wordless Wednesday

 

August ??

 Oh my
time is rushing by more quickly
than you think it does
. . . . .
Not true of course when you think back of all the fun
(or sad) things that have indeed happened.
We've had enough of both lately
but I will limit myself to the fun things.

There were of course more Stitch Club workshops :
another one of Sue Stone,
Debbie Smyth
Maria Thomas,
and now Jean Draper.

For Sue it was :
tell a story, take a person and background
and add some text.
But since I'm still slowly stitching on my "Joetta Maue portrait"
of our youngest grandson, I took and animal instead of a person,
the fox

 And I LOVE that clever text
where ALL the letters of the alphabet are
in one English sentence.

Some pieces of vintage fabric are really soft to stitch on
and the Inktense pencils did the job very well

When I thought I was finished, 
I found a snippet on the floor that was just right
for adding some different colour too !

detail

The work Debbie Smyth makes is really awesome
but I wasn't in the mood
for hammering many many pins in wood
so that workshop is left for another time.


Then came Maria Thomas.
Working with "faux" shisha-mirrors and putting
all kinds of memorabilia on cloth
was really fun to do.
I chose (again) a colour scheme of
black / gray / white /  and a touch of red.
It turned out that most of my fabrics
were striped or checked but that was okay.
I decided to use my extensive stash of clothing labels
but I was low on mirrors and bottle caps !!!

Bits and pieces collected for a good start.

Everything pinned in place !

And then something beautiful happened !!!

Because I mentioned on the members page of Stitch Club
that I didn't have any shisha mirrors,
a Dutch member (in fact two : sisters !) offered to send me
some really big sequins instead !!!

Then I said, why don't I come and get them myself
(because I already knew they live in a town nearby !!!
So yesterday I went on bike and Ferry
and visited my textile friends !!!
Now that was fun !
We talked long about lots of things
and it was great to see and FEEL the textile pieces.
I went home (much later than I thought)
with a little stash of sequins and even bottle caps !
(hmmmm . . . next piece)

THANKS  WIL  AND  HILDE  !

Half of my piece
and in need of a few more kantha stitches !

*

And what is a summer without some "water-fun" ???
That is the advantage of a garden next to water

:-)

can you believe it : 21

When you have a pet
you never know in advance
how long you will enjoy its company.
We (kind of) inherited daughter's Burmese cats
(brother and sister)

We had to let go of the big brown brother Bagheera

in January 2017

BUT

little blue sister

BELLA

(still going "strong")

has her  21st  birthday today !!!

Well,
she doesn't jump on the kitchen counter anymore
(but I have to lift her up)
to have her drops of water from the tap,
(which is much better than the water in your bowl !!)
she walks slowly and a bit shaky,
but she loves her food
(tells us when it's REALLY time for a bit more,
and asks for her cat treats
when Man comes down in the morning,
she loves to sit on your lap
but thinks her cushion is a fine place too
as long as we place it on the floor in the sun
or even outside.

She is a dear old lady
and all of us hope to have her around still a bit longer

wordless Wednesday

 

Summer solstice (and more)

This time I had no time to stitch a special Solstice piece
(or rather : I didn't think about making one,
too many other things going on)
And after a good week
of really wonderful summer weather
we had some heavy thunderstorm days.
(with much damage in other parts of the country !!!)

But what a wonderful New Dawn !!!

*

Stitch Club had me busy with a new workshop
by Gwen Hedley
I really LOVE what she makes !!!
(a new discovery for me !)
Making marks with ink or paint
and cutting that up and stitching together
than stitching to
"blur the boundaries"

The start of a "scroll"

Not finished, but I had another idea
for another colour scheme
and design.

A lot of work cutting out, stitching and backing
all the small circles
but the necklace is almost done now
(no pictures yet  :-)  . . .)

(The next workshop by Haf Weighton started already
but has to wait a bit)

wordless Wednesday

 

a bit of nature . . . and a visitor

Though it has been too cold
(we even turned on the central heating yesterday
which we never ever did in May !)
there has been a fair amount of rain lately
so the garden
EXPLODED 

Greens all around and lots of blue too :
forget-me-nots, bluebells and the Camassia !

*

This morning I heard some tap-tap-tap outside
and didn't know where it came from :
no one was busy with a hammer . . .
But then I found the maker of that sound !!!

*

For the Stitch Club workshop by Saima Kaur
I made some fish 

(this will probably become a pencil case)
*

And last but not least :
we had a very special visitor last Wednesday !
Leslie Gabriëlse,
from whom we bought a magnificent tapestry more than ten years ago,
brought us the original sketches of his design !