Dreaming Spirals

While I was taking the photo of the biscuits, I noticed a colourful arrangement of fruit on a dish and thought how artistic it looked.

Here is a detail. I’m sure this could be inspiration for something…

An exciting package arrived at the end of last week from the knitting cooperative I am in. No, not yarn this time! It was two pins, or brooches, I had ordered, from Designs by Romi, for pinning shawls and things together.

A lovely cloisonne brooch:

And a spiral one with a pin to stick in it to secure it. I’ve already tested this one on my clapotis and it works very well!

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I managed to get a photo of the last few lemon biscuits before they all disappeared! Here they are!

And here is the promised photo of one of the fruits of the ‘triffid’ - alias a squash, I think. I took a ruler outside to it (how sad is that?) and it is 3 and a half inches long and about 3 inches wide at the widest point.

I had a visit from one of my blog readers on Friday! Bella, who lives in Israel, saw my photo of the new bridge in Newport and realised that that was where her son had just moved to! So she called to see me on Friday while visiting him. She took a photo of us, so I will post it here if she kindly sends me a copy - hope you had a lovely time in Newport, Bella! She bought me a present - I looked it up on the internet and it is called a hamsa. Here it is:

Thank you Bella!

I also did a bit of sewing last week - I’m in a postcard group called DodgersPostcards and I’m making some, hoping that they will inspire a bigger piece ultimately. Here is a teaser, so not to give the game away!!

It is half term this week but it is eerily quiet at the moment because two of the kids went for a sleepover last night and haven’t yet returned. But their friends are going to have one here tonight so I am enjoying the peace while it lasts! I have been busy clearing a space on DS3’s floor for one of the mattresses.

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I’ve just finished reading an interview with Carol Miller of Quilt University about how she came to start it. It’s interesting to see how it all started…

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I think I’m going through a fallow period with regard to my art. So I haven’t had anything much to post in the last week. I’ve been busy doing lots of cooking (sorry, no photos before it was all hogged!) - lemon biscuits, chocolate biscuit cake, chocolate brownies, trying out new recipes but forgetting my camera in the various stages of preparation. And when it stops raining I’ll venture into the garden and take a photo of the one squash from my ‘triffid’ which seems to be growing more than a few inches!

Here are a few images to brighten up your day, from various holidays…

A fallen tree stump covered with moss inspires me with its texture:

And a few flowers: these were growing in Haverfordwest Castle which we visited on our holiday to Pembrokeshire:

A spray of unknown white flowers:

I wonder what these insects on this flower are?

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On Saturday I took the kids to Pontypool Park, which is about 10 miles away. There is a dry ski slope there which they have already been to without me, and two of them spent an hour on it, while DS2 and I found some chestnuts. Afterwards I dragged them up the hill to look at the shell grotto - unfortunately this was closed but they got a bit of exercise anyway! Then on the way down I remembered my camera… duh!

It was quite a misty day which adds to the atmosphere.

Above the path is where the ski run and ski lift go.

We had to go through this tunnel to get under the ski slope. The kids enjoyed this bit…

Patterns through the trees…

This isn’t the park - we went for a walk just north of Monmouth on Sunday and saw these toadstools.

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Here are some of the other marbled fabrics which I made last week.

Triangles…

This is the same size as the others but I turned it round vertically in the photo software because I thought the lines looked better that way. I love the delicate patterning.

Spirals…

Spider’s webs…

Another spiral, this time with just two colours.

I also did a few on already-dyed fabric, which came out well.

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Look what I bought for half price last week! This is for doing some natural dyeing in - stainless steel so it doesn’t affect the colour and I can keep it just for that.

Remember I won second prize for my Transporter Bridge postcard in the Newport in Bloom art competition? Last Friday, they had an award ceremony and I got this certificate and the little shield and a cheque for £20!!

Yesterday and today I did some marbling with the marbling paints I bought from the creative papercrafts man at Marlborough. Here are some of yesterday’s efforts:

This is a detail of the above. I did this on calico, which took the paints really well.

Here are today’s fabrics busy drying. They are just a bit bigger than A4 size - I did the marbling in a large cat litter tray!

Before you ask, no I don’t have any immediate plans for using these! I seem to be going through a ‘playing’ phase at the moment. I read a brilliant post today at Gabrielle Swain’s blog, Handmaiden, about designing and working in series. I want to get a series going so that I can develop my art and work with an idea to its maximum, but none of the themes I have used so far really grab me. Can anyone see an emergent style or series in any of my work which maybe I haven’t spotted?! Apart from the postcard series…

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I know a lot of you were interested to see what I made in the Personal Symbols course which I took with Susan Sorrell earlier in the year. I noticed just now on perusing the Joggles website that Susan is teaching it again starting on October 24th. Here are the details about it if anyone is interested.

If you want to see the relevant posts from my blog, click on the ‘creativity’ and ‘painting’ categories in the sidebar.

I really must get going again … I seem to be at a full stop with my creativity over the last few months (apart from splashy stuff like dyeing of course!).

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