Finally finished June Journal Page

I didn't have a theme for this years challenge but I did intend to recycle as much of my stash as possible, including bits of work I'd started previously.  So far I've managed to do this but its been more of a challenge not to go out and buy new stash.    I also wanted the JP's to be a sort of diary, somthing that happened or was important during that particular month.   The first four months were relatively easy and I had an idea for the next four - I would create journal pages featuring some of the many abbeys and cathedrals in this part of the world.  Well I managed one - May's page is my interpretation of Easby Abby near Richmond (North Yorks one).  We often go down to Richmond and walk along the dismantled railway line to Easby Abbey,

I started with a photo and turned it into black and white, then a sketch in Paintshop Pro.   Using a  piece of left over silk from another project I traced the design onto it.   I used Inktense pencils in sepia shades to colour in the sketch then hand quilted round the shapes.   The back piece I found lying around in one of my many boxes and the colours matched what I had in mind for Easby Abby.   Finally added some ribbon trimmings which I thought looked a bit like the markings on the columns in Durham Cathedral.

June's journal page was going to be about my visit to the Lake District, okay I know it was in May but I didn't think it mattered too much.   My intension was to do a landscape but landscapes are more difficult to fit into portrait orientation, not impossible just a bit more difficult.   I had a piece of fabric I'd been playing with, it had paint, stamping, stencilling and screen printing on it.  It looked horrid but I thought if I sliced it into l" strips and wove it I could make a background.  Hang on a bit, where's the landscape, well it escaped at this point.  All I could think of was the wonderful colours of the flowers in the lakes at that time of the year.  The hymn "All things bright and beautiful" kept going round in my head so this is my version of that hymn.

So much for landscapes then, maybe next time.   The colour on the close up is a bit blue.  The large yellow flowers are machine embroidered and the small flowers fmed onto silk dyed with alcohol inks.

The only other thing I've done in the last week is to make a small needlecase for the U3A group.  I started to do the one in last month's Stitch magazine but got side tracked.