Unexpected award

I got this award from Robin. I was thrilled as blogging is a fairly new experience for me. I have linked it back to her so do check out her site as she does some beautiful work. I now I have to link it to four followers of my blog and one from overseas. Hope I can manage to do that without too many headaches.

Val

Lesley

Heather

Helen

Cheryl

I find the work done on all these blogs so interesting and varied. It is great to be able to share our passion with people from all over the world, one really positive aspect of the internet I guess.

Having been given the award by Robin it has made me realise that it is a while since I put pen to paper so to speak. I have been so busy doing the things that I enjoy that I don't seem to have spent too much time at the computer. I'm still 'running in' the new machine so decided to make a quick quilted wall hanging inspired by a project from Kathleen Guerrier in Quilt WOW which is the sister online magazine to WOW, both excellent value for money online magazine. I had several pieces of Japanese fabric that I wanted to do something with, other than stroke, and also some Laurel Burch cat fabric so I thought 'what if ...?' - as we do. This is not really my sort of thing but it was fun and enabled me to get to grips with the machine. I find it quite cheerful so am now looking for somewhere to hang it.

The group who were doing Dales embellishing class have been doing an ATC exchange since the class finished. I have received some beautiful cards so far and what continues to amaze me is how a group of people who are taking the same class can come up with ideas that are so different. I am old enough to remember the days when a class was supposed to replicate what the teacher had prepared - how things have moved on and for the better. Couldn't resist putting them all together just to give you a taste of the variety.



Working small seems to have been the order of the day for me lately. I have also become involved in ATC trades in a group called Fabric ATCs One to One. I turned some old C & G samples into ATCs for the Recycle challenge, the images have not turned out well as they were a bit too fat to scan well and also the camera did not seem to do them justice.




The next one trade is for something felted so I decided to revisit a lesson from the embellisher course. It involved embellishing paper napkins onto foiled felt and I wasn't happy with it at the time but I then found some gorgeous napkins - how gorgeous are these!


They worked really well when embellished and the colours have turned out to be nicely muted, with a bit of embellishment, acrylic wax, to stop them from falling apart and a touch of Treasure Gold, I am really pleased with them.



I am really trying to make the most of my time off now that I am doing a job share so I have also enrolled in two online classes at Joggles with Sharon Boggon both are design based which is something I feel that I need more guidance with. I have also enrolled in the FREE online lessons with Maggie Grey which are directly linked to her new book Textile Translations: mixed media. The book is awesome, and having printed off the first lesson, I can't wait to get started.

Finally, before finishing today's ramblings I have eventually got my copy of Photoshop CS3 installed - yes I decided to splash out get the full version. I had been struggling with 'layers' on my copy of Photoshop Elements but the other day finally got to grips with it. Just in time to do something for a postcard swap with the theme of Antarctica. I have real concerns about the effect that climate change is having in this region and I just love Emperor penguins so I was delighted with the way the fading images of the penguin worked.



So much for blogging for today, I now have to go and get myself and the cat settled for what is the final Grand Prix of the season. Today's will decide the championship and if I say that I am (and always have been) 'tifosi' then you will know that I am not rooting for Lewis.

Go the Prancing Horse!