Oxfordshire Countryside

Driving through the Oxfordshire countryside at the weekend, everything looked so green and lush, so I wanted to share it with you. This is what happens when you have so much rainfall. It would be good to see the sun again, but the rain has done a good job to make everything  grow! In the top photo there is a splash of  the vibrant yellow  rapeseed which 

is seen all over this part of the country at the moment.

Tag Tuesday-Gardening

The topic for this week's Tag Tuesday is Gardening.

I had so many ideas about gardening, I found it hard to get started. I was thinking of gardening tools , packets of seeds, pictures of gardens Eventually I chose an image from the graphics fairy of a gardener in his potting shed, which I printed onto translucent paper and coloured in some flowers and flower pots. This was mounted onto a background of grass. I used a magazine image, and tried to print it onto Indian papers to create a more interesting texture, but it didn't  stand out, so I stuck to the original. I decorated it with flowers and butterflies and silhouettes of gardening tools. I feel as if I should have put a shed in there somewhere, as that is traditional in British gardens! 

Library Books

Searching for inspiration, I have been looking at these books from the library this week. I found plenty of food for thought, and probably too much inspiration, but they are great books! I feel so lucky that Reading has such well stocked libraries, and always has new art and craft books available.

 Mixed and stitched by Jen Osborn

Woodland Style by Marlene Hurley Marshall

Homemade gifts with love by Catherine Woram

Handmade Embroidered Bags by Jenny Rolf

Blackwork Made Easy by Lesley Wilkins

Sari silk yarn

 

From these two balls of sari silk yarn, my knitting has grown in a couple of hours. Just think, it started life as lots of colourful saris. I am going to make a bag with it. However I am tempted to unpick it and start again, as it is such a pleasure to knit with!

Here is a close up -such lovely colours and textures!

Scandinavian embroidery

I haven't been posting much recently, except about Tag Tuesday, but I haven't been idle!

I have been wanting to do some hand embroidery from Clare Youngs' scandinavian needlecraft book for a while now, and decided the best way to do it was to just  start something! The coat hanger cover was simple but satisfying to do, so I followed it with a cushion cover. I love the freshness of gingham, but must be careful not to go onto overload with it! There are lots more projects in this book, so watch this space ....

Tag Tuesday-Baking

Baking   is the theme for this week's Tag Tuesday

For my tag I wanted to make a cupcake, not bake one, make one, so I did!

For the cake I used cream felt , for the icing I stitched on lining fabric, and decorated with beads. The paper case was made from corrugated card , and I added in some felt pen to make it more stylish.  The backing is felt, which is brilliant to stitch layers into.

I took the photo with an old cookery book for background.

Tag Tuesday-Sewing

Sewing is the theme for Tag Tuesday this week.

I have been rather busy this week, so made a quick tag this time.

I used this lovely button fabric from my stash for the background. It was a pleasure to use it!

The image of the sewing machine is from Graphics Fairy , and I printed it onto cotton print on fabric from Crafty computer paper. Then I hand-stitched round the outline of the sewing machine. Buttons were added as further embellishment . To finish off I used some fabric tape from my sewing box-no idea what it is for, fastened together with a press stud. The whole tag was backed onto felt, which gives a solid background, but is so easy to sew!