waking up the blog

Hi Violets,

Youl must all be busy with summer since the blog is so quiet. Thanks Jone for chugging the blog along. Thought it might be time to add something. Got back from Portugal at the end of June. (OOH I guess I could have shown some photos of it.) That was an interesting trip to say the least. The artists were Teesha and Tracy Moore who were wonderful.

In January I am taking the plunge and traveling to England for Julie A. paper mache at West Dean. Di is going too and I am excited about meeting her. It will be great to see Julie again. I have never been to London before (well except when I was 5) so I have a huge list of places I want to go to while I am there. Jone can I borrow your list of where you went?
School will be here before I know it. Summer has been good. Hope everyone is well. xxoo T

Stephanie's BOX

Where IS everyone?

This morning, I was at my friend Stephanie's house and spotted this lovely little box on one of her shelves of treasures.....just HAD to take a photo!

It is only about 6 or 7 inches long.....maybe 4 inches tall

Above and Below

a few details

Such beautiful inspiration. I am hoping to be painting some benches for the shop and I think that these designs offer me a great place to start - colors and patterns.

Happy Birthday, Miss Arkell

Happy Birthday to You...

Happy Birthday to You...

Happy Birthday Dear Julie....

HaPpY BiRtHdAy to YOU!

One of my classmates has recently become the Mayor of Cromer and has an aversion to wearing the traditional 'bling' chains of office. He is off to open the Cromer Gay Pride Festival and also the Flower Show... so I made him this new Chain of Office to wear (not sure he will!). It converts for each occasion as the velvet flowers are removable... A fun thing to do on this rainy Thursday.

See him at http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/offbeat/council-row-as-mayor-snubs-chains-16011267.html

Lavender Class at Los Poblanos

What a day we had at Los Poblanos!

We made nests from fresh-cut sprigs of lavender and then stitched tiny felt birds and filled 'em up with dried lavender from the farm.

The room smelled fanTAStic!

Here's the group at the table

We had a great time together!

starting the nest - weaving over and under

And, once the nests were done, we started on the birds

Everyone had such wonderful imagination.

The birds that evolved were delightful!

.....and sitting in their nests.....

cute!

Oolie with Flat Sue

Oolie's bird

Helen's birds

Oolie and me as the day was ending

We had a really nice time.

Thanks to all of the people who attended.

It was a pleasure to meet you all!

Knitbombing at Norwich Lanes Festival

Guess what my Creative Knitting Group did on Sunday - we covered a bus stop with knitting! The large piece of black knitting was made from VHS tapes and we knitted it using ourselves like a giant knitting machine. Such fun. And it got lots of admiring looks during the day. We are hoping to keep meeting up as we all had such a good time on the course.

Some of the group. (Me NOT in black... I forgot about the Ninja Knitters aspect!!! We did toss up about balaclavas... but ran out of time to knit them.

This is us being a machine knitting up the VHS tape - intially there was a bit of concern about being chained together with no way out! But 20 minutes later we'd finished.

The flowers were crocheted from recycled plastic bags and strips of fabric.

Lavender Nests

On Tuesday, I am teaching a class at Los Poblanos on weaving a nest from lavender and stitching a tiny felt bird to fill with lavender to put in the nest..... and ....

Oolie is coming!!! She and I are going to spend Monday and Tuesday nights in one of our favorite places on earth (besides Briancon, of course)

Sure do wish that ALL of YOU could be here to join us.......

Maybe we will have to make that happen one of these days.

Here's the little bird in the nest. We'll most likely do one that is a bit lighter and colorful, but the stitching on this one is simple and nice.
And, here is the nest without the bird. I use wrapped wire for the base (a wire star with an uneven amount of points - 5 or 7, usually) into which we will weave stem after stem of fresh lavender from the farm. I hope we'll get to go pick our own. It is Lavender Week at the farm, so should smell absolutely fabulous.

Hey, Clare, I hear the inchies are in your capable hands (!!!) I am soooooooOOOOOOOO

excited about that! Have a wonderful time playing and creating....you GO girl!

Inspired Ideas - next issue

I spent yesterday finishing up this little project for the next issue of Inspired Ideas.

Amy (Powers) thought it wouod be a fun project to do a "little someone" to fit inside a matchbox.....so I did.

I think she probably had an animal in mind, but this tiny girl is what manifested.... and I think she is very sweet. She is 3 1/2 to 4 inches tall.

Might try a little bunny, or kitty, too...... just to say I did....

I stitched her bedclothes (including a tiny quilt) and a couple of pillows for her to rest her head.

I made her bed from an old tissue box (fantastic pattern on the Kleenex box lately!)

I didn't have a large matchbox at the time.

Doesn't she look quite cozy?

inchies

Hello......

Thought I'd share these lovely blossoms with you this morning....

Aren't the colors fab?

And, here is my personal inchie project so far.

I worked on it a bit last week at the camp, while facilitating

others doing their wonderful embroideries.

The toadstools are for you ALL!

Still don't know what to do for the group inchies.

I guess I will just have to be patient

and see what it needs once I get it.

LOVE to ALL!

xoxo

Collecting

Plucked these beautiful garlic bulbs from the soil. They looked so lovely that I couldn't resist lying them out and it made me think of the plates on the blog and all our collecting. I recently too, went on a 2 day course run by Rachel Hazell (at last) and she recommended looking at the website collectionday2010.blogspot.com which shows a new collection of things everyday, it is worth a look. Joanna

Tangled up in blue

Mainly I repair trousers, boys trousers, using blue thread.

Joanna

BEACH HUT NEWS!

HI EVERYONE!

Just a quick post with a few pics of my sister's beach hut interior which we have just recently finished!

The first picture is her former hut (which my niece now rents out):

And here is her new hut, which due to her colour choice, has a golden glow all day and into the evening!

Its taken us a good few weekends of real hard graft to get to this point but it is a little piece of heaven for her now.

This is her new light shade, made by recycling the shell blind in her first hut! It puts me in mind of Jo's crocheting friend's jellyfish.

Sorry for the lack of communication of late, work very manic, weekends working on beach huts and problems with logging on to blogger and internet access have combined to keep me out of touch but work on my hut is underway and thats all the huts done (bar painting the outside again before winter) then im on tinkering by the sea for a day a week - hurrah!

This one was taken one evening last year .................. but the very best bit is the sunsets on long summer evenings ...... get a load of this girls!

Love to all !

xx

Di

BAUBLES

Oh dear Di - you were on my mind yesterday

when I found this booth at the Art Fair on the plaza!

This woman designs these treats and partners with her cousin

to make the charms to sell all over the place!

front

back

keyring

I was in heaven - wishing for you to be there, too!

BIG baskets filled with little treasures!

Below is the site to see what they have.

I like what they do - and they do it really well!!!

www.pickupsticks.net