Photos at last

Sorry for the last lot of photoless postings - I think a photo really helps on blogs.

So here are my latest magazines - Selvedge:

And this morning my new Quilting Arts magazine arrived - I can't wait to sit down after dinner and have a good look at it:
I also bought some fabric - here's a little bundle:
I did buy a pile from the sale at Kisko - but it needs washing and ironing still - so I'll let you see that in dribs and drabs.

And now the class from last week:
Some of you may recognise these two. Part of the class was for us to critique an artists work - and here are two of our class doing a Ant and Dec style presentation.

I also took my work in for some constructive comments - I already had an idea what I needed to do - but it's reassuring when others agree. So it was a very quick bit of screen printing -

in brown:
And black.

When I got the pieces if calico back home I tea dyed them, cut them up and added them to the final piece.

And here we are - with the words tacked on.

I'm much happier with the result now. There's still quite a bit of work to do - but I can see the end in sight. I'm just pulling together all my entry forms tonight to see about deadlines and exhibition dates. Yes I know - I'm a control freak...

I hope you've noticed I'm doing quite well (so far) with doing something towards my creativity everyday. How are you all getting on?

Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Brenda class

It was so good to meet up with familiar faces at the Bramble Patch today for our first class of 2008. I think we were all feeling a bit rusty after our break - but we soon settled in.

Brenda set us all a challenge - do one thing each day towards your creativity and she calculated that we have 34 days until our next class. As you can see I've added my list on my right hand side bar to share with you all. perhaps you;d like to join in and let me know what you're going to do each day. It doesn't have to be a huge thing - perhaps just looking at a book about an artist or having a doodle.

I've also decided I need to get more organised - yep that old chestnut again.

And, for those of you who go to the class, you won't be disappointed to see my tea bad dying experiment with calico. Here's the recipe
1 pint hot water
3 tea bags - Tetley's decaffeinated
4 pieces of calico added and then removed at 5,10 15 and 20 minutes. I'll post you a photo of the results soon - when I';ve got them in my sample book.
I'm now going to try it on my screen printed pieces.

Oh dear...

...I didn't realise I hadn't posted in a while.
Well I hope you are all well and enjoying the new year. Have you broken your resolutions yet? Or are you like me and haven't really decided on what ones to go for?
I'm playing with the idea of joining a gym. I've got a free 5 day pass for one locally so I'll give it a go and then decide.
No too much progress on the crafting front recently (hence no photos)- but the house is back to normal now my mum has gone to stay with her friend and Christmas is over. It's so nice to have it all back to normal and be able to have my sewing room back. It was also a good opportunity to re-arrange the furniture in there and give it a good clean. It looks great at the moment but I do have 2 boxes I need to empty and then I'm sure it'll look much as it did before (a bit of a mess).
I also have some homework to do for my next class at the Bramble Patch. I really must crack on with it otherwise the week will fly along and it still won't be done.

Review of goals for 2007

When I started my class at The Bramble Patch with Brenda Boardman she asked all of us to think about what we wanted to achieve from the classes, what our goals were. I’m rather bad at this as I don’t write goals well – so I never know if I got there or not. But anyway I did write the following goals:
-More confident use of colour
-Diverse use of different textiles
-Develop techniques
-Develop use of sketchbooks

She then asked us to write what the reality of where we were now against these goals:
-At the moment I play safe with colours and tend to use fabrics from within a manufactured range
-I always use manufactured fabrics
-I am open and willing to develop techniques
-I’m not confident with putting pen to paper

So that’s where I was – but where am I now?
-I have used colours more confidently – for example with my Sunburst – very bright, red, yellow and orange. But I do still need to have more of a go with this – perhaps by making smaller pieces in different colour ranges I could develop a range to refer to when making larger pieces
-I always used manufactured fabrics as I didn’t know how to dye my own. Now I have more of an idea. But what I really want to do in my next classes is to work on more ideas for fabric design.
-I’ve been more than willing to try all of the techniques Brenda has shown us. I’ve really enjoyed it. But what I have found out is that you actually get more from using a technique the second time around as you know what the options are and have seen others in the class using the same technique but in different ways.
-Well, I am better at putting pen to paper – and my art class did give me more confidence, but I need to do more of it.

I found this exercise suggested by Brenda very useful as it’s highlighted what the gaps are with the goals from last year. I can now decide what I need to do to close the gaps between the goal and reality – or perhaps even abandon some of the goals and set new ones.

What goals have you set yourself in crafting for 2008?

Another Day out

Hello all and Happy New Year. I hope the start of this New Year finds you all well.
I'd like to share a few links with for artists whose work I saw at the Ferrars Gallery at Staunton Harold at the end of December. They were really varied and interesting.

The first artist is Blandine Anderson - who paints and sculpts. The pictures at the gallery were predominately of fares and sheep. The texture was created by mixing sand with the paint, applying whilst wet and then sculpting it when dry. The results were really interesting - I resisted the temptation to have a feel LOL.

Priscilla Jones displayed some very interesting fabric pictures - in beautiful pastel colours. I particularly liked the spoons and sundae one.

Next was an enormous pelican on a post (Duncan Thurlby) - it was very large and really beautiful. I would love it have something like that but the reality is I couldn't afford it and we don't have the space.

Darren Dearden angel called someone to watch over me was simplistic. He had used buttons within the heart shape and foil within the wings. Very simple but I loved it.
The funniest things were the ceramic dogs made by Virginia Dowe - they are just so cute - almost like a jointed teddy bear. They have great expressions.

I hope you like having a look at their websites and it you're in the area do have a look in the Ferrars Gallery - they have a wide price range of products - well worth a look at.

Happy New Year

I just wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year for 2008.

I'm going to be brave and set some goals for 2008 (and actually write them down this time). However, I don't think I'm brave enough to share them at this stage - but hopefully as the year goes along I'll let you know what ones I achieve and may then might let a few of the others out.

I'd also like to say a big thank you to all you bloggers out there - I've really appreciated the virtual friends I've made in blog land and have really enjoyed receiving all the comments you've taken time to post on my blog.

All the very best to you

Lots of love

Sarah Jayne

Christmas

Not too heavy a post today as I'm sure some of us may still be experiencing the excesses of Christmas.

Well - as you can see from the photo above I managed to cook a rather good turkey. A combination of a good quality 11lb turkey, good tips from Jane and a quick addition from a Gordon Ramsey cooking programme I saw on Christmas Eve. I'm very proud of my first roast turkey. The rest of the dinner was very good too (even though I do say so myself).

I'm also really pleased with the pressies I got. And I can share a little tip with you all. The reason I got a subscription to Selvedge magazine was because I said I wanted it on my blog and DH read it - what a great ploy - I'll be using it again LOL.

I also saw a great exhibition today at Warwickshire Museum - Gold Thread and Fire. It's not a huge exhibition but very interesting. I wish I could afford to buy a few of the items.

Here's the square in the village this afternoon at about 3.30; it's just getting dark and the lights are on. It looks so pretty.

And finally here are a few pictures I took of the Michaelmas House window. The animals I think are French and sooo cute. Lots of different textures. If I find out what the make is I'll let you know. Oh and their sale starts on January 3rd.

I do hope you all had a great Christmas break.

I'm back...

Sorry about the delay with my postings - but as you know I've been a bit busy - just like you.

I'd like to say a huge thank you for all the kind words of support for me and my mum. I'm pleased to say she's had her op and it went as planned. I visited her yesterday and she was comfortable - which I think is really all you can expect at this stage.

I'd thought I'd share with you a few things I've bought over the last few months. First is the beautiful Selvedge magazine - I'm hoping Santa might be bringing me a subscription.

Next is my Quilting Arts - such a beautiful cover. I'm still waiting for number 29 - I'm sure it's got stuck in the post.

And a copy of The Quilter - which you get as part of your Quilter Guild subscription.

And a treat now - 'Finding your own visual language'. Since my course with Brenda I've been more adventurous with the books I've selected and don't look at the ones with just patterns in now. This looks a great book and hopefully over the holiday I'll be able to have a better look at it. Have any of you got this and used it? I'd love to hear how you got on.


Now - I did get rather excited when Santa and his sledge came down the road - I ran out shouting 'Santa - I've been a good girl'. My husband is still laughing about it now.

I'll have to go now to check on my infamous Jamie Oliver Pork goulash - I'm cooking it for our Quilting Christmas party tomorrow night. I had to miss last week as I got a stinking cold - I've got rid of it now and I'm just left with a hacking cough.
Hope you're all OK and not too stressed with the time of year.
Take care.

Christmas preparation

Hello - I hope you're all OK and not too over wrought with your Christmas preparation. I've noticed blog postings have slowed down - which isn't surprising considering women do tend to have the most to do around Christmas. Honestly I'm not going to moan about it - it's just how it is for most of us. I'm doing OK - so far. I've managed to write out most of my cards and get the presents wrapped that need to be posted this week. I do still need to do a bit more shopping - but nothing too major.

There is a reason why I'm cracking on with things and that's because my mum is coming to stay with us over Christmas as she'll be recovering from a hysterectomy due to a prolapse womb. I had booked two weeks leave to sew - but as my sewing room has been converted into the spare bedroom now - things have changed. I will still be sewing (as otherwise I think I'd go mad) but it will need a bit more planning and I won't be able to leave it out as I would do in the sewing room. But - that's the way things go isn't it and we juts have to try to make the best of it.

More haste, less speed

When will I ever learn. I was so excited that I'd got the top and the back finished from Brenda's class that I completely forgot some very basic quilting rules. Like the one that suggests you should start in the middle and work out - I just started in a random fashion as I needed to ensure the thread was used in a random way across the piece. This meant I ended up with puckered bits. I also think I could have made the sandwich a bit better - a bit tighter. So now I'm unpicking all of the bits I've machined. Bit of a pain but when you know it's not working at the start there's no way it'll look right later on. I did take it to work today and they said 'no-one will notice' - but I'd like to have quite close quilting so the puckered bits would just get worse and worse.
So it's back to the unpicking...
I've also got the job of tidying up my sewing room so my friend can get in the spare bed when she comes to stay on Friday.

What have I been up to...

Lots. I've been rather busy - but it's been great. And I can't believe it's December already.

Here are some photos from the Christmas Fayre in the village Hall. A number of the Bosworth Quilters were involved with this and it's thanks to one in particular that the event has been reinstated. It looked great. It had a good variety of stalls, jewelry, soaps, plants, cakes and of course some very high quality quilted items (very reasonable priced). Unfortunately I was too excited to take a photo when Santa arrived - I was overwhelmed...

And here are my efforts from my drawing and painting class. I think if I post the photos of how I got here you'll see why I'm pleased with it. The journey there was good. And it's not brown.

I'm not going to be attending the class next year - partly because I can';t guarantee getting there every week and partly because my aim was to get over the fear of the blank page and drawing. As I've managed to conquer my demons I don't want to spread myself too thin with already being committed to Brenda's class next year. What I should do is set some time aside to draw. As we all know it's easier said than done.

Part way done...

Finished.