cherry blossoms are still looking lovely


















No "Mosaic Monday" either because I was busy doing my bead tutorial on the other blog. I've made one for today, though. The theme is pebbles - colours, textures and textiles. I used pictures from my textile work






















On Monday I took a piece of my framed work to Penzance & Truro College which will be included in their exhibition at PZ Gallery, 7 Coinagehall Street, Penzance, Cornwall. The exhibition will run from 8th June 2009 for a week










This is nuno felt - felt tops and silver grey organza chiffon wet felted together. On top I added hand stitching, french knots and beads and is part of a large series of work and samples I did on pebbles. Pebbles is a recurring theme I still enjoy, especially pebbles found on Cornish beaches with white quartz and crystals running through them


















Tuesday
I had to work but later on I did manage my inchie for this week's bling challenge (see below) and I played around with my blog background too. I discovered Daisy Gray Design's blog. Daisy's blog backgrounds are gorgeous and so easy to use - I chose this lovely primitive crow design - do you like it?

Wednesday
I had my Christmas Crow Day with Jo. We made a little hand made book each. I decorated mine with a seedhead and will use this in my Embroiderers Guild Seed Sketchbook challenge later (show you another time). Then we had a lot of fun making a peg doll fairy. I gathered fabrics, threads, bits n bobs in white, silver and grey - my "snow" colours that I like to decorate my Christmas tree with














This is the first fairy I made from silver/black fabric. Her wild hair is six stranded silver thread and I made her wings from two layers of silver crepe paper. This is a "mantlepiece fairy" - I added a bit of Christmas cake band round the bottom to help her stand up, and I photographed her on top of my sewing machine

Christmas Fairy













She is holding some mulberry paper with a painted Tyvek heart and the word "Christmas"


















I've made four fairies altogether, so far









Whirling Snow Fairy






























Heart Fairy

































Love Fairy































While I've got my silver fairy hat on (now there's an idea!!! mmmmm!!!) I decided to get up in the loft and find some of my other fairies to show you

A silver flower fairy
















This was made for me by a lady from the beading group I used to go to. If you look under her skirt you will see she is made from a silver coloured faux flower


















and here's some more little silver ones











and some pale gold ones


















and a box of ornies that match













I think I'll make some more fairies soon - they will make nice little tree gifts - and some fairy hats too!!!

Thursday
The sun finally came out which was lovely, but made everything look really dusty so I had to clean the cottage, then ... I could start stitching. I'm working on several things at the moment ... two stitched collages for my calico journal (remember the lace pictures from earlier), a piece for global warming and a "secret" piece for Cathie (Clevelandgirlie) which I can't show you just yet. Also, I've joined in the new inchy house challenge and I'm working on some new patterns for some stitched stuffies for my new blog

Yes, I have another very new blog but it will be an "occasional" blog and it's where I will post my textile art dolls and textile art embroidered stuffies. I want to keep it separate from this blog, but I will let you know here when I'm posting to it or you can click on the link and "follow" it, if you wish

Stitched Stuffies










I am using one of Daisy's backgrounds on there too and she kindly made me this lovely "Stitched Stuffies" blog button

Weekend
The sun is shining today, it is warm and spring-like. I am meeting a friend for lunch and then gallery hopping for inspiration and retail therapy. Sunday I hope to take a spring walk with hubby, to the beach or a National Trust garden, and so hope the weather will remain fine

I will leave you with this gorgeous picture from my Ideal Home calendar for May - this inspires me to try and get back out in the garden on Monday if the weather is kind



































Hope the weather is kind to you too. Enjoy the long weekend all of you :o)

Busy stuff ...

Busy, busy, busy ...

Yesterday, I spent the morning at Ceramica - a new pottery studio in St. Ives - where you can go along and paint your own ceramics. I just don't know where the time went, I was back in my childhood playing with paints, brushes, sponges and rubber stamps - Emma Bridgewater eat your heart out!

I "created" two heart ornaments and a coaster. Shall have to wait and see what they turn out like once they have been in the kiln on Friday ...














Then I was a "lady who lunches" - Jo and I had the most gorgeous carrot and coriander soup and chunky garlic bread in The Ocean Grill, Wharf, St. Ives looking out over the harbour ... exactly what was needed to warm the soul and the nether regions on an extremely rare frosty, freezing cold, day - was it only Monday that I said "we never get any snow or frost in St. Ives"?

When I got home, I had a lovely surprise. My parcel came from Cathy Cullis. I have been eagerly awaiting this since New Year's Eve and was delighted with the contents! A zine of beautiful stories and words, a gorgeous card of "So Many Stories" (embroidery artwork) and small card. I am treasuring the zine and reading a short story each day. Have a look at Cathy's beautiful work at November Moon















I have been busy working on my "other" blog - a place where I have been sharing some of my old textile art work and techniques/ideas. For some reason, I feel the need to do this before I share my current work. I can't explain it. So, if you are interested in textile techniques, want to try something new or just need a little inspiration please stop by Mixed Media Textile Art





























Thank you for visiting me

Snowdrops

I'm looking forward to signs of the first snowdrops - they arrive earlier in Cornwall


















1. Winter's Snowdrop 2. Silk Snowdrop 3. Snowdrops 4. Vintage Snowdrop - Anita Reed-Davis 5. Seasons Greetings 6. Ida Rentoul Outhwaite 7. Snowy Snowdrops 8. Silk Snowdrop 9. Hanging Out 10. Victorian Snowdrops 11. Snowdrop 12. The Snowdrop Fairy 13. Altered Snowdrop

For Mosaic Monday

Farewell to wintry spirits and friends;
On morrow we greet the spirits of Spring
Our blessings to thee as your way we wend;
And merry we'll meet next Winter again
Anna Moura















Snowdrops and berries

Gifts from the Pink Fairy

I was very lucky to receive some gorgeous gifts for Christmas. These are just a few of the lovely pressies I got from my friend Jo. One of them was a voucher for Ceramica in St. Ives - a new studio where you can go along and paint your own ceramics. Jo got a voucher as well, so we are going on Wednesday to paint or stamp our marks on some ceramic pieces. I think I shall choose something so that I can use my fairy rubber stamp and some nice red paint



I also got The Christmas Book (by Sheherazade Goldsmith). It's a lovely book, full of gorgeous pictures and fab ideas for recycling and making hand made Christmas goodies from natural materials. I plan to work through it during the year and make Christmas stuff once a month and I'm looking forward to making the marshmallow sweeties (top right)














This is my friend Jo dressed as The Pink Fairy with Father Christmas outside The Glass Tree, Fore Street, St. Ives. She was helping Santa in his grotto that day!

As if by magic, it started snowing in St. Ives too
(thanks to the snow machine!)

Christmas Red

I decorated the plate rack above the fireplace in the sitting room with a berry garland, wreaths of berries, hearts, primitive angels, reindeers and little jars with rusty tin stars

























































It's Christmas all year round in my cottage

Rosehip Heart

A rosehip heart hangs on my dresser in my country cottage

Clothes Peg Fairy

I can't wait to make one of these little fairies - she would look lovely on my tree this year


















You will need:

• Wooden dolly peg
• Black biro
• Large teacup
• Scrap of pretty fabric
• Scissors
• Soft pencil
• Needle and thread
• Wide gold or silver ribbon
• Narrow gold or silver ribbon
• Sheet of paper
• All-purpose glue
• Glitter dust

Here's how to make her:

Start by drawing a smiley face on the head of the dolly peg with the biro. Then, to make the skirt, use the upturned teacup as a guide to draw two circles on the fabric with your pencil. Cut out the circles, then place them together and snip a small slit in the centre. Squeeze the peg legs together and slip the skirt up to the top of the legs. You may need to stitch around the waist, using a needle and thread, if you've made the opening too large. From now on you need to keep the fairy's face to the front while you make the rest of her

To make the wings, cut 12cm of the wide ribbon and twist the centre. Then do a couple of stitches around the twist to hold it in place. Sew the twisted ribbon to the back of the skirt to complete the fairy's wings

Using 26cm of your narrow ribbon, tie it around the waist and knot under the wings, make a loop with the ends and tying them together. This is the tie for hanging the fairy on the tree

To ensure the fairy has a glittery crown and feet, tear a piece of paper from your sheet, apply a blob of glue, then set aside. Fold the rest of the paper in half and tip a little glitter dust into the fold. Dip the head and toes of your fairy into the blob of glue, then into the glitter. Shake off the excess over the paper to stop it from going everywhere

Put the fairy astride the rim of the teacup to dry. Shake any remaining glitter dust along the crease of the paper and tip it back into the container. Once dry, your clothes-peg fairy is ready to hang on the tree

From: Good Housekeeping - December 2008

Gingerbread Angel

This adorable little angel hangs on the glass doors of my dresser. She has twiggy wings, cinnamon stick legs and is holding a rusty tin gingerbread man