And I thought I was going to a textile exhibition

My friend asked if I wanted to see the exhibition with her and naturally I said yes. I thought we were going to a textile exhibition of some kind. Wrong!! We went to the exhibition of contemporary images of people and places in Mongolia.

The photos were technically beautifully created and printed but as for content, well that was another dimension all together. If anyone wants to see photos of scrub and rocks with the occasional camel and 'ger' (yurtlike tents); photos and statues of Lenin with the odd young monk entering monasteries. Well this is the exhibition for you. To be fair it probably would be much more interesting if you had heard the talks before you went. Then the seemingly monotonous content might be more understandable. Must stress that this is only me and my friend's opinion.

Luckily the Oriental Museum has the most wonderful collection of Chinese and Islamic artifacts and well worth a visit. Everytime we come to the Oriental we always check it out. The morning certainly wasn't wasted thought as we rounded it off with a lovely lunch and whilst we caught up with all the gossip.

Got this wonderful card from Angela of the ArtsintheMail group. I first saw these cards on her blog and admired them. I had forgotten she owed me a swap from the Something beginning with I swap. I was asbolutely delighted to get this one.

Not really done a great deal today, been to the first meeting this year of the U3A and sorted out the paperwork for the renewal of our passports.


I realised that I had got most of the swaps from the others on the Flower Foot swap, run by the Surface Design Group and thought I'd better get a move on with mine. I've had my Flower Foot for a number of years now, ever since Val Campbell-Harding wrote about them . They are great fun but mine is on its way out now. I think the spring is going as it doesn't always go in circles. Sometimes it gets most of the way round then veres off on its own so circles have a tail to them. I hope it lasts out until I've done this swap. As I said I've had it a while now and rarely use it so once it gives up the ghost forever I won't be replacing it.

I decided to spray-paint some pelmet vilene in an effort to see whether the more stable surface would encourage the foot to go in circles. I used some of the Moonglow spritz and some of the Craft Notion sprays. They sank into the vilene, the colours look slightly darker in the photo than real life. I also used the same sprays to colour Bondaweb, not sure whether I'll use it for this swap but you never know. I heat bonded some Angelina and laid it on plain cotton and set off to create flower circles. Some worked, some didn't. I found that the stitch used to sew on elastic worked best for me, the zigzag stitch was a total waste of time as the end result was anything but circular.

I've decided to cut the piece up into smaller pieces and use them as patches. I rarely know what my stuff will turn out like, I'm very much a "see how it ends up" person. If all else fails I can always create eyelets.