Venetian Blue

Reflecting Winter and Spring

2011-12-02T11:10:00.022Z

This small Moleskine journal is the third of my designs that I have hand screenprinted onto notebooks in the studio:

This original design, drawn by me, was inspired by the ferns and icicles of a small frozen waterfall in the Welsh village of Llanarmon DC:

In the spring of 2009 I was asked to participate in an outside exhibition in the village and therefore screenprinted my Reflecting Winter and Spring design onto aluminium:

It seemed quite natural to play around with the scale of my design and first I printed it onto cards and then onto the Moleskine. The journal is quite handy, easy to carry and is perfect for note taking and making lists in - it can be found in my etsy shop here

Celia Birtwell's Artisan Printers

2011-11-11T16:09:00.003Z

This video shows some amazing printing by one of England's last remaining Artisan Printers for the textile designer Celia Birtwell. I would love to spend some time in there watching them print:

Jervaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire

2011-09-05T19:00:00.024+01:00

A few weeks ago we spent a week in North Yorkshire and were truly blessed with good weather. On one of our excursions out we visited Jervaulx Abbey which is a 12th Century Cistercian abbey and has to be one of the most enchanting places I have visited. The abbey is privately owned and the grounds are immaculately kept (whilst losing non of its charm) and is wonderful to walk through with so many lovely vistas and walkways:

Beautiful flora and fauna everywhere:

There were so many beautiful views and these are just a handful of my photos here. It is such a peaceful place, I can't wait to go back again sometime:

If you do however become tired of this tranquil setting you can always relocate to the abbey tea rooms or the ice cream parlour next door at High Jervaulx Farm.

Florentine Lilies - hand screenprinted Moleskine notebook

2011-08-19T10:18:00.007+01:00

I have started adding these screen printed Moleskine journals to the range of goods that I print by hand using water based inks in the studio:

I previously printed my Florentine Lilies design onto cards using white cardstock. However, I am really pleased with how different my design looks when printed onto the brown craft paper of the Moleskine journal. These are available in my Etsy shop here.

Inky.Prints.Two Treasury - 'Bridge of Sighs, Venice' card

2011-07-14T18:49:00.005+01:00

The lovely Hannah from Hanmade has featured my 'Bridge of Sighs, Venice' card in her Etsy Treasury Inky.Prints.Two. I love all the colours that she has used in the Treasury and think that the contrasts between the blues and the oranges and reds are great. Thank you Hannah :-)

Indian Block Printing Video

2011-06-22T08:34:00.015+01:00

Found this amazing Indian block printing video via Cozy Homemaking blog. I really had not thought about all the skillful carving that goes into making these printing blocks.

They make the printing look so easy but it must take lots of practice to get it right:

Pink Lilies in the garden

2011-06-13T13:20:00.006+01:00

These gorgeous pink lilies that my Mum bought me a few years ago flower every year and are a perfect colour match for my limited edition 'Florentine Lilies' screen print. I will be making this print available in my Etsy and Folksy shops soon, in the meantime you can buy my cards with the same 'Florentine Lilies' design hand screen printed here and here.

'Flax A Natural Beauty' Etsy Treasury

2011-04-26T17:47:00.008+01:00

My Ditherington Flax Mill print has been featured in this lovely natural Etsy treasury curated by Bloomsburygroup please click here for more details.

Snowdrop Season

2011-02-10T10:26:00.007Z

The past few weeks the snowdrops have been slowly coming out here in Shropshire. They are a little late this year because of the cold weather earlier in the year. Snowdrops are one of the most beautiful flowers; the flower heads seem to defy logic as they appear too heavy for the stalk that holds them.

I have hand screenprinted printed my original 'Snowdrops' design onto this Moleskine notebook which can be seen above and it is now for sale in my Etsy shop here.

I have been out and about in Shropshire the last few weeks eagerly awaiting the snowdrops so I can photo them. I was lucky enough to take these few photos in my garden:

For some reason I felt reluctant to cut some of these lovely flowers and bring them inside, although I wanted to use them to photograph closer and also with my printed notebook. I only cut a couple and was amazed at how they started to open when I brought them inside. They revealed little striped 'hearts':

As I was taking photographs in my garden my neighbour's son-in-law came to ask what I was doing and then offered some of his mother-in-laws snowdrops for me to photograph too. These are different again and he told me about some with pink in the middle so I will have to look into these. (I can see a new hobby starting up in searching out different snowdrop varieties!). Here are the ones from their garden:

On Tuesday I was lucky enough to be able to photograph some snowdrops at Wightwick Manor where I am involved in an art project - will post more on this later. There were a few near the bases of trees:

More snowdrops at Wightwick Manor, I am also loving the long shadows at this time of the year:

New printing projects!

2011-02-03T14:59:00.004Z

I have been meaning to print my Florentine Lilies design onto fabric ever since I took this textile screenprinting course last year. My idea was to print it onto fabric and then make it up into an eco- friendly shopping bag. However, for some reason I have been procrastinating on this little project - maybe because I wasn't sure how the printing onto fabric would turn out, also other projects took precedent. Last week I finally took the plunge and I am really pleased with how it looks above.
Another project that I have been wanting to explore for a while is printing my designs onto notebooks. Again I went ahead last week and printed my Snowdrop design onto this small notebook:

I think the colours work well on the brown background (which I have explored before here) and am going to print up more little notebooks and wrapping paper with some designs that I already have and also some new ones that are in the pipeline.

Florentine Lilies on Etsy Treasury

2011-01-04T21:45:00.001Z

After waking up to quite a dull cloudy day this morning I received an email from Stacey of Lucky Urchin Vintage to say that she had included my Florentine Lilies card on her Etsy Treasury. This treasury is titled 'Spring Time Florals UK' and looking at this lovely selection I can believe that after all this cold weather we have been having in the UK, Spring will be on its way soon!

You can find my Florentine Lilies card and others for sale if you visit my Etsy shop here.

Christmas Presents!

2010-12-28T18:40:00.006Z

I think it's lovely to give presents that you have made yourself or someone else has made. This 'Frothy Scarf' is a Rowan pattern I started a while ago and had decided that it should be a gift for my Mum this Christmas. Unfortunately I left it till the last minute to pick up and knit the frothy frill around the outside and was up quite late on Christmas Eve finishing it! (Does anyone else leave their knitting around for a while before finishing it?) It was worth it though as Mum is very pleased with it and teenage daughter has decided she wants me to make her one in a different colour, but cannot quite decide whether she wants a frill on it or not.

Another gift I gave, this time to my daughter, was a brass locket containing an embroidered feather which was made by Melissa Wastney of Tiny Happy Blog. I can highly recommend her blog and also her etsy shop in which I find lovely presents for special occasions:

Her Fearful Symmetry

2010-12-17T12:18:00.009Z

Last night we met at Darcy's house for our book group and the book chosen to read and for discussion this month was 'Her Fearful Symmetry' by Audrey Niffenegger. As it is nearly Christmas there were quiet a few nice chocolate treats and drinking wine before we got down to discussing the book.

One of the attractions of the book was that the story is centred around Highgate Cemetery in London as one or two people had been there and said that it was a definite 'must do' when visiting London. Jenny brought a book about the cemetery with wonderful photographs which we all had a look at and thought that some of the photos were very reminiscent of Dr Who!

Without spoiling the story it revolves around two sets of twins, one of which inherit their aunt's house close to Highgate cemetery in which they must live for a year, but in which their mother and father cannot step foot in.

Opinion was quite divided about the book some of us really enjoyed it but others found it difficult to enter into the book's divergence from reality.

Personally I really enjoyed the book (more than Audrey Niffenegger's first book 'The Time Traveller's Wife') and felt that it was well written and found the juxtaposing theme of confinement and freedom explored in the book really interesting.

This is a good book to read around Christmas time with it's Gothic, ghostly story and setting.

Two winners........

2010-12-13T12:34:00.006Z

Apologies for not posting straight away this weekend about the card giveaway but I have been in bed with a horrible cold. Anyway - I decided that since I was starting to feel quite festive (even though the only Christmas decoration I have had the strength to put out at the moment is my little Murano glass Christmas tree!), I would pick out two random winners of the cards. So the first name out was Darcy and the second one out was Kristina. So if you could please send me your address as soon as possible to: jacquidodds(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk I will get them out in the post before the last Christmas posting dates.

Venetian Blue giveaway!

2010-11-28T10:54:00.008Z

To celebrate my two year anniversary of blogging and also opening my Folksy shop I am having a giveaway of some of my cards. They are all individually hand screen printed by me in the studio and are blank inside for your own message. The cards come in a cellophane wrapper and are supplied with a best quality envelope, to see the full range please click here.

I am giving away a pack of three cards - either:

'Florentine Lilies' - pink/magenta

'Reflecting Winter & Spring' - on grey card

'Snowdrops' - aqua green

Or - one of each

To enter please leave a comment on this blog post by Friday 10th December and let me know which pack of three cards is your favourite and I will randomly pick the winner from the comments left.

Leaf patterns and La Casita

2010-11-04T16:20:00.010Z

While out for a walk last week I took the above photo of autumn leaves on the ground as I thought I might use the patterns for inspiration.
Also I bought this needlecase from Alessandra of La Casita blog:

The very cute needlecase is lined in Liberty bicycles fabric which was designed by Grayson Perry:

Happy Birthday Mum!

2010-10-30T12:46:00.019+01:00

It has recently been my Mum's birthday and above is the flower bouquet which I sent her and included some of my favourite flowers - freesias. Another of her presents was this lovely purse, which Mum was delighted with,I bought the purse from Melissa Wastney of Tiny Happy:

I thought I would take this opportunity to show you some paintings which my Mum made a while ago that continue the theme of this blog post which seems to revolve around flowers:

Giveaway!

2010-10-16T15:42:00.005+01:00

This is a giveaway on my Art Blog of my latest print which is shown above. This is to celebrate two years of blogging. If you would like to be included in the draw for the giveway please follow the link here.

I will be posting another giveaway soon on this blog to celebrate its blog anniversary too.

Florence by train

2010-10-15T10:52:00.016+01:00

One of the great things about travelling around Tuscany by train is the unexpected views of all the lovely towns and villages dotted around the countryside. Unfortunately I don't know the name of the hillside town above, if anyone does please let me know.
We walked from the main train station, Santa Maria Novella into the city of Florence. Luckily I remembered my way to the centre after last visiting Florence four years ago. There were many people in the city so we had to weave our way through them and then we caught a glimpse of the Duomo in the sunshine:

A view of the magnificent facade of the cathedral:

The exterior marble on the cathedral was not added until the 19th century, although it does not look much different to the campanile designed and built by Giotto much earlier in the 14th century:

The impressive fortified Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence:

The Ponte Vecchio:

The back of the Uffizi art gallery which was once the administrative offices for the Medici family:

The magnificent 'Gates of Paradise' doors of the Baptistery designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti and made in his workshop. These doors are actually reproductions and the originals are being kept and restored in the Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore (the Museum of the Works of the Cathedral) which is also worth a visit too:

You cannot help but gaze in wonder at the cathedral dome designed and built by Brunelleschi, who incidentally lost out to Ghiberti in a competition to design and build the doors of the Baptistery. The dome of the Duomo is one of the famous landmarks in Florence and it was Brunelleschi's genius that enabled the dome to be made when no one else at that time had any idea how to build it. You can climb up its 463 steps for a magnificent view of Florence, however luckily we did not have time to do this as I am not sure that I could have done this without feeling dizzy :

Over on my art blog I have a giveway of one of my prints, please click here for more details.

Lucca, Italy

2010-09-16T09:14:00.005+01:00

Lucca has to be one of the most beautiful cities in Italy. We visited last month when we were staying in Tuscany on the coast at Viareggio. It was only 15 minutes by train from our resort and was the first time that we had used the Italian railway. The service was very good, but you must remember to validate your ticket in a machine before boarding the train, which is something we do not have to do here in England.

It is a medieval walled city - you may explore inside the walls if you wish to. We chose to walk around the town at our leisure. The streets are very narrow and we were suprised to see cars driving around, although it looked like there was quite a complicated one-way system in force - so it might be better to park and walk anyway! What did surprise us was how many people were using bikes, although great to see people not using cars there were far too many really as you had to be really careful not to be run down by them!

I think this was the impressive entrance to a (ex) tobacco/cigarette/cigar factory:

Beautiful features all over the city:

I was very inspired by Lucca and hope to return one day. There has been a lack of posts recently as we have had problems with the computer. However, hopefully things are back to normal now. This has meant that I have not been able to post about the fact that it is the second anniversary of my blogging. So in the next few weeks I will be having a (belated) giveaway on here and my other blog which is also two years old.

Making journals

2010-07-01T15:59:00.013+01:00

I have been involved in running workshops in a secondary school, see some details here, and decided to make some journals that the students could keep and record their art work in.

Decided to start by printing some ideas for covers for these journals and used my Venetian Windows print on brown paper for the first one:

Then I thought I could use my Florentine Lilies print for another cover and started printing out one of the designs:

Added the second print:

This is the first journal cover made along with the paper printed for the second journal:

New Goodies!

2010-05-21T14:32:00.011+01:00

I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time this week as one of my favourite textile designers Jane Lindsey was hosting giveaways on her Snapdragon Facebook page. Jane gave up her job as an art gallery curator, retrained in horticulture, moved to a smallholding in Stirlingshire where she set up a flower growing business and creating embroidered textiles. Jane regularly posts about her life on her blog Snapdragon's garden where you can also find some good advice about running small businesses as well as links to buying her work.

Anyway as I said I just happened to be at my computer when Jane was giving away this lovely 'Strawberry Jam' notebook cover (usually her jam notebook covers feature 'Raspberry Jam'). My fingers could not type quick enough as I had seen her lovely notebook covers in local galleries and I was lucky enough to be the first commenter. I also manged to snap up the wool behind it so that I can put my own sewing skills to the test.

The next day Jane was giving away more goodies and I managed to win this lovely corsage which I think I shall give to my daughter as she is the fashion expert in our house and I felt a bit greedy keeping everything myself:

Also in the post this week came these lovely cards which I purchased from another favourite textile designer Melissa Wastney of Tiny Happy. There are more of these cards to buy in Melissa's etsy shop. It is four years since Melissa from New Zealand started her Tiny Happy blog and business and to celebrate she is having a really great giveaway on her blog.

Inkling Prints

2010-05-11T08:55:00.009+01:00

I am always interested in searching out new textile designers, especially those who print their own work, and checking out what they are up to. This package arrived from Kiran who has recently set up Inking Prints which is based in the UK. Kiran's textiles are very fresh and exciting and her work has been flying out of her Etsy shop.

Unfortunately Kiran has had to take a break at the moment from her printing, but hopefully everything will be up and running again soon. I was lucky enough to have bought this lovely bag before she decided to take her break and of course I had to buy one in my favourite colour:

'Florentine Lilies'

2010-04-27T10:18:00.006+01:00

I was down at Birmingham Printmakers this weekend which was really good as I have not managed to do any printing recently. I have been printing a new card called 'Florentine Lilies' based on a drawing of some lilies in a painting. I was really pleased with how this turned out on Saturday as the first time that I exposed this screen a few weeks ago the lines were much too faint and therefore I could not use the screen to print. After redrawing the lilies and making the image darker I was then able to expose it properly as you see above and print the image.

Textile printing

2010-02-25T08:25:00.009Z

This week I received a little notebook that I bought from a lovely Japanese textile designer - Hitomi Kimura. Her shop can be found here and her blog is kalla Textile Design. I have followed her blog for a while now and love her textile designs and am amazed how Hitomi manages to print all these in her small apartment.

I am really enjoying my screen printing for textiles course that I have been taking and below is my first design based on pomegranates printed in three colours. The pink seems a little bit too bright, however, someone said it looked like a Mary Quant design which is a sort of compliment as we are supposed to be taking our inspiration from the 1950's /1960's!

I might try printing it in different colours and on a more natural colour background.

'Snowdrop' Cards

2010-02-08T09:14:00.006Z

Yesterday I had a very successful days printing at Birmingham Printmakers . I had already designed a new card called 'Snowdrops' and wanted to screen print this using two colours. I was really excited when I mixed this lovely green colour and even more excited when I saw the first print layer:

I then mixed up the colour for the top layer and was really pleased with the results:

Screenprinting for textiles - Week 2

2010-02-02T09:06:00.006Z

Week 2 and Steffan started us off with some drawing exercises using vegetables and fruits. What was interesting was that he told us to think in sections by placing coloured squares behind the fruits. I started off using this pomegranate above as inspiration; which had been 'printed' onto the square behind it. I was also fascinated by the table itself which had wonderful marks on it that had been left behind from printmaking!

Screenprinting for Textiles course

2010-01-21T09:27:00.000Z

This week saw the start of a new adventure for me - a course in Screenprinting for Textiles which is being held at the Regional Print Centre in Wrexham. Fabric printing is something I have been dipping in and out of, having been inspired by the many wonderful individual fabric printers out in the world (more on this in another post). This is a chance for me and others on the course to learn how to research processes and techniques, produce and develop designs and then produce fabric lengths all of which I am really excited about. I will be posting about my progress and other interesting resources over the next few months. The course is run by the Welsh artist and printmaker Steffan Jones-Hughes who runs the Print Centre.

The first evening we were really lucky to have a talk by Alun Evans who collects printed textiles form the 1940's - 1970's. He gave a presentation and also brought along some of his fabulous textile collection. It was exciting to see so many vibrant textiles, sadly from an era when the British textile industry was in full flow.

The above fabric is by one of my favorite designers from this period Lucienne Day and is called Petal. Among the stunning designs that Alun showed us was this one called Treasure Chest:

This next one called Cascade was designed by Evelyn Redgrave for Heals in the 1970's:

Patio by Sonia Dunthorne:

Another one from Alun's stunning fabric collection:

Extra Curricular activities

2010-01-08T09:17:00.000Z

I enjoy searching for new blogs and ideas and found a new blog before Christmas called Extra Curricular. On the blog I found a magazine/book that Ellie has produced and sent for it from New Zealand. I bought it mainly because it features one of my favourite bloggers, Melissa from Tiny Happy, however, I was really happy to find there were lots of other creative people in the magazine too.

New Year activities

2010-01-06T12:55:00.000Z

Happy New Year to Everyone!!! I am ashamed to say it is ages since I have posted on this and my other blog. Time has just flown by and mine seems to have been taken up with finishing off my degree and starting a new part time job. Just before Christmas I sent for these lovely cards from Suzanne of Sakura Snow. There are some still available in her shop and there are two versions of the 'Wolf and Bear in a Wood' card - one with glitter and one without - both have a lovely winter feel about them and I think they could still be sent as cards other than Christmas.

It always feels good this time of year to take out some knitting and the Rowan yarns and patterns that are available are very inviting. This scarf was a free gift when I renewed my Rowan International membership a couple of years ago I decided to start knitting it over Christmas. The colour suits my Mum and this will be a gift for her when it is finished. I thought that perhaps she would want it without the frill but she has decided that she wants it included. My daughter has decided she wants one in a different colour and wants it wider without the frill so I guess I'll be busy for a while!

2009-07-12T12:26:00.000+01:00

Continuing with the Venetian theme in my reading, June from our Book Club lent me ‘Daughters of the Doges’ by Edward Charles. The book begins in England with Mary Tudor on the throne, at a time when there was a great deal of religious and political intrigue. The characters set off on a journey through Europe, which is undergoing the consequences of the Reformation, and set off for Padua which is located near Venice. I eagerly started off reading this book as I am fascinated with the changes in and around Europe at the time of the Renaissance (which was not just confined to Italy) and the Reformation. However, I felt that it was as if the book was written by two people; the first part was full of intrigue and adventure, however, when the characters arrive in the Veneto the pace changes. Characters act almost as if they belong in the twenty-first century, rather than the sixteenth century. Towards the end I felt that this happened more and more and the character plots conveniently fitted together too neatly. I felt that it lacked the feel of the uncertain times they were living in and it ended up to be more of a romantic novel which it hadn’t really started out to be. I do like romance but not necessarily neatly served up on a plate when I am expecting quite a clever intriguing plot.

However, I did enjoy reading about Venice and Padua and the book also contained quite a lot about the artists, Tintoretto and Titian and their artistic practices. It does make me want to visit Padua and Venice again....

Sending

2009-06-22T18:43:00.000+01:00

A little while back I agreed to this gocco swap which was organised by Sarah of Cloth, Paper String blog. I was really excited to be taking part in this as I had missed out on previous swaps. I spent the weekend printing my 'Reflecting Winter & Spring' image onto grey card for some notelets. I thought this would be relatively straight forward as I thought it was easy to buy grey card to make cards. Not so - I did not realise how scarce grey card is and it had to be the right shade of grey to match the colours I was using. I wanted to print the icicles in the image in white which is why I decided to use grey as the background. When I finally found some when I cut and creased the grey card it did not crease properly and so I had to start again! Paperchase came to the rescue and I bought some thinner grey card which has seemed to work ok.

After the notelets were printed came more fun in wrapping them up and then sending them on their way to different corners of the globe.

Receiving

2009-06-22T18:18:00.000+01:00

Through the post last week I received a beautiful little purse I purchased from Melissa whose lovely blog is called Tiny Happy. Melissa is originally from New Zealand and has been living in Norway for a while and you can definitely see the Norwegian influence in her work.

This little purse is beautifully embroidered with a Lily of the Valley plant and I just love the little extras that she included.

A few days later I also bought this embroidered felt badge and the packaging was just as beautiful - even the stamps matched!

Melissa and her family are now on their way back to New Zealand and I wish them all a safe journey and look forward to the resumption of Melissa's blog posts when she is settled.

Giveaway on Sofia Barao's Blog

2009-05-20T19:34:00.000+01:00

I have admired the artwork of Sofia Barao for a while now and she also makes jewellery, necklaces in particular one of which she is offering as a giveaway on her blog. The above photo is taken by Sofia and includes one of my favourite colours. The giveaway can be found here. Sofia also has an etsy shop where she sells her jewellery and another where she sells her beautiful artwork.

May Bank Holiday - Wightwick Manor

2009-05-06T19:21:00.000+01:00

The weather was not very good this Monday and I felt like we needed some fresh air so we decided to go to Wightwick Manor, a National Trust property which is about half an hour's drive away. Although it was a little cold we went for a walk around the small but lovely garden:

There were quite a few plants and shrubs in bloom:

and bluebells in the wood made it feel really springlike:

Then we went for the obligatory cup of tea, apple juice and slices of cake in the Tea Room.

Lastly we went for a tour around the house which is full of William Morris wallpapers and fabrics (ideal for design and sewing ideas). There are also Pre-Raphaelite paintings, including one by Edward Burne- Jones. The house is quite big and we only saw the downstairs. Although we wen't there very long (a couple of hours) I felt that we had seen quite a lot, and blown some cobwebs away!

Spring

2009-05-06T19:02:00.000+01:00

Visited my friend's last week and she had a thrush's nest in her magnolia tree. When I visited the babies were very fluffy and almost falling out of the nest! Click on the photo to see their little beady eyes. I was surprised how close to the ground they were and hoped that they would survive. Apparently they have all flown the nest now and my friend is hoping that the nest will be used again.

Last year I bought these wood anemones above from a local plant nursery and was really pleased that they came up again this year. The colour is a lovely delicate shade of blue.

Nice suprises

2009-03-09T18:17:00.000Z

My daughter went to London at the weekend and telephoned me to say that she had bought me a really cool present - so I was quite excited to see what it was - and to see her of course.
It turned out to be a very sweet pincushion from Cath Kidston - unfortunately I am not allowed to keep the bag!

I also sent for a Japanese Sewing Book from Pomadour24 and it arrived in the post. Daughter wants me to help her make some of the patterns up with some Liberty fabric:

London

2009-03-05T09:34:00.000Z

On a research trip to London a couple of weeks ago I visited the Liberty store and actually resisted spending money in there but couldn't help but fall in love with their gorgeous display of flowers outside - I could have bought them all!

I started 'drawing' with my camera the blue lights that were outside our hotel to produce some interesting images:

This was a great view of London (unfortunately it's a cloudy day!), taken from inside the National Gallery looking out onto Trafalgar Square and down towards the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben:

Pure Escapism!

2009-02-14T19:30:00.000Z

It's been lovely when the sun is shining on these cold winter days, but not so much when it is dull and grey. June from the monthly book club I go to told me she had been reading The Glassblower of Murano and I have been itching to read it ever since. At the last book club meeting June very kindly lent me her copy to read. I fell in love with Venice when we first visited four years ago and have been enthralled with anything from the city ever since and use it as a theme in my art work. June also paid me a lovely complement as she said that the cover (with its green background and red writing) reminded her of some of my artwork that it is up in an exhibition at the moment. This book is perfect for escaping these dull winter days and makes me dream about when I can visit the city again. The story is centered around one of the skills that Venice is famous for - glassblowing and is set both in the modern day and also at the time when the techniques of glass making were well kept secrets from the rest of Europe. I couldn't put this book down with its mixture of mystery, romance, history, and wonderful descriptions of Venice. Apparently the author Marina Fiorato has another book coming out this year with an Italian theme so I shall be looking forward to that. What books do you recommend to brighten up a cold grey day?

Lots of Snow

2009-02-05T21:23:00.000Z

Here in Shropshire and the Midlands we have had quite a lot of snow recently, so much that the councils apparently are running out of salt/grit for the roads. I suspect that they have cut down on their orders for salt and grit as the last few winters have been relatively mild.

The snow brings a beautiful light, especially when the sun shines and I love the patterns that it makes all around.

I don't think I will be sitting out here for very long! I think I will leave this for the summer:

I also love children's excitement at the snow and luckily my daughter still wants to go out and sledge and play in the snow. For me I enjoy the scenery, the difference in the light and keeping warm!

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

2009-02-01T11:39:00.000Z

Every month I go to a book club that was set up by my avid book reading friend Darcy. I don't always have the time to read the monthly book (although I do try my best!). However, this month I excelled myself and read two books. The choice this month was totally up to us and I chose Crow Lake by Mary Lawson which was very good, and my second choice was Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. Mister Pip was an exceptional read - a real rollercoaster of a ride with some pretty horrific scenes in it but these were essential to the story, particularly as the island Bougainville where the story is set actually exists. I won't spoil the story - just to say that the book is based on this island in the 1990's where education has been suspended due to outside influences. The consequence of this is that the only white man on the island, Mr Watts is asked to teach the children and does so by reading one of the greatest books of all time - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The children are engrossed in this novel which allows some of them to 'escape' the world they are living in. Lloyd Jones' writing is exceptional and he writes through the experiences of a 14 year old girl which is not an easy thing to achieve. I am very glad that I have read this book and it made me want to find out more about the island and the people living there. I imagine that this book could be (if it already isn't) on the reading lists for GCSE O Level/A Level English Literature pupils. I think that this would have been better than the options I took which were William Golding's Lord of the Flies and Joan of Arc by George Bernard Shaw. What was on your exam reading list?

Happy Christmas

2008-12-24T15:38:00.000Z

Happy Christmas to everyone out there. I love Christmas - especially when I receive something handmade that is a delight. While I was out the other day my daughter produced this Christmas card with some scraps of fabric that she had. Love the Christmas tree with snow on it and the presents underneath to unwrap. Hope you all have a lovely time.

New Prints - Bridge of Sighs, Venice

2008-10-21T15:54:00.000+01:00

Printing today has had its highs and lows! I wanted to use a drawing that I made of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice and at first decided I wanted to make it in Prussian Blue. Unfortunately as the ink for this did not behave itself and the image did not print correctly. Then I decided to try again and persevered in turquoise which is reminiscent of the Venetian canals.

I had quite a lot of ink left over and so decided to make some cards:

Celia Birtwell

2008-10-17T11:56:00.000+01:00

I have been a fan of Celia Birtwell's textile design for a while now and next time I am down in London want to visit her shop. Recently she has been creating new designs for TopShop.

Celia is also the muse of one of my favourite artists David Hockney.

Handscreenprinted Fabric

2008-09-10T12:44:00.000+01:00

There is just so much good fabric being hand printed out there which is really exciting and one of the artists involved in this is Lucie Summers. This is an example of her fabric, in one of my favourite colours - turquoise which she has made up into a lovely notebook cover.

Lucie is very inspirational and I will keep watching to see what she makes next.

Swatch Swop - Dark Turquoise

2008-09-03T20:35:00.000+01:00

I have had a really good day today printing the second layer of colour onto my fabric swatch with my Venetian lino block design. The first colour was printed in grey and I decided to print the second offset layer in dark turquoise which is a colour that I associate with Venice.

One of the most important things to ensure when printing a second layer is to make sure the registration is right so that the print all lines up correctly. The method I was using was my own with marks on the lino block and a ruler:

Other things that I found essential were:

Using a firm and even surface to place the fabric onto whilst printing, I placed my fabric onto newspaper and then on a cutting mat. This was clearer than when I placed the fabric straight onto newspaper on the table.

Inking up the block thoroughly and then wiping excess ink off areas that were not going to be printed, this ensured a clean print of my image;

After inking up the block it needs to be printed quickly so that the ink does not dry up on the block and the image you are printing is clear;

Pressing the block down equally and firmly in all areas.

This was the result of the days printing and I was really pleased I shall wait for it to dry and fix with the iron before sending it off to Jesse:

I am so pleased with how my design worked that I may use part of the image and print it onto cards.

Finished Bags

2008-08-31T12:44:00.000+01:00

This bag was made by my daughter (with a little stitching advice), she chose the design and fabric and here is a detail of the embroidery she added.

I think she has done really well.

Also here is the beach bag completed with the fabric bought recently. It has just enough space for a towel, book and a few other things needed for a day on the beach.

Swatch Swop - work in progress

2008-08-26T21:26:00.000+01:00

Thinking about a design for Jesse's Swatch Swop was relatively easy as I already had a design based on a Venetian window that I could use and I thought this would look good as a repeated pattern on fabric. My first attempt at this pattern was a while ago and the 'block' made with press print and in this prussian blue colour on paper.

I decided that the block should be made more substantial for fabric printing and started drawing my design on the lino and carving it out

I thought about using two colours in the design: grey and dark turquoise which are colours I like and also reminicent of Venice. I am hoping that the two colours will be layered with the grey on the bottom and dark turquoise offset over the top. After finishing carving the block I decided to print with the grey and this is the result:

I am pretty pleased with this first printing session and will let it dry and then go over the top with the second colour. Not sure if I need to fix this first layer by ironing it now or if I should fix after I have printed both layers. Can anyone please help with the answer to this?

Artist's Apron

2008-08-22T09:11:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I decided I needed an apron for when I do my artwork and I decided to buy this Artist's Apron from Alicia. Her sewing skills are wonderful and this apron is really handy as it has pockets in the front (I mustn't fill them too much!) for my artist's tools. It is so lovely I don't want to spoil it by getting paint on it!

Creations link

2008-08-18T13:10:00.000+01:00

After making these cushions which were a dream to sew, I was contacted by Caitlin whoose fabric I used to make them. She has very kindly posted a photo of them on her web page which you can see here. It is really great to see all the different fabrics made up into such good things. I think we have fallen in love with the elephant!

Swatch Swop

2008-08-18T12:04:00.000+01:00

This lovely fabric swatch came in the post for me which is part of a Swatch Swap that the very talented Jesse of Jezzeblog has set up. As this is part of a Swatch Swop that now means that I have to print a piece of fabric to send to Jesse; therefore new project coming up - watch this space.

Fabric for Beach bag

2008-08-16T17:25:00.000+01:00

New fabric purchased for a beach bag - love the colour and design. Will post results when finished.

'Ugly Doll' Number 2

2008-07-22T23:04:00.000+01:00

We so felt sorry for the first 'Ugly Doll' that it was decided she needed a companion. Therefore my daughter brought some really cute soft material home and started creating another. This is the result and she also decided that it needed a lovely purple flower to finish it off. What do you think of this one?

Lunch and cushions

2008-07-16T22:01:00.000+01:00

Went to my friend's house in the country for lunch the other day and decided that instead of taking flowers for her I would make her a cushion out of this lovely Pippijoe fabric instead. I haven't made cushions for a while (I used to make a lot at one time) and really enjoyed making the piping and putting in the zips. Need to make some more for me now.

Ugly Doll!

2008-07-14T20:01:00.000+01:00

My daughter came home with this 'Ugly Doll' that she had made, however, she did not want it to be 'ugly' so she decided to create it with some pretty fabric and gave it a nice smile. What do you think?