Pebbles and puddings

P is for projects and catching up with them!

P is for pebbles ... I love the simplicity of worn pebbles, grey ones with silvery white lines of twinkly crystals. Pebbles are a favourite and recurring theme in my textile work and I've been posting samples from my pebble sketchbook here recently

Pebble love ♥





















1. One doesn't have a heart of stone 2. Waiting .... (experimenting) 3. Palavras pedra 4. Pebble heart 5. Big bang theory 6. Perfect little white things 7. Hearts 8. Shades of white 9. Pebble collection 10. Rock pool 11. Pebble 12. Pebbles 13. Playing with pinholes

Pebbles for Mosaic Monday from my flickr friends and faves ♥

Moonlit evening, silver clear
and the night's blue billows,
sparkling waves, numberless,
follow one another.
Shadows fall along the path,
on the shore the bushes softly weep,
black giants guard it's silver in their keep.
Silence deep in summer's midst
sleep and dream -
the moon glides out across the sea
white tender gleam

Nocturne by Edith Södergran

P is for poem from a lovely book of nature poetry Cathie gave me for my birthday ♥

P is for precious - one of my inchies for the alphabet challenge at Inchybyinch. I'm weeks behind the other girls. Never mind, I'm doing my best to try and catch up a bit












P is for pink - inchy











P is for pretty - my first decorated domino!











P is for picking and pressing flowers. I found this large flower press in a charity shop for £1 but it didn't have a very nice top so I gave it a pretty new one






















The image is dipped in wax and stitched to cream cotton linen with vintage lace and a silk flower with pearl button

"the walks had been delightful"

















I also added a red leaf dipped in wax then layered with chiffon, lace and another old button

















So this gave me the idea to cover a smaller flower press I already have

Q is for Queen Mab's Summer Pudding






















I used a recipe printed onto vellum then stitched to mulberry paper then onto cream cotton linen






















I embellished it with torn chiffon, fabric, vintage lace, old buttons, some pressed flowers and some text dipped in wax - "picking flowers"






















Queen Mab's Summer Pudding is a Quintessentially English pudding and a lovely way of using up bread that's gone a bit dry

6-8 slices stale bread, with crusts cut off
1 1/2 lb soft summer fruits - blackcurrants, strawberries, raspberries, etc.
2 tablespoons water
5 oz sugar

1. Line a 1 1/2 pint pudding bowl with the slices of bread. If necessary, use a bit more to completely cover the bottom and sides of the bowl
2. Wash and prepare the fruit and put into a saucepan with the water and sugar. Gently boil until the sugar melts and the juices begin to run. Do not allow the fruit to disintegrate
3. Spoon the fruit into the prepared dish and make a lid with the remaining bread. Use a saucer or small plate (that fits inside the dish) on top of the pudding and weigh it down with a heavy tin or jar. Chill for 8 hours or more
4. Remove the weights and saucer. Turn the pudding out onto a pretty plate and serve with cream - I recommend a naughty blob of Cornish clotted cream and a blob of icecream!

Quintessential Queen





















No inchy for the letter Q today but it would have been Q for Queen of Puddings, a bit like this beautiful pen drawing that Cathy gave me. It has a medieval/Elizabethan feel about it. Perfect for a queen. I copied it onto vellum, dipped it in wax and added the text "Queen of Puddings"

Project update - Lots on the go at the moment!

My alphabet inchies and theme continue. I also joined in the Inchy Summer Swap to make 10 inchies with the theme of "on the beach". I couldn't resist that one!

I made a KISS quilt which will be blogged soon

My sketchbook arrived on Saturday for The Brooklyn Sketchbook Project 2011. I'm working on the theme "Beneath the Surface". I'm buzzing with ideas but I will have to work on that later in the year!

I just spent this weekend making three handmade books on a fun workshop with Kiwi Carole (Madness and Mess). The books I'm making incorporate all of the contents of my four erosion bundles. The three books have to be finished by 1st August

I really should have been working on my contemporary art quilt for FOQ 2010, which has to be at the Show by 30th July latest!

Well that's all from me for today, I'll be back with more rosy red ramblings later in the week

Carolyn ♥

Not Summer, Not Autumn, Not The Beatles

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and for all the lovely comments left on my recent posts. I have enjoyed hearing from you all

We are now celebrating a new month, so I've started by making a calender for September






















Our bank holiday weekend started off nicely with an unplanned night out watching "Not The Beatles" in The Lifeboat pub on Friday night. St. Ives is very, very busy at the moment with many holidaymakers. The pub was heaving and there was a great party atmosphere

I've lost count of the number of times I've seen "Not The Beatles". They are a local band who hail from Hayle and so they play St. Ives quite often. We always enjoy watching them every time, it's such a great night out, if you ever get the chance to see them! The fab four will be playing in The Lifeboat again during the St. Ives Festival in September (Friday 18th) - we will be there again!

Last time I saw them I got completely "pickled" and I confess to pinching the band's flyer from the ladies loo and getting the band to autograph it. Here you can see I've got "Not Ringo's" last ever autograph!









































On Sunday my sister came to stay for a week. We went for a walk to the top of Knill Monument. The Monument is one of the highest points in St. Ives. Usually, there are some very nice views from the top but the Cornish mizzle blew in shrouding the countryside in mist

















On the way, I picked 4 lbs of blackberries, 1 lb of St. John's Wort berries and gathered some seedheads and leaves. I will be using the St. John's Wort berries and some of the blackberries to dye fabrics and threads and will be posting my natural dyeing experiments with the berries soon. Most of the blackberries will be made into blackberry and apple jam, bramble jelly and a mixed fruit crumble

Blackberries





















St. John's Wort berries
















A lonely berry from the St. John's Wort plant



















Our bank holiday weekend weather has been so unstable ... warm sunshine one moment ... very heavy rain the next ..... that it doesn't feel like Summer any more but it's not quite Autumn yet either. So I thought I would post a last burst of Summer inspired photos

Boat made from driftwood





















Peeling paint from boats in the harbour at The Lizard





















PZ boat
















Boat made from driftwood





















Watercolour pebbles


















I'll be back with the berry dye experiments soon as well as photos from Geevor and Levant. In the meantime, have a good week!

Reflections

This summer has been full of distractions for me














... the need for some personal space, to get away from the computer, to spend time walking through the woodlands, touching the leaves, collecting plants for dyestuffs and poking about in the hedgerows in the country lane outside my home ...

... the need to spend an hour or so at the beach, collecting treasures, paddling in the cold sea water, smelling the seaweed, feeling the sea breeze, watching the waves and reflecting ...













... then the necessary next phase of cottage renovations, the unwelcome mess, the constant cleaning up but knowing how nice it will all look one day ...

... most recently a visit from friends and enjoying visiting other seaside places nearby and eating out ...

... and August brings more visits to and from family to look forward to ...


















So, I am all out of routine but in a NICE way!

I realise I have to just "go with things" for a while. No point in beating myself up because this hasn't been a "makey stitchy" blog recently. I have to be patient. I am brimming with ideas and projects I am itching to work on but it will all have to wait till September ... so I'm letting myself off the hook ... being kind to myself ... and my blogs will continue to be about summer distractions and the things that are happening around me ... for just a little while longer


















Have a good weekend ♥

Pebbles and Seed Heads

Firstly, thanks so much for your comments and interest in my natural dyeing experiments in the last post


















My natural dyeing experiments continue over on Mixed Media Textile Art where I've just posted some vibrant yellows produced from dyeing with orange montbretia flowers and brown onions

















I stitched these little hearts using the fabric I dyed with St. John's Wort and machine stitched little seedhead designs on them, one with gold thread and yellow silk I dyed and the other with copper thread


















Lots of renovating still going on at home but the fireplace in our bedroom is another job recently completed. Hubby built the Cornish slate hearth which he decorated with pebbles and fitted the Victorian fireplace and mantle


















I'm really pleased with it as pebbles now feature in every room of our cottage and it's pulled my decorating theme together



























The copper "St. Ives" fishing boat came from The Whistlefish Gallery, St. Ives






























So, the bedroom is "nearly" finished except I'm just waiting for a new carpet and some bedroom furniture. I have to wait while there is work going on in the bathroom next door, but the end is in sight!

Well, I just can't believe it's August already, where is the time going?


















I only recently discovered that flickr toys have a calendar maker so I made myself a calendar for August using one of my pebble photos, another ongoing monthly project I expect!

Already the month of August is full of things to do, starting with a visit from friends for a week until 10th August, a workshop where I will be space dyeing fabrics and threads and then more visitors at the end of the month. In between I hope to catch up with my usual projects and groups that I haven't mentioned for ages - Gardening Monday, Mosaic Monday, Christmas Crow Day, A Year of Colour, Inchies and Textured Surfaces - all things I will do big catch-ups on soon

I totally missed stripes for "A Year of Colour" so here is a belated picture (as a gesture) to my monthly challenge and there will be a few more in the next post


















Hope you have a great weekend despite the weather :o)

Catching up

Awards, tags, mosaics and mentions

Recently I've been enjoying spending a bit more time away from the computer, getting things done at home, spending nice time with hubby and catching up with my own projects and experiments

I've got lots of new things to share with you, the trouble is knowing where to start and what to show you first. So, I think I will start with some general blog stuff and lots of blog buddies to thank and by the time you get to the bottom of this post you may feel like you have been attending an awards ceremony, but here goes .....

THANK YOU to Brandy from Brandywine Boutique for the wonderful gifts I received in her giveaway. There were so many lovely treasures in my package - vintage lace, ribbons, papers, tags, embroidered flowers, buttons, charms and threads - all gorgeous!


















THANK YOU to Lynda from Diva Designs for tagging me for "A Bit of Summer Silliness"


















Here are my Six Summer Sillies:

1. Beachcombing - collecting pebbles, shells and seaweed
2. Walking barefoot - sand between my toes
3. Paddling in sea water so cold it makes me scream!
4. White chocolate Magnum ice cream
5. Birdsong - the song of the blackbirds in my garden
6. Knitting seaweed

For playing along I'm supposed to nominate six of my blog buddies for their "Six Summer Sillies" so I'm nominating:

1. Karen - Missy K
2. Gez - Gez's Crafty Bits
3. Jo - Knit Weave Felt
4. Lesley - Sea Blue Sky & Abstracts
5. Cathie - Clevelandgirlie
6. Michala - Kayla Coo

Please only play along if you want to (no obligation!)










THANK YOU to Kirsty from MeplusMolly for another blog award received - the Butterfly Blog Award. It's green and purple so I've placed it on my other blog - thank you Kirsty!

THANK YOU for mentions of my work on Rachel's Melted Fabrics and on About.Com - Using Leftover Embroidery Floss Threads and Fibres (I'm no. 7)



THANK YOU to Morna Crites-Moore
for including my felt and textile bead
in her mosaic on her Bittersweet blog
(19th June)

This is just a small section of the mosaic
Mine is the long bead at the bottom

1. Velvet laid on roving
2. Women's Suffrage
3. Long bead




THANK YOU to The Magnifying Glass Nature Journal for posting my seaweed mosaic (June)

THANK YOU to Niminy Fingers (Make Your Presents Felt) for including my watercolour pebbles in her mosaic on her Niminy Fingers blog (25th June) - wish my pebbles were red!



























THANK YOU to Poppalina for including my rainbow in her mosaic (5th July)

THANK YOU to Cathy for her very kind gift which I will show you soon with another post and for including me in her mosaics from time to time

THANK YOU to you all for staying with me while I've been away, for staying in touch with me, for your emails, twitters, flickr messages and comments, blog comments and friendship - I really appreciate it

IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK!

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)