Bluebell woods

Bonnie is having a moment of pure happiness amidst the bluebells.

Bluebells as far as the eye can see

The beech trees have a zingy green foliage which offsets the bluebells perfectly

Wallhanging-stitch

I have been hand stitching into the strips, using a variety of threads in different colours and textures

Threads Together

These are pictures of my threads from Oliver Twist. I love the way these colours sit together. I like to buy the theme packs, as they look so pretty! It would take ages to hunt out the exact matches. Besides I think the mixed skeins are a work of art and I am quite happy to gaze at them! To me hunting out fabrics, yarns, thread and accessories, aquiring them, stashing them and photographing them gives as much pleasure as actually using them in a piece!

I am using some of these threads in my wallhanging. You will see how I enjoy placing the colours and textures together. Stitching is in progress, a photo will follow shortly.

Wallhanging-Ready to add stitch

Here I have added strips of scrim to the painted strips. In the photo I cut into strips in my sketchbook the white stands out really strongly . I originally thought I would use a lot of white in this piece to link it, and maybe stitch it so it lay against a background cloth of white.

However, when I started painting the scrim, I found I preferred the colours of the blue/green. I have been working on the three strips which represent water. I added pieces I cut from the sides and laid scrim over the top of them, then painted over it to roughly match the colours.

Here are the three water pieces arranged together. I am pleased with this, and think I will proceed to add stitch. I will just work on these three as I love the colours together. Then I will decide whether to put the other strips back in. I originally planned to do all eight of them. Time also factors in this, as suddenly the deadline is next week! I will take out the white for now, and see how it is just in the watery colours.

Wallhanging-latest progress

I realise I have not posted about my wallhanging recently. I have been distracted by taking photos of textures, weekends in Whitstable and school holidays. The wallhanging is work in progress, but a lot of it still in my head. I have painted a series of 8 strips (like the ones in my sketch book), and now have started stitching pieces of white muslin over the top of the white bits. On reflection today, the white is too powerful, and the strips I really like are the blue/green ones which represent water. I am considering doing only 5 of the strips instead of all of them, as I think they will hang together better in the end. I will add a photo when I have arranged them to my satisfaction.

Textures at Whitstable

Whitstable

We spent the Easter weekend at Whitstable in Kent. It is a pretty town with so many art and craft shops it was difficult to know where to start browsing and shopping! The house we rented was owned by local artist, Lynda Fairbairn, who runs Bridge House Arts, a former pub, now art shop which also offers art lessons.

Beach huts painted every colour of the rainbow

English seaside architecture at its best

Buttons

We went to a vintage brocante sale in Whitstable. These lovely textures comes from the stall belonging to Sheila Alldridge of Clover Crafts and Curios. You can find her on e-bay as Sheila Juno, should you need anything for your stash! In case you are wondering, yes I did buy some things, some cards of buttons, heart shaped ones, thread and an old thimble. I shall use the thimble, the other things are probably too nice to use, but will look beautiful in my stash!

Easter Eggs

Here are some painted wooden eggs from when we used to live in Warsaw, Poland.

The Polish cockerel picture is made from gummed paper, cut using very large scissors