Family, food and fun.

Gather round one and all.

nothing like a good baord game on Christmas day.

Caught stuffing their faces on left over meat barms. Yummy.

He is scrolling through his mums I phone looking at pictures.

The high light of Christmas for me this year was being with my family.  Christmas night we all went to our Natalie's and had a great time, playing games, chatting and laughing and of course eating lots of delicious food. To night is the eve of a new year and I am so looking forward to 2012 and all that it brings.  So with that said I would like to wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year xx xx

Special gifts.

Pin cushion lid on a jar of buttons from my fantastically good friend Sue.

Latest homemade decoration by the amazingly creative Janet. 

A very me danglie from Janet also.

This adorable handmade bird from my lovely friend Gwen.

Last night was our Liverbird Christmas party and a good time was had by all. We had a couple of fun quizzes courtesy of my very quietly spoken and lovely friend Judith. We had yummy nibbles to eat and of course Jenny's amazing Pavlova's mmmmm! The mug rug challenge was met with lots of oohs and arrrs and quite a few people walked away with little prizes. The whole evening was full of love friendship and laughter. I am so very very blessed that all of these women are in my life and even more blessed that I can call them all, my lovely, amazingly, wonderful friends. From the bottom of my heart I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a fab 2012. xxx

The kitchen and a Poinsettia.

My kitchen and living room are open plan.

Poinsettia cushion for my Auntie Mary

My living room and kitchen are now open plan and whilst I lost a tiny bit of living room space I gained quite a bit of kitchen space.

Every Christmas I buy my Auntie Mary a specific pair of slippers but this year I wanted to get her something different. My lovely friend Janet (who always has the most amazing ideas) made her mother in law a Christmas cushion. I thought oooo I will make one for our Mary. I have this lovely poinsettia applique pattern from an old Popular Patchwork magazine. The image was designed by the very talented Patricia Archibald. It took me a little while but I found the magazine and set to work. I am pleased to say that I only had to buy the zip and the cushion the rest came from my fabric stash. I think it has turned out really well and i hope our Mary will like it.

A christmas tree with a view.

The Living room

The veiw from the window.

Bag of decorations and a note.

My contribution to the comunal Christmas tree.

I have the most fantastic veiw from my flat. I over look the river Mersey and Bootle docks. My neice Paige said she does not like the veiw because it is too industrial but I love it because it is the heart of Bootle and its birth.  I know my photo does not really do the view justice but if you look closely as I took the picture a ferry is sailing up the river.

Yesterday there was a knock on the door and when Colin opened it he was greeted by a bag of Christmas decorations and a note saying dress me. In the corridor somebody had place a rather misserable looking Christmas tree. I am very particular about Christmas decorations and as you can see from my home I like minamalism so I had mixed emotions about this tree being in the corridor. I decided not to be a bar humbug and ask for the tree to be removed and decided to do my bit of the tree very tasteful. The last photo is what I did with the bits from the bag. I did however return the gold tinsel to the neighbour whose bright idea this was with a note of my own saying "I do not do tinsel its very tacky". I have not been out in the corridor since so I do not know if any of the other neighbours have added to the tree as apparently we all got a bag of decorations and a note.  Watch this space and I will let you know.

Welcome to my Home Sweet Home...

Welcome to my home x

the hall

My sewing room.

My mug rug.

At last I have found the time to post. Life has been so busy what with moving home and college I have barely had time to breath. Today I managed to completely arrange my sewing room and it is now fully functional.  My beautiful Bernie is sitting on her own big table and she is just calling out to me. I am itching to sew but alas I have far to much college homework so I will have to wait a little while longer.  I do not wish to bore anyone with just pics of my home so I decided to share the mug rug I have made for our Liverbird challenge.

A New Home

At last I have moved back to my fabulous flat that over looks the river mersey. All being well I will be back on line on the 8th December. I would just like to thank those of you who follow my blog for all your patience. xx

Soooooo frustrated.

Hello to all who glimpse at my blog in the hope I have returned. Unfortunately I am afraid not. I have still not moved home as the handing over of the block to one vission housing on 28 October did not happen. As I was not in my flat today I had to cancell my bt appointment for today and the next available appointment was the 2nd December. I have not been given any new dates for the move and it is all very up setting. I am at my sisaters today doing some homework using her internet so I thought I would give you a quick update. xx

Finally going home.

Just a quick post to let you all know I am going to be off line for about two weeks as I will be moving home next weekend. Thank you to those followers who are being very patient with my few posting due to other commitments. xxx

Some sewing at last....

 A few months ago I had an idea for a wall hanging. Here is the idea in my sketch book.

Several weeks ago I dyed the fabric for my wall hanging.

 A few days after I dyed the fabric I began the machine quilting. Then all came to a stand still for college.

Today I started to work on my water carrier.

I decided to have a break from the intensity of the never ending homework and do some much need sewing.  After Harrogate this year, I designed a new wall hanging for next year. (I know, I'm a bit early but it might take me that long to complete it).  It is based on my star sign, Aquarius, the water carrier. I started by doodling in my sketch book, ideas that popped into my head. Then I looked at star signs in magazines to help with the zodiac symbols.  This is what I have designed and the next step was to transfer it from the sketch book to fabric. Today I hand painted the head and shoulders of my lovely water carrier on to calico and I did some more free motion machine quilting. I have really enjoyed being back in the world of creating something with a end product. Whilst I do enjoy all the experimenting in college I sometimes miss that little bit of structure. 

Skull duggery.....

Collagraph made from funky foam using an image of a skull.

I have printed the image on to this lovely red scarf.

I have one week left of the two week rotation. Phew! where does the time go??? The topic for this rotation is The Body and the sub heading is under the skin. This can be interpreted any way you like. I decided to go for what lies directly under the skin.  I have been doing lots and lots of experiments using all kinds of mediums and techniques with images of under the skin.  In this experiment I have made a collagraph by tracing an image of a skull on to funky foam. I then cut the shape out and with a Biro added detail by drawing into the funky foam. I glued the foam to a piece of cardboard and rolled some ink over the top.  First I printed the image on some paper. I really liked the effect so I tried it on calico and some white cotton fabric. The results where fantastic. I then saw this cheap scarf on my way home through town and I wondered if I could print the skull image onto it. I think it has turned out really well. Alas I am all skulled out now and I have gone back to working with the image of under the skin.

I still love shoes...

Take a shoe and draw several pictures.

Using garden wire make a sculpture of the shoe

First let me apologise for the lack of post recently. Unfortunately I am snowed under with work for college and I have no free time to sew at the moment.  I attended the Regional day on Saturday and as always I had a fantastic time. Sandra Meach was the speaker in the morning and Cauldron quilters thoroughly entertained us in the afternoon with a show an tell of there amazing quilts and challenges.  An added bonus was that I won a raffle prize, four gorgeous pieces of half metres of fabric.  I have just finished the last of the eight rotations, the final one was 3D.  Here is my shoe sculpture. it is only small and reminds me of a little cinderella slipper.

Right up my street......

Mono printing.

Image of David I took from a magazine to do a mono print.

A new rotation began on Thursday textiles surface design and I was truly in heaven. We began the day by drawing our hands using many different techniques of drawing. This was then followed by making a collagraph from one of the hand drawings out of funky foam and printing it. Next we moved onto mono printing and I was smitten. This technique of printing works so well on fabric and the beauty is you do not have to be a fantastic artist because its all about tracing the outline of an image on top of the ink. As you can see I used a advert that I found in a magazine, I just loved the image of the statue David and I thought it would work well to experiment with. I think surface pattern is going to be my specialist subject and I am really looking forward to being able to incorporate these techniques into my quilts.

All the fun of the fair.....

Cole and Michaela on the carousel.

Yesterday I spent some much needed quality time with my family. I went to Southport with my sister, my niece, my daughter and my adorable grandson. Despite the heavy showers we had a very enjoyable day.  Today it is back to the homework and the house work oh well no rest for the wicked as they say. :) 

Fine art mixed media....

We where given a black plastic bag with an object in. You where not allowed to look in the bag at all.  You had to put your hand into the bag feel the object and draw what you thought it was.  My object was a camera.

The lesson was what is the definition of drawing.  Is it pencil and paper or can it be simply a mark made on a surface. Here i have stuck torn pieces of masking tape to paper painted over the tape with ink then removed it. Is it a drawing????

The exercise above developed onto the theme chance. Here I have used embroidery thread as my choice of medium, fabric and paper then sewn random line stitches.

I then used several of the threads together and twister them as I pulled them through the fabric.

This weeks rotation started off with photo shop and it was terrifying. Me and technology nooooooo, give me a paint brush and paint anytime, not a computer. I was a complete novice and struggled terribly through the sessions, even with a one to one with the tutor. The next rotation was Fine Art mixed media and I have had a fab time. Some people may call this type of art " Blue Peter moments".  I  really enjoyed experimenting and trying to find the lost child artist in me.  You know when you did a picture in school, maybe of your Mum and it didn't matter that her hair was green or one eye was far bigger than the other. Or maybe you drew a picture of the family dog and it had five legs and halt a tail.   I enjoy the freedom of nothing is wrong its just all about development and freedom of expression. Oooo get me using long words and philosophizing about art, I need to watch I don't start calling everybody darling and explaining the true meaning behind the un-made bed? ;)

And so it begins......

We had to bring in interesting objects to draw.  This is a one minute sketche of a whisk head, some icing pipes and a cork.

Continous line drawing of whisk heads a cork and a energy light bulb.

Draw the person next to you using a continous line in three minutes.

Fir cone using continous line, four minute drawing.

Fir cone drawing taken one step further and made into a lino print.

Research artist who use print in their work.

Collage's of the artist I researched over the weekend.

Well what can I say? My journey into college life and the Arts has begone and it looks like it is going to be a very fast paced. This week has been more than a shock to the system, early mornings, long days and late nights. Oh and on top of all this I have had a chest infection which has soooo not helped, I feel I have mainly coughed my way through the lessons.  At the moment we are in tutorial groups, until you pick a specialist subject and then the group will split up.  There are eight lectures, therefore eight tutorial classes. I did see a couple of other mature lady students in the hall on the first day and I was so relieved, however, they are not in my tutorial.  I am completely surrounded by 18 to 19 year olds, which believe it or not was quite intimidating.  With that said they have all made me feel really welcome and I was invited to join several of the girls for lunch at the noodle bar on Thursday, Bless! The next invitation was to join them for a drink after college on Friday (we finish at 12.30) but I graciously declined as I was meeting Michaela for lunch (who is so supportive but I think may be feeling a little neglected as I have not seen her or Cole for over a week).  Well my homework is complete so I better get on with some house work.

Lifes a little hectic........

Hello all, just a quick post to say unfortunately I will not be posting for a little while. The reason being is because I have started my Art Foundation Diploma course and life is a little hectic at the minute. Once things settle and I get into the swing of the new routine, I will post all about the new journey I am on.  I am sure I will not be away from my beloved blog for very long but I just wanted my lovely little followers to know why it is currently quiet.  :)

At last......

I won a judges merit at Harrogate for my Twelve days of Christmas.

Sue with her block of the month quilt.

Kathy next to her New York Beauty.

Sue standing by her miniature quilt.

Janet came second in the cushion category.

Sue's lovely forest floor cushion.

Janet's Spring flowers quilt.

Yesterday I went to Harrogate with my good friends Janet, Sue and Emma and we had a great day. However, the icing on the cake was that I won a Judges Merit rosette and I am truly delighted. I would like to thank all my lovely friends in Liverbirds for their never ending support, encouragement and belief in me.  My family are really proud of me and I can not wait to show them the rosette in person.