OF A FEATHER.......

                                                    AND MORE FRENCH KNOTS!

I had such fun stitching the French knots for my last piece that I wanted to do more. I have also been wanting to use my sewing machine more and so decided to combine the two things.

This piece is worked on an A4 piece of canvas that I coloured first and let dry.

The bird bodies are torn from an old book page and then glued in place. The legs, beaks, tails and outlining of the bodies is all stitched with the machine. French knots were added afterwards.

                                                            I really liked this bird!!

                                                   And this ones beak came out really well!

  I chose the colours for the birds to fit into the PLAY DATE CAFE challenge this week, I haven't entered any challenge for so long I thought it would be fun to get back into doing that occasionally.

FRENCH KNOTS

Yesterday while blog hopping around I saw a piece of work that had some simple stitching and just a few French knots that was so effective I thought I would have a play. Check out the piece I saw here  ALICE AND CAMILLA
So off to a journal I went............I was wondering (I do that a lot now I have so much more time on my hands!!) what I did before I discovered working in  journals? I think they make the perfect places to play around and experiment in especially like yesterday when you see something you want to try out. Instead of working on bits of card etc that you wonder what to do with afterwards you have your journals to look back through.........so much fun!
Anyway back to the stitching.............I stamped the bird and then added the long straight stitches to look like grass and the French knots in amongst.

Next I decided I needed to add a few words and decided to stitch those too.

Finally I decided to stitch this page to the one after it to hide all the mess at the back and did that with just straight stitch around the edges.

DRINK ME, EAT ME

These images would usually be too cute for me but I do make exceptions for subjects I really like and seeing as these are ALICE I was happy to make the exception!
Over the years lots of people have illustrated the Alice in Wonderland story, these images are by Mabel Lucie Atwell and are produced as rubber stamps under licence by THE ARTISTIC STAMPER here in the UK.

 I started out just to do one side of this double page spread but the ink and the stamping "migrated" over to the other page so decided to carry on over onto that page. I printed out the first chapter of the story and then cut selected lines into strips and pasted them onto the page.

Heart and home and flowers

These are a few pages from a small journal that I have been messing around with over the last few days. All the colour is Distress Inks. Can you tell from the last one that I was not feeling very settled that day!!??

And finally, a bit of nonsense.............like my new flower vase?? It seems baked beans are universal!!

Back stage at the opera house

It seems I can still access blogger today so thought I would share some more pics with you, this time of a back stage tour of the opera house. It was all very interesting but the costume storage rooms were fabulous, a little girls dressing- up paradise!

                                                                     Tu-tu anyone??

                                                              Cossack hats?

                                 Ballet shoes waiting to have the wooden bits put in the toes.

                    Wooden shoe lasts...........I would have loved a couple of those to alter!

                                                                     Large set storage.

Could not resist taking this pic..............you know how most of us work with sheets of paper or a pad underneath our work and it collects all the extra ink/paint etc that strays over the sides of the card? Well it seems they do the same in the theatre! This room is where the sets are painted and the whole floor was covered in huge sheets of paper with lots of evidence of recent work!

Quilt exhibition

OK by some strange quirk I am today able to access Blogger and post myself so I am making the most of it to show you some pics from a quilt exhibition I went to last week with the handicrafts group here in Almaty.
The gallery was not the most salubrious looking from the outside but inside was a different story.

The artist whose exhibition it was is called VERA SHERBAKOVA, she was born here in Kazakhstan but now lives and works in Moscow. This was her first exhibition in her native country.
The above pics are of her George and the Dragon quilt. It seems George and the Dragon is a universal theme, not just used as the patron saint of England!!

Interesting detail on another quilt, threads wrapped around sticks..............mmmm can see that idea being used!!

ALMATY JOURNAL PAGE

So here is my first piece of work produced here in Almaty! The three large letters ALA were cut out from one of the labels attached to our packing cases, they are the code letters for Almaty airport!

The corrugated card in the corner of the page came from a box of chocolates I was given last week.

And the white circles were made by dipping a Kazakhstan loo roll middle into gesso!!

COMING BACK TO BLOGGER!

As many of you know I recently moved to live in Kazakhstan. I was really disappointed when I got here to find out that access to Blogger blogs from here is not easy;and it really surprised me to realise how much I love my Blogger blog and the contact it gave me with like-minded people. I have felt quite adrift without it, the old saying you don't know what you have till it's gone is certainly true!

After a while I decided I was going to move to Wordpress as access to that is easier but I REALLY don't like my Wordpress blog, it is not easy to make it fun and funky like this one......I miss my skeleton guys......it feels too business-like.
So,I did some investigating and some chatting my good, good friend Wendy who has volunteered to help me with posting pics which I still can't do from here though I can post text, and I have decided I am going to continue with this blog and abandon the Wordpress one.

Posting might get a bit erratic at times as I have to rely on Wendy and its not like she doesn't have anything else to do but hopefully between us we can manage at least once a week!
That brings me onto another bit of news, there ARE going to be times when I CAN post more often as I am going to be back in the UK more than I thought initially! Watch this space for more news on that in the next few weeks!!

Not Sue..........but Wendy

What a veiw.........................

Hello everybody, this is not Sue but Wendy. Sue is having awful problems getting online to Blogger, she cannot post, cannot leave comments on any Blogger blogs and has decided to give up and try Wordpress instead, which appears to be working.................so
I am here to firstly show you this fantastic scene which is from guess where.............well Kazakhstan ofcourse, but its actually from Sue's bedroom window........how amazing is that?
and to let you know her new blog address over on Wordpress.
Here is the link
and
she would love to hear from you all..............she is a bit art starved just now as her shipping cases are not yet with her but she is having a ball...........
See ya

Before and after

While I was at Port Sunlight on Saturday I "pinched" one of Sarahs demo samples........this bird ATC. Feeling a bit guilty I tried to give it back to which Sarah said "no, take it and give him boots and a hat". So, I did!

Here is the result of my "messing" with it! I only used a black pen!
The bird is made using one of the new Paperartsy cutting dies, the shape is meant to be a leaf but it makes a great bird!

PORT SUNLIGHT

Today was Port Sunlight show! Wendy and I went along not intending to buy anything but just to socialise and pester those that were working!
Here is Sarah demoing hard for Paddy! Always a smiling face :)

Helen working hard on the till.

And Paddy wishing I would take my camera and go away!

Now, you might wonder why Wendy is pulling such an odd face? It's cos they had sold out of what she wanted!! It was a fun if slightly sad day, it was quite hard saying goodbye to so many people.

Is it too soon to mention HALLOWEEN?

A few days ago I noticed that one of my favourite blogs was up and running again (she takes a break for a few months after Halloween)....A NOSTALGIC HALLOWEEN.......and so I was browsing around some of the other blogs listed on there and came across this site........A SKULL A DAY.....what fun!!
On that site was the PDF file to download to make this card skull! I just had to have a go! It was a bit fiddly trying to work out just what went where but I got there in the end.



Then I decided to make another one and decorate it after the style of the traditional sugar skulls that are made in Mexico to celebrate The Day of the Dead.



This is the top, not the best pic but you get the idea!



This is from the side to show the lever thingy sticking out of a slot at the back, if you move it up and down the jaw moves up and down, how clever is that!! It is done with a very clever (and fiddly)folded arrangement inside the skull.

May 15th and other peoples art

First, the news is that I have a leaving date...........I am travelling out to Kazakhstan on May 15th, so only two weeks to go. Stuart has been there since March so we are looking forward to getting back together, moving into our apartment, unpacking boxes and settling into our new life!

Next,I was talking to my friend Wendy yesterday and saying that I don't have any of my art to put on my blog as my stuff is all packed away and I am so busy getting ready to move that my inspiration has disappeared but that I wanted to update the blog with something and she said why not put someone elses art on there? After thinking about that for a bit I thought "why not?" so here is someone elses art!


I have a bit of a "thing" for jewellery, well more than a bit of a thing if I'm honest, I love it, especially if it is a unique, one of a kind piece. So, when I go away I am always on the look-out for that piece that takes my eye and this owl pendant certainly did that! I bought it in Antigua in Guatemala, it is handmade after the local tradition and is signed on the back by the artist. It is actually a locket, it hinges from the bottom and you are meant to put a lock of hair inside but I think I will pass on that!


This necklace and earring set was bought on the market in Oaxaca. It is micro-macrame.......there was quite a lot of that around.........and handmade by the bloke on the stall.

And then there are these little beauties!!! I mean how could I resist???? Silver skeletons, come on???

What a trip!

Since I arrived home on Wednesday I have been so tired I have not been inclined to make anything so I don't have any of my own art to show you so I thought I'd give you a mini travelog.

Before I went to Mexico I wasn't sure what I was going to like most. Was it going to be the gob smacking archaeological sites...........above and below is TIKAL (in Guatemala)




This is PALENQUE.......


and this is Teotihuacan just outside of Mexico City


or the plant and animal life.............Coatimundi at Tikal.....


fabulous cactus as big as trees.........


and gorgeous flowering trees............or the art


fun skeleton stuff outside a shop in Oaxaca.......I loved this!!....


Aztec calendar (apparently it's not a calendar at all) in the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City


Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City............all these things were above and beyond my expectations.

What I didn't like was:
13 hour flight from Guatemala to Madrid
6 hours in a queue to be told there was nothing the airline would do to help
26 hours on a coach from Madrid to Calais
ferry crossing to Dover
more coach to Gatwick
train into London
train home!!!!!!
I finally arrived back late on Wednesday afternoon instead of on Sunday. However I count myself lucky compared to a lot of other people who were trying to get home at the same time. I have to say a big thank you to the company we travelled with EXPLORE who were fantastic in organising the coach and ferry crossing for us and getting us home safely.

MEXICO HERE I COME!!

I had planned on a journal page to blog today but an emergency call from my husband for more paperwork for our Kazakhstan move while I was in the changing rooms of Marks and Spencers put paid for that! After four hours of trying to sort things out I was losing the will to live never mind create and blog!!!

So, I am off to Mexico tomorrow for two weeks of R&R, I can't wait to get on that plane! Watch this space after April 19th for pics of my adventures!!

Take care till then!!