John and I have just been away for a few days to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. We went back to Lewtrenchard on the edge of Dartmoor and took the girls with us while the other two stayed at home.
There was some of this
More than a few miles of beach
A bit of being real fire dogs
And, of course, lots and lots of very noisy.......
I think they enjoyed themselves!
Back home I have been having the itch to decorate so we are starting to make a few in roads to that. Creatively I've finished off a few silly bits, you've either seen or it's knitting crochet type like this bag.
I saw the crochet basket weave stitch for doing a blanket and loved it. It's also a great scrap buster as you use three strands of yarn so my bulging yarn bag is now a little less fat. There was also another charity dog quilt which I forgot to photograph before wrapping it for posting! I will ask the recipient to send me one when she receives it.
On Monday I took myself off to Salisbury to finally see the Ancient Landscapes exhibition in the Salisbury Museum.
Well there were some Turners, Ravilious and Constables, several Henry Moore sketches (above) and a Barbara Hepworth sculpture (below) all playing on the theme of our amazing and beautiful local landscape which, of course, includes many, many barrows and Stonehenge.
I love the history of where I live and can spend ages sitting on barrows where I walk the dogs along the Ackling Dyke and Dorset Cursus just absorbing it all.
Also at the museum, which has some very fine artefacts, was a small textile exhibition History Through the Eye of a Needle by the Machine Embroidery Group. A book by someone it seems I didn't take a photo of their name and vessel by Adrianne Woodfine caught my eye.
Village meeting tonight and the pub AGM and I'm trying to write a bit up for the Workshop on the Web new bookazine which will be coming out in December. I'm back to making lists to try and keep on top of myself as there is also a commission to do, a couple more bits for the November exhibition and life in general to live with four looney dogs. I need a coffee!
I've had a tub of wonderful shells for a few years now and a lot of them I've collected with the specific purpose of making books. I have actually achieved this on a few occasions but this last couple of weeks I had another rummage as the urge was upon me again!
The scallop shells were pretty standard but the enormous cockle shells (those are 5cm squares they are sitting on) needed a little thought. I ended up grading the pages to fit the concave shells better. Rather pleased with them.
I will actually take some decent photos soon!!
There was another scroll book finished too and I have another in the pipeline which still needs a little thought.
I also put together this little palm sized notebook in leather.
It feels lovely to hold and I can see where I could take different fabrics to make covers with this one. Perhaps a few to sell at the Art Weeks for the GSP Rescue UK charity.
One thing I have been working on for a little while is another compendium. This one came from the fact that I bought this beautiful, chunky frame some time ago and then promptly broke the glass in it.
I am constantly on the lookout for little bits of 'stuff'. They usually end up on display in my printers trays but I do have a basket where I collect up things that will need a home at some point or another. This was the perfect chance to showcase them. That and I had a clock mechanism to use too and it all came together nicely. As with my other ones there is still spaces to fill but these things do evolve. And to clean them you just use a soft paint brush, just in case you were wondering.
I have several little bits on the go like knitting and crochet and also a bit of a bead-a-long with Fran Griffith for National Beaders Week so no excuses to be bored at the moment!
I hope the sun eventually decides to show it's face again up here soon though I do feel for those in southern Europe at the moment.
Happy creating!
