A bit of Spring Sunshine in the House.

Now that there's a nice bit of spring sunlight coming into the bedroom I thought

I'd give you a little peek of the new blue walls

In keeping with the theme of this blog which is showing off showcasing

the things I've made, I'd like to humbly draw your attention to the following:

The Curtains, Pelmets and Tie-backs have all been designed and made by Moi.

The mannequin on the left is a work in progess and I have great plans for him that involve my collection of
Men's ties. Today, however he is modelling for you one of my original designs...the 'GIRL-TIE'

i.e a scarf for a girl made by delicately handsewing 2 men's ties together.

One of these ties bears the insignia "Nepal Police" ....

I don't know if this is a good thing or not ?

Is is just me ,or does everyone else think I'm a genius very shy?

Patchworking : Part 3

There is a deadline looming and it's full steam ahead with the Patchworking.




My laptop .
I'm being enveloped by an ever-growing technicoloured dream quilt.







Copies of my mother out-laws 'Irish patchwork society newsletter ' have proven to
be a very useful template source, not only for the images and texture but also for 
the dialogue it provokes amongst my inner voices.


In the great Craft -v- Art debate , they've concluded that it all just comes down to language.

This quilt I'm making is going to be a present for someone very special, 
I'm calling it a Labour of Love .

Side project- Sewing: Patchwork 1

This is my very forlorn unfinished patchwork project.



I started it in the depths of winter last year , Our Gas boiler had broken and we were lighting the fire
every night and so beside it I'd sit , hand-sewing, answering only to the name Pegeen Mike .

But then the boiler got fixed and the weather got better.
And to compound matters I started blogging and that's been the ruination of me....

If I finished it, It'd be my first ever patchwork quilt and my kinda mother -'in'-law
Eileen ( Champion Quilter) Fahey who got me started on hexagons will have finally,
after many years of persistence got me to make a quilt.

So , I'm going to take it up again and to help me in that regard ,I got some new fabric stash
at the Knitting and Stitching show last weekend .




The exhibitions at the Knitting and stitching show were textile heaven ...real inspirational stuff ,
especially Louise Baldwin , Lisa Connolly and Kirsty Whitlock and I still can't get the deeply affecting work of
Rozanne Hawlsley out of my head.

You never know where this patchwork might lead.....

lampSHAPES

There's something about this time of year that makes a person take out all the lampshades they've been storing

these photos are from this time last year ...

I'll show you what lampshapes resulted tomorrow.

Side project- textiles:silk screen printing part 2

Last Friday and Saturday I attended another
workshop on silk screen printing given by the
brillant textile designer Liz Nilsson.

There were two main objectives for the workshop


Day 1
1. To make a silk screen.
This I did and here it is.






















Here we are sanding our frames in Liz's beautiful
Sheena Vernon designed back garden
l-r : Cecile, Laura,Moi et Melanie .

















The second objective in day 1 was to learn different ways
of preparing artwork for photographic exposure
which was really interesting

That was a really full day of learning and it
included another collectively 'made' sumptuous lunch.


Day 2,

The objective was to take a klee picture as
your inspiration /starting point and create
a piece of work.

I really hated what I did and can't bear to even show you .
It is horrible . There is no other
way to describe it .
I realised afterwards that I'm too impatient to
mix and build up colours, I want instant block
colour ,that's probably what I love about glass.

One of my fellow course attendees was Laura Freire , a very lovely and very talented spanish woman , and she is also a blogger!



Laura's work is really gorgeous ,It's so precise and perfect , she was the class champion , you can check out her blog on the course here and see her other beautiful work.