Autumn flowers

These dahlias, which I bought in the market, are such perfect autumn colours.

 Each one is full of pattern and texture. I like taking macro shots to see the 

detail on each petal.

Tag Tuesday-All the Colours of the Rainbow

The theme for this week's Tag Tuesday is All
the Colours of the Rainbow.
As the weather here was very dull and wet, I

decided to do a colourful tag to give some cheer.

I have made some butterflies in All the Colours

of the Rainbow. They are made of tissue paper

and coloured in with  watercolour pencils. I went

over them with gel pens for a bit of sparkle. They are 

set on a background made from cardboard, which was

coloured and stamped. I added an extra rainbow cord 

round the edge of the tag.

The Eye of the Needle

I  consider myself very lucky to to have attended the exhibition  The Eye of the Needle-English Embroideries from the Feller Collection at

The Ashmolean in Oxford on Friday. It is a private collection of

17th century English embroideries, which displayed extreme 

skill and detail.

The detailing in the flowers, animals and birds is quite astonishing. The figures

are beautifully stitched, the shading in the folds of garments is particularly fine,

and the faces and hair bring them to life. The overall quality is dimensional and

full of texture, as padding and relief stitches are used to make different elements stand out. As well as embroidered pictures, either of Biblical or Mythological 

subjects,  accessories such as gloves, caps, and coifs and boxes and samplers

are on display.

 The Ashmolean is running an English Embroideries Trail to go alongside 

this exhibition, showing work of the same date belonging 

to the museum.

Photography of the Feller Collection was not permitted, so I am posting a photo

of the book which goes with the exhibition.

Micheal & Elizabeth Feller-THE NEEDLEWORK COLLECTION : 1

The Sacrifice of Isaac

C17th embroidery in the Ashmolean collection. In order to achieve a relief effect, real birds' skulls and beaks were used underneath the stitching.

Book Cover: Isaac, Samson and Paul

Beautifully worked book cover in three sections.


Apologies for the unusual formating on this post, Blogger has changed my
format and won't let me alter it.

Autumn Project

Term has started at our local adult education centre, where I am

 studying painting and drawing.

We have been given a theme of Autumn to work on. It is an open

brief, we can choose our own subject and which media to paint in.

I am not sure how this piece is going to evolve. Here are my workings

for the early stages.

Scrapbook of ideas

Study of a leaf

I loved the colours of this image, which I chose to work from

Tracing my drawing

Experimenting with watercolour

Acrylic inks

Tag Tuesday-Opposites

On Tag Tuesday this week our theme is OPPOSITES.

My OPPOSITES tag came about by accident, as is often

the case! I found the Night Owl Ribbon whilst rummaging

through my ribbon stash, and that set off my train of thought.

I used Inktense blocks for the background, they give

great, strong colour, and it is easy to layer different colours.

My Night Owl was stamped with black ink, then coloured

in with felt pens. The Early Bird was done in the same way.

I didn't have an Early Bird ribbon in my stash, so I stamped

a plain one!

A line of stars completes my tag.

St-Antonin-Noble-Val

St-Antonin-Noble-Val is the rather poetic name of a medieval town in

France where we stayed in the summer. If you have just seen the film

100 Foot Journey you may think the town looks familiar, that is because 

it was filmed there! Coincidentally, we arrived there the day the film

 was released in the United States, and enjoyed watching it when it came

to the UK a couple of weeks ago.

It is such a beautiful place, nestled in the Aveyron Gorge, and the town 

has retained its medieval essence. Any renovations have been done

in keeping with the original styles. The house we stayed in dated from

the fifteenth century.  I was totally captivated by both the house and

the town, and everywhere I looked I saw ancient roofs and doorways, narrow

passageways, stone carvings and timbered houses. I did take a lot of photos, but I

am only posting a selection .

 Looking down on St-Antonin-Noble-Val

The view from the C15th house where we stayed 

Stone carving on fireplace

Narrow street leading to the belfry

Stone carving

Little passageway

Old inn

The Needleworker's Dictionary

For the past few weeks I have been engrossed in The Needleworker's Dictionary,

which a friend has lent me. I am pretty sure that I will have to buy a copy for myself!

The book is far more than a dictionary, more like an encyclopedia. It is arranged in alphabetical order, so you can look up anything related to needlework, but the range of information is astonishing.  There are definitions of stitches, embroidery terms, the history of needlework, foreign terms, ethnic embroidery and so much more. I particularly like the number of illustrations, an unbelievable 350 photos, 300 drawings and 56 colour plates. It feels like strolling through a museum. A fabulous book, to pick up time and time again. It is hard to believe that it was written in 1976.