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

new embroidery!

Hey! Check out a couple of the new embroidery designs I designed for "Embroidables"

www.embroidables.com

I just got the images this morning and couldn't wait to share them with you.

For more of the designs, check out: polkadotponie.blogspot.com

Hi everyone, thought I would share pictures from our second artist market I am running with a friend in my small community. These are pictures of my stall, the market venue and some of my work close up (little landscapes made from vintage material).

TIN snips

The Creative Girls got together today for our June meeting....

........and we cut TIN!

We cut off the tops and bottoms of soda cans and beer cans and found that the metal is so thin and easy to cut that we could make all kinds of things!

Here is a look at some of the stuff we made:

birds cut from Arizona Iced Tea cans

an unfinished piece

a Tecate butterfly

Beth's cut-outs

butterfly, flaming sacred heart, bird and

Virgin of Guadalupe

4 Guadalupes

all different, pretty cool

inchies

I know that I am the last person who will be receiving the inchies.....

And, I know that everyone else is doing the most amazing little inch that we will have ever seen.......

And, I am panicking!

So, last night I picked up a piece that I started in the spring....and added some new little inches of design. I consider it a "practice piece" because the bar is already so darn high - whew!

I have so many ideas and have absolutely NO IDEA what I will do for the final inch.

Maybe I should just play and not worry about it. It will probably (hopefully!) hit me the minute it arrives - how to "round out" the whole thing.......

I think about all of you every, single day of my life and am so grateful for each of you.

......always........

xo

My friend Suzi Stow has just started to take classes making gorgeous fascinators in London. She's absolutely fabulous and lots of fun and a wonderful teacher. Suzi's based in London, but travels if the numbers are right. If you or anyone you know might be interested please give her a call. Suzi is planning on introducing other crafts to her club, so you might like to go on her mailing list so she can keep you updated. Contact Suzi on 07834484516 or oohlalalovlies@yahoo.co.uk - her class prices are very modest !

British magazines come to USA

Good News USA Violets,

I found both of these magazines at my local Barnes and Noble. If they have them in Charleston, they have them anywhere in the US. Making is the one that Clare emailed us the Julie A. article and this is the issue it is in.

The other , Mollie Makes, I only glanced at but it looks even better than Making. I knew I had to grab it and can hardly wait to read it. There is an article about dottie angel with fantastic pictures. Clare is this the magazine you told us about? I love it. Sorry it is shown sideways, but hope you get the idea.

Hope everyone is well and busy.

xxoo Taylor

PEONIES! Only $6.99 a bunch of 5 at Trader Joe's! They are so beautiful and it is so darn hot here right now that they open up in a couple of hours! I had to buy more today to "fill in"...

At Doodlet's we are doing a fun little thing .

This little bluebird (when I finish painting it) will be placed in a different spot in the shop each week. Hopefully, people will eventually get the hang of it to search for the bluebird. If they can successfully find it in the shop and tell us where it is, they will receive a little goodie as a gift from Doodlet's. Cool, hunh?
I like how it looks now - unfinished - but I think it needs to have its legs and beak painted and maybe even a few little feathers. Also, the border really does need a little bit of help (!)

I will show it to you again before I take it down to the shop.....

Happy BiRtHdAy in JUNE!

On June 21st, Linda will have a birthday -

Hope it is a happy one, dear Linda!

But, TODAY is the birthday of Jamie Harper - Woman of Mystery.......

All the best to you, Miss Jamie!!!!!

xoxo