A new Sea page!

My page has arrived from Maya. It is so lovely, with such a lot of detail not immediately apparent.



There is a lot of hand stitching, with lots of beads simulating the movement of the sea. The stitches holding the fabric in place remind me of Kantha stitching. There are many pieces of foil, and silk making up the background, all adding to the texture.
The piece is edged in handworked blanket stitch. I wish my stitches could be so neat.



Adding to the detail, there are sequins added in to the back of the blanket stitch edging. What a lovely idea!



Here is Maya's letter, giving some idea of the techniques she has used.



Thanks so much Maya, I love my new page.

My June Page from Chris

Here is the gorgeous silk paper page that I received from Chris. The page is off white and the colors in the photos are off and you really need to see it in person to see how beautiful it is. Thanks Chris!

Here's a close up. You can see some of the French knots giving the tree texture.

And here are the roots with more French knots.

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."

All White Page for Debi!!

Now hat I know that Debi has recieved her All White Page, in her new home in Everete, Washington, I am happy to share pictures of my work with you!!
I had such fun creating this page. I started it during the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics and I have to admit that there were several times when I actually had to stop working and watch some fo the amazing program!! I did stitch away on the piece throughout the first weekend of the games and was sorry when I finished it!! I have been inpired to go on and create several more all white pieces for other projects, however!
For this piece, I used all vintage bits from my stash and I put it all together using only hand stitches. It was such a relaxing piece to work on! I am trying very very hard to use just what I have and use some of my favorite hoarded things. This way I can continue on the hunt for more wonderful textile pieces!!!

I created the puffed heart using a snippett of a silk scarf to cover a padded cardboard heart cut out, that I then added pearl seed beads to. I wanted to be sure to add a heart to the collage as I was creating this page during Valentines month. I used pieces of tatting, some wonderful heavy floral trim( mostly up near the arch) some creamy crocheted lace and some bobbin lace (down at the bottom). The background fabric is part of an enormous damask napkin with a beautiful Poppy pattern woven in, but with so much going on , I am afraid that the damask pattern got rather overwhelmed.In several spots I tucked in some creamy big fresh water pearls and some Mother of Pearl Buttons- my favorites!!! For the edging, I couched pure white cotton yarn (two rows) along the seam between the front and the back. The back was also made from the same vintage Damask napkin used for the front. Those napkins have an amazing amount of fabric in them and Are a wodnerful source for hand dyeing fabric as well!!!

I am so glad that you like your page Debi!! I certainly enjoyed every stitch!!!!