Storm Doris

The wind is strengthening and the rain is lashing on my workroom windows. I think it may be a  bit of a rough day ( that being the understatement of the day ). *

Time to take stock of all the beautiful ‘collectables’ that have accumulated over time and now languish in jars and boxes. Some of the pieces bring back memories of childhood, the sea glass from holidays around Britain, the small bits of broken china from family pieces.  Sorting through old family button boxes always conjures up memories of clothes we wore as children and from my own children now.

In the past I have arranged small items on old paint charts as you will have seen in past posts and I thought I would do that again. Also I picked up a chart from a more expensive paint company and it’s  huge. The colours are gorgeous and the names are way over the top…names such as ‘Mad King George’,’ Cleopatra’s Nose’ and ‘Jazz Cafe’.

With 120 spaces to fill you would think that I could just delve into the jars and fill every space easily but no, finding samples to go with the colour or the title took some doing.So here is the final result mounted on a frame Mr Malc made me and it now hangs in my work room.

A piece of shell my daughter bought back from Australia, a piece of dried lichen, a button from a coat I wore when I was 6.

Glass, pebbles,a cup handle….

A tiny shell my Mother-in-law always kept in her purse for good luck….

Flint from the Norfolk beaches…..

And lots of sea worn glass…..thank you Lucy……

 

* Hope all of you who are being blown about by Storm Doris batten down the hatches and stay safe…. Sue

 

Goldfinches

Now is not the time for getting to grips with the garden, no matter how much I long to get out there it’s far too wet. This means I can order yet more seeds…done….Read gardening magazines….just too frustrating. What better then than doing some sewing…

Well last weekend it was the RSPB’s bird watch count and as we all know lots of birds are facing problems what with loss of habitat and the use of chemicals to name a couple. So Monday morning I couldn’t believe my eyes when outside my workroom window were 20 + Goldfinches. We have had Goldfinches now for quite a number of years but I’ve never seen so many at one time. Sparrows use to be the most seen bird in many gardens, even when we lived as children in the built up areas of our city you would always see sparrows. Now they are becoming much rarer. After seeing the Goldfinches I had to get something down in stitch.

You may remember me making a journal that I was going to fill with painted and stitched images, well I have managed to fill a few pages as I have posted in the past. So here is my latest page…..

Using scraps of fabric and dyed silk, I first made shapes and bonded them to a backing fabric. With my old Bernina I free machined over the shapes building up a texture with more and more stitching, adding an eye with a tiny bronze sequin and bead. Once I was happy with this I cut the shape out, padded it slightly under the body and glued this to one of the pages.

The back ground is made up of paint and torn painted paper glued to the page.

I am quite happy with the image. So now I’ve managed to filled another page. I started the journal in 2009 and this is only my 4th image so it will take me a while yet to fill it.

Now looking for more inspiration……….. Sue