Latest acquisitions and so on

Just saw a post by Sharon B over at Pin Tangle in which she expresses her amazement that December is already here. Well, it may still be November for another couple of hours in my part of the world, (she's in Aus and I'm in the UK), but I can't help but share her sentiments when it comes to the 'where has the year gone to?' stuff! I counted up earlier and realised, to my horror, that I've only done 3 decent scale stitching projects this year! They were the 'Branches' card, the 'Ornamental Pool' and the most recent hardanger cushion. Other than that I've done 2 small pieces - a ribbon work piece that ended up in a card and a goldwork dragonfly that I've yet to think of something to do with - finished off an almost competed cross stitch of some bluetits and sewn up a cushion cover. Unless you want to count in 6 completed C&G course samples and another 4 in progress, that adds up to a great deal less than previous years. I confess to being rather disappointed, especially when you compare it to the amount of pieces that Grace puts out.... Oh well, let's hope next year works out a bit better on the productivity front!

I went to the big Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate last Friday and was quite controlled when it came to stash enlargement activities. Actually, if I'm completely honest, I've got so much (and looking through my kit box the night before helped me to remember that) and I've seen most of what's available countless times, that I really didn't want to buy much. I just settled for 10 pieces of various silks. There are 3 fat quarters here and the others are all 10/11"x11/12" sizes. There are some with patterns on as well, which I'd never really seriously considered using, but experimenting stitching on some patterned fabrics for my C&G has helped me to be more adventurous. I want some 2 or 3 of the pieces here for something I have in mind for my final assessment pieces - a rather natty idea for a jewelry box, but I won't say more just yet, so all will have to possess their souls in patience until I get to that stage.=)LOL!

I also finally capitulated and bought some acrylic paints. They seem to be on the equipment list quite a lot for my course and, as I hadn't any and didn't really want to get any more art stuff, (by which I mean not start any new types of stuff, so don't wait for me to get oils, 'cos it won't happen!), and I knew that these paints needed different brushes from my watercolour ones, but I see I'm not going to be able to use my cheapo Taiwanese gouache all the time, so I got this starter kit yesterday and I didn't think it was bad for £10. It's not professional quality, but I really don't need that at this level. I plan on borrowing a beginners' book from the art library sometime this week to help me know what to do with it!! I also got some more pastel pencils and here are some of the lot that I got recently. I love this type of medium and usually plump for it when there's a choice. I was rather annoyed to find I'd duplicated one shade though.....=( Silly me!

Recently I collected some old things from my mum's place (she's been clearing out her attic pretty thoroughly) and managed to bag an old jigsaw that I remember being given many years ago, (about 25 years, I should think), and made it up again the other weekend. I did enjoy that! There was one edge piece missing at the top, so I cut one to shape, coloured it in and shoved it in. Can you see it??=)

Photo explosion!

I haven't really been doing that much stitching of late, but I have been doing a lot of design work for the C&G and mounting of the line module etc, so have taken some pix to show you.

This is the box I presented my work in. It's just an ordinary purple box file, (with the internal clip affair removed by DH and his trusty drill!), covered with white mulberry paper, then trimmed up with the wrapping samples.

I didn't bother doing lots of pix of the mounted stuff as you've mostly seen it, but here's the beading one as an example, and probably the most interesting one that's all on one piece of A4 card. I also haven't got the eternal peacock feather done as it's very boring and long-winded, but our teacher was OK about that and said to make sure and show it to her when done. Here's what it looks like so far - like a cartoon kid with spiky hair!!!

We had to do a resolved design piece and this is what I came up with, although it's rather lacking in real design element and is concentrating mostly on various linear things. I did it in a little home made folder, which ties up with ribbon, and you can see here.

We've now moved on to the 'Colour' module and the theme is flowers and gardens. We'd to get a photo of some sort to work from and I got one from good old Google Images. We'd then to do a piece of artwork in acrylics. Well, I've bought more than enough stuff for this course, so used my gouache instead (a kind of opaque watercolour paint) and came up with this baby. Not brilliant, but it grew on me as the day went on. (Will post that later as I can't find the photo I just took on the computer.....)

Next stage was a bit of silk painting of the background fabric for the sample, then we'd to start on the stitching. She showed us stem and fly stitches, and bullion and French knots (both a bit different from my own, I think). Nothing new for me there, of course. I didn't get time to get on to the actual stitching, but here's the painted background with the threads I plan to use.

Last week sometime (I think! It's been such an age since I last posted!) I did a couple more rows on the band sampler. The middle of them couldn't exactly be called 'done' as I could only do 2 rows of cross stitches before the beading section, which is all being left until the end. So, here's what that looks like at the mo.

Hope to get some work in on all 3 current projects over the weekend and have more to show next week.