The Sea has arrived!

Now, isn't this delightful. I was thrilled to receive a package through my letterbox this morning from Liz. This is my June page - a little late, but it was well worth waiting for...........

All those lovely details.



I just love the beaded blue coral. The textures are just gorgeous.



Just look at the stitching on the seahorse. It looks like there are such stories he, or she could tell of adventures amidst the coral.



The fabric for the back of the page itself just could not have been more perfect.

And the letter from Liz, tells of the techniques she has used.

Oh Liz, I do agree about being near the sea. It is a magical place, with all the smells and sounds. I live right in the centre of Cheshire, a county almost in the heart of the UK. But you are right, a journey time of around an hour and a half will bring me to the coast. I am so fortunate.

Thanks so much for my page. I look forward to day when I can put all my lovely pages together and make them into a book. I intend to exhibit the book when it has been made, but do not know where, or when, just yet.

Coastline.

As requested by Chris, here is the page I made for her.



I had originally started this piece using felt which I had made. Sadly, I just could not make this first version work. It just did not feel right.
I knew that the coastline I wanted to share was the area around Formby Point in Lancashire. This is one of my favourite places. Not very far from the famous Blackpool beach, Formby is quiet, the dunes are a fascinating place to visit. Also there are coniferous woodlands here, a nature reserve with one of the last places where Red Squirrels can be found.
A series of visits to the library followed. My favourite of all the books I borrowed was this one.
ISBN: 10 - 1905400381 (or 13 - 978-1905400386)



This photograph showed the dunes I so wanted to share.



After a lot of painting, and handstitching, my once white sheet turned into this scene. I added figures applied using bondaweb.



I had found a suitable photograph on the internet, so tried to copy this. The photo above shows the scene I was building against the photograph I had found.
On top of this I used a couple of maps of the area printed onto silk gauze.




Along with the page, I added this explanation.

And this list of the materials used in the construction.

Two for the price of one!!

Today I collected more flowers plus a beautiful card! I hope I've done them justice here. Actually when I scanned the card front in the picture showed a lot more colour and depth than I could see with my naked eye! I am honoured by the page - Ruth says she has done so much more handstitching on those tiny flowers than normal, they are beautiful, thank you Ruth. But the border is scrumptious-layers with sheers then bound with a lovely silky cord. This is a page of many parts; thank you so much Ruth

Seashore

This is the page I sent at the end of March for Juliette, so I do hope that she won't mind my posting about it. I was so glad to hear that it had arrived.

The photo in the insert was taken on the island of Grand Turk in the Caribbean.

I included a description of the piece, which you can read about here. (Just click on the photo and it will enlarge.)

I had been lucky enough to travel to the Caribbean on a cruise earlier this year, and knew that this spot had to be used for Juliette's "Seashore page". The colours of the sea were truly amazing. Living in the UK, the sea always seems various shades of grey with some blues. This depends on the time of year, of course. In the region of the Caribbean, the colours were so intense, it really took my breath away. I took a number of photographs.

One shows the sand and a footprint left by the man I had seen sweeping the leaves from the beach a few hours earlier. I had woken very early just as dawn was rising and was able to watch activities to clean the beach ready for the passengers to disembark. It is truly surreal to see a huge cruise ship visit such a tiny island. It dwarfs everything around it. But life goes on as usual, calm and unhurried.

As I had mentioned to Juliette, I was reminded of a passage from a children's book much loved by my own daughters when they were younger. I was able to share the book with the classes I taught too. You can read it below. Margaret Mahy is a superb writer. I love her descriptions, they are so vivid. The photo is of a scan I made of the page in my battered, much read copy.

Should you wish to read it for yourselves, the ISBN number of my copy is this: 0-14-050624-1.

It is called "The man whose mother was a pirate."

A seashore for Juliette

Well, your page is a mass of pins at the moment, Juliette. At least I have started it. I can't wait to get rid of said pins though. Not good for the fingers............

A funny story for you. I had finished painting some muslin (loose woven cotton) when I heard a sound behind me. My cat Felix had jumped up and yes, landed on said still damp fabric............. He was stunned to a rather, for him, unusual silence when I grabbed him and marched him off to the bathroom to wash his paws. Strangely enough, there was no trace of his paw prints on the fabric....................... it was the only thing that saved my sanity. That, and his staying out of my way until tea-time.

Isn't it surprising just how quickly a human can be forgiven when it is time for food..................?

Learning more about the sea.

Ruth, thanks so much for my third page. It is stunning! It was waiting for me this evening when I got home. I was so excited when I opened the package and found this gorgeous piece of work.



Ruth chose the following quotation for the back:

"The sea, once it casts it's spell, holds one in it's net of wonder forever."
- Jacques Cousteau.



The whole page is beautiful. I just love the detail in the structure of the jellyfish.
To cap it all, Ruth has sent me a wonderful hand made card.



I shall leave you to read her description of the piece of work. (Just click on the photograph and you should be able to read the words clearly.)



Like Ruth has, I have learnt a lot from this page. She speaks of the environmental concerns regarding the growing numbers of jellyfish. Something I had really not even considered.

Thanks so much Ruth. I really feel that I have a lot to learn about the sea, even though I had chosen it as my theme. Perhaps this is something I could use when I start to compile my pages into a book. Definitely food for thought there..................

Leaves for Maya.

Beneath are some of the scraps which made up my palette.



Some of the stitching in progress.



Your page will be setting off on it's journey to you Maya, in the morning. I do hope that you will like it........................

Playing with leaves.

This is just a quick post to show the result of playing around with fabric paints.

Yesterday, I was lucky to find a box of ten Setacolor Opaque fabric paints. I had gone into a shop looking for two or three colours to enhance my diminishing stock of colours, but came out with rather more than I had intended. The box made much more sense............ more colours to play with!



So this morning, I had some fun playing around with colours. I hope this might turn into the base layer for the page I shall be completing for Maya this month. Her theme is "Leaves".

Starting

Just starting to think about Maya's leaves pages which is my January one. Have decided to use coloured fabric and different embroidery stitches and the shapes of different leaves. Hope it works! Here's some stuff I might use and also what I think is the start of the page, very crumpled as I just dumped it on the scanner!