Take it further challenge for April …

“With the arrival of Autumn in my part of the world and Spring in the Northern hemisphere my mind turns to ideas of cycles that involve change. Some people see change as positive while others are fearful of change.

How do you see change? That is the challenge topic this month.”

Well this is SharonB’s challenge for this month… my mind is some what blank in ideas… I may have to work with the colour scheme this month…

cyber fyber exhibition… 2

ATC no. 74 from Susan’s Cyber Fyber

Postcard no. 144…

they are both wonderful… the pictures simple do not do them justice…

thanks for trading with me Susan…

if I start saving my pennies do you think I will have enough for the airfare

to visit the exhibition next year?

cyber fyber exhibition…

these are my contribution to Susan Lenz ‘Cyber Fyber Exhibition’ …

the ATC is made of pink hand dyed cotton it’s then been stamped  then FME…

the postcard started life as a ‘mop up cloth’ while I was dyeing…  I really loved the colours so did some stamping on to it… now I’ve added a few gold scraps then added some machine stitching… so they are now on their way to Susan… I’ll post a picture of Susan’s just as soon as they arrive…

changed my mind completely…

as usual… the old baby quilt will have to wait for another time / project to be transformed… as I’ve decided to use this fabric…

and the expression ‘mind like a sieve’ is the starting point for this month’s take it forward challenge… you can read more over on my slow cloth story blog…

spent a lovely afternoon…

in the company of other embroiderers… Vivienne A Brown gave a talk ‘Liberating the Liberty Bodice’… I’ve search for links but only found this

it’ s to ‘Stitch with the Embroiderers’ Guide‘

I can remember seeing this exhibition at a quilt/embroidery show…(in Harrogate?) will try and remember which show…!! it was a very inspiring talk with a very… very good ‘power point’ presentation as well… if you get the change I can highly recommend it… the actually work was simple stunning… machine stitching on both fabric and paper with wonderful use of the computer as a design tool…

this talk was arranged by the Guisborough & District Branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild…

perhaps I meet you there one day…

Tifc … February is posted…

Sharon B’s posted the February challenge… here

my mind is in a whirl… ideas are popping up… even though I’ve not finished the January challenge yet… this is some of what Sharon has posted…

“Since it is the first of the month it is challenge day! So without further fuss here it is. This month the Take it Further challenge concept is a question. What are old enough to remember?How did I come up with the idea. As regular readers know I am hand stitching a charm quilt and the small fabric scraps have been triggering memories. As I stitch I am constantly aware of how the world has changed in my lifetime and I am not that old! (I turn 52 this month)It occurred to me that some of these scraps are older than the invention of rotary cutters. As I write I realise that I learnt on to type a typewriter. Now I have WiFi and a laptop. I can remember when a portable transistor radio was a big thing. I was given one with its leather case for my 14th birthday and I took it to the beach every day. Of course I remeber vinyl records too. Now I walk, garden and do the housework plugged into an ipod! We used to write letters home but now it is email.”

I ‘m wondering if I can use this small quilt as a base… I’m seeing lots of writing… maybe a few pictures too… I’m using this challenge to explore my ideas about ’slow cloth’ I’ve even stated another blog… here

I’ve just noticed the date… Sharon posted on the 1st Feb… but it’s still 31st Jan here…

working on my other blogs…

I feel I’ve not been paying much attention to this blog… I’ve been taking/sorting my doorway photos… I’ve started another new blog which I’ve called ‘my slow cloth story’… here I plan to record the work I’m doing for the take it further challenge through which I’m going to explore my ideas/thoughts on slow cloth…

trying to select the fabric to start my journey into ’slow cloth’…

back online…. & take it further challenge…

at last… I hadn’t realised just how much I had came to rely on the internet until it wasn’t there…

I even feel I’m late starting Sharon B’s ‘take it further challenge’, so many of you who signed up have already posted WIP’s and finished work while I’m just gathering ideas together… anyway this is what Sharon posted…

“The key concept for January is a feeling we have all had, the feeling of admiration for another. Ask yourself who do you look up to and admire? Why? What is it you admire about them? This is a the first Take it Further challenge in 2008. Take the idea, develop it into a resolved design during that month and apply it to fiber or paper.

The colour scheme for this month is below. I came up with it by using ColourLovers If you have not seen this site before and love colour do check it out as there is lots of fun to be had over there.”

well I can’t get the picture of the colour scheme to appear here… so try this link

both the key concept and the colour scheme have set me thinking…

I have spent time on the idea of slow cloth… Sharon B posted about this here as did Elaine Lipson… but the person who I feel produces the best slow/story cloth is Jude over on Spirit Cloth… so the key concept of who do I admire… in the world of textile blogs… apart from Sharon B … has got to be Jude… so I’m thinking alone the lines of a ‘what if’ (Jude… do hope this is OK with you…) using the colour scheme for my fabric and threads (while I love blues and purples I never pick greens…so this should be a challenge…) and using some/lots of the new stitches I’ve learnt from Sharon B… I might even try to included one of ‘my doorways’ as I do intend to use some of these images in my work…

no broadband…

doesn’t life come to a stand still when your phone line / broadband service is interrupted… we lost both on Wednesday and while the phone was working again by Thursday lunchtime we are still without our broadband connection… I’m using next door’s wireless at the moment but it’s a very weak signal so I keep losing it… so I’m typing very fast:)… so my new blog has suffered…

doorways…

I would like to wish everyone joy and creativity and hope you all have a
wonderful 2008…

I’ve been taking photos of doorways for a while now but had no real idea in mind as to what I was going to do with these photos… I’m going to start and work with these images… using them in my mixed media art work on both paper and cloth… to this end I’ve started another blog…

my doorways

here I will post a daily picture of a doorway from my collection…