sewing and cooking

Hello.

Well here's some fabric I bought this morning at Kisko (The Fabric Guild) for a project we're going to do next Saturday at a neighbouring village's hall. I shan't spoil the surprise but I'm sure we'll have a range of colours used with the same pattern.

Now I'm rather proud of this - it's my very first large fruit cake I've ever made - it's for Christmas. It's actually a Fig and honey Christmas Cake from the November issue of the BBC Good Food magazine. I do love looking at cookery books and magazines - but I'm not an overly confident cooking. I think one of the issues is that when there are only 2 of you if you make a big anything - you have to eat it for ever and it kind of spoils it. But I'm really going to try to be a bit more adventurous with my cooking as I enjoy it.

Lets hope it tastes as good as it looks by the time Christmas comes. I think, as it's a bit on the large size, I'll cut it at the start of December - so be warned if you're coming round you've been warned - every cuppa will have a slice of cake with it.
QUESTIONS
A couple of questions for you out there:
Do you have any ideas about food you can make for people for Christmas?
And
Have any of you done the OU course on Digital Photography? (And if any of you consider it don't forget you can use Tesco vouchers to pay and for each £10 of vouchers you get £40 worth of OU course)
Hope you're all enjoying the glorious autumn day today. Cold but very very sunny.

Holiday...

Hello all. Yes - I'm still around - just been away for a bit and I thought you might like to see some of the photos I took. So this is a photo I took from Pontcysyllte Aqueduct across to another one. It was so high and only narrow enough to get one canal boat across - the path next to it wasn't so great either.

What do you think to the artwork below? That was at the entrance.
This is just a great photo DH took - a great shape.

These two photos were taken at Copper Kingdom - some of you may have seen the site shown on the TV programme Coast. It was a great landscape - sort of lunar.

This is Beaumaris Castle - it was a beautiful sunny day as you can see and it's a great castle to look around.

And finally I took some lovely photos when we went to Penmon Priory - the water in the rock pools was so clear - and the seaweed was a great range of bronze colours.

I couldn't resist taking photos of the pebbles....

So - I'm back now and have enjoyed sewing now I've got back. I keep trying to tidy up my sewing room - but it's an uphill battle.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Books

I thought I'd share some of the books with you that I had for my birthday. The first one is 'How to be an explorer of the world' by Keri Smith. It's a real fun book that aims to make you look more at the things around you.
Here's an example of one of the 'Exploration' exercises. This one encourages you to record everything you consume or purchase in a day or week.

And this one encourages you to look at colours more closely around you. By using the colour chart chips you match them to what you se around you.

It really is a fun book and I'm going to take it on holiday with me. Keri also has a great blog called 'Wish Jar'. She's very generous and you get to share how she develops her ideas into the books she writes. I think it would be great book to share with children - or like me being a big kid just think its great fun.

The next book is 'Secrets of Simplicity' by Mary Carlomagno. A really beautiful book to look at if you look at the Amazon site it has some great photos of the art work.

Besides looking beautiful it does have some good ideas. Mary Carlmagno has a company called Order. It has some interesting insights from well known individuals and looks at things in a more simplistic and positive way - well worth a look.

And finally 'How to have Kick-ass ideas: get curious, get adventurous, get creative' by Chris Barez-Brown.
A really fun book.

I love this idea and I tried it out with how to find time to be more creative. The aim is you write down every idea you can to tackle the issue you have - and there are no wrong ideas - and then you see how realistic the idea is and the more practical for you - the more near the centre of the circle.

One of my ideas to have more time for creativity was to give up work - great idea but then I'd have no money to spend of stuff or food come to think about it.

I then thought about reducing the number of days i work - not such a bad idea - but perhaps in a few years time.

Then - the idea was to make out specific days for creativity and also to try to do a little bit each day. Now that is practical.

Chris Barez-Brown joined the ?What If! The Innovation Company in 1998 and many of the ideas in the book are used by them with larger companies.

I'd love to hear what books you've enjoyed recently.

Have a good weekend and take advantage of the great weather we have at the mo.

Studio envy...

I had a trip out on Sunday afternoon. I decided to visit a friends studio that was open as part of the Northamptonshire Open Studio's event. (If you look at the PDF of their brochure this open studio is no 114)

So the first picture below is inviting you in and...

here you are in the studio. I now have a serious case of 'studio envy'. DH is not pleased. My idea is to get rid of the spare bed and wardrobe in the spare room and make it my studio - rather than the current situation of me working in there and having a bed and a wardrobe in there. Makes perfect sense to me LOL.

As you can see the studio is bright and light and airy.
The artists exhibiting and demonstrating are Mikki Stanswood, Bren Boardman and Fi Bowman. All great artists in their own right, but seeing all three at once is even better.
I had a lovely afternoon browsing the book shelves and having a chat with them all. If you do live in or near Northamptonshire please do try to make some time to visit - it's so interesting see artists studios.

My Festival of Quilts

I hope you enjoy this selection from the FoQ - more to come.

Hope you're all enjoying the August Bank Holiday. It's such a shame the weather has been rather dull - but we did manage to get a little bit of gardening done.
Thank you for the kind comments about my first 'proper' walk. I'd certainly like to try some more in the future.

I wanted to tell you about the the lectures I attended at the FoQ. I'd certainly recommend having a look at them next year.
So my first one was Pauline Burbridge - what a great artist. She was really interesting. She explained how she planned her year and the process she used to make her pieces - she was very generous with sharing her sketchbooks. She makes 2 types of work now - large pieces and then pieces on a more domestic scale; these latter pieces allow her to develop a theme. She had a exhibition space at the festival - well worth a look.

Next was Maggie Gray. She is so enthusiastic (and very funny)- even though she'd only got back within the last week from a trip to Australia. She was great. My head was spinning by the end of the session as she told us all about so many processes and how she did things. A great speaker. Maggie did have a stall last year but didn't this time. Please do have a look at her blog as she is very generous with her ideas.

And finally was Regina Benson. She makes spectacular pieces. Many of them are bought by corporations as they need big spaces top be seen at their best. She had some great slides and again, like all the quilters and artist I have hear speak, was very generous with her techniques. She is also a member of the Surface Design Association - they had a stand at the show and you could buy their magazines. the magazines have in depth interviews with artists and each one has a theme. I was able to find one with an interview of Pauline Burbridge - a great find.

The show is always a great opportunity to meet up with friends. I was lucky enough to see Jane from Sew Create it, Bren Boardman (my great teacher at the Bramble Patch and a fab artists in her own right) and lost of other people I've seen at classes.

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the Bank Holiday.

I know it's the Festival of Quilts but...

I had a few days away earlier this week. DH thought it would be nice to share with me his experience of walking the North Yorkshire Three Peaks - so we walked Ingleborough. Unlike him I managed to keep all my toes nails and could manage to walk up the stairs a few days later with ease. LOL.

And yes this photo is from the top - in August - I know it should be sunny - but as you can see it was a little overcast and a little windy.

And here I am at the trig point. I did have a hat on but it blew off once and I didn't have enough energy to run after it again.

I'm really proud of myself for getting up there as its the first 'proper' walk I've ever done.

Anyway - I'm off to FoQ again in a mo - so hopefully I'll bump into a few of you there.

Have a great weekend.

More stuff from Quorn

I'm so glad you enjoyed looking at the quilts in the same pattern - but different colours. I hope you like the other examples here in the All Star jelly roll quilt.

Anyway - next week is the Festival of Quilts at the NEC. Are any of you going? I'm there on Friday and Saturday so hope to see some of you there.

Have a good weekend