If anyone wants a photo of a Spitefire - I've got one.....

We spent last weekend in Lincolnshire visiting a woodworking show in Spalding then we went to Cambridge to visit the Imperial War Museum.  Keith's weekend out.......   Actually I enjoyed the museum and the spitefire (picture above) was just about to take off.  It was one of the privately owned military planes housed on the airfield.   Below is one you might remember from the film -"Memphis Belle"  It was a static exhibit, not an airworthy one like the spitefire.

One of the hangers housed the land warfare exhibits, here's Keith with a Tiger Tank.  Picture is a bit blurry due to the lighting.

The ops room as it was on D Day.

But this was my favourite plane.

The woodworking show turned out to be rather small and by lunchtime we'd been round it four times so decided to spend the rest of the day by the sea at good old Skegness

We had doughnuts and coffee joined by a couple of friends.   The sun stayed out for us and all in all it was a good weekend.

I've actually got down to doing some more work

Not a lot but a little. Well at least that's a start. I've really found it difficult to get my butt in motion since my holidays. Ideas just haven't been flowing and all I've really wanted to do is sleep. That seems to be in the past now and my muse is beginning to wake and shake me. I've completed the Textured Landscape swap for Surface Design and will post them tomorrow.

 The backgrounds are handmade felt, one felted knitting yarns (grey) and the others felted wool tops.  I felted them further on my embellisher and added a few embroidered items.   The stone walls are made from painted Tyvek which was then wrinkled with a heat gun.  Keith had given me an old Tyvek coverall and I had great fun cutting it up and playing with it.  It's a while since I did that and it felt good.

 Next Monday is our Dippy Day where 6 of us get together to play and have fun.   We're having a tangling day.  I've been into zentangles for a while now and I'm going to show the others how to have fun.   One of the projects for Monday is to make a little Tangled Art Doll and this is my sample.   It didn't take long and it could become an obsession as I intend to make several more.   The photos show back and front of my little doll.

While the name Zentangle is the property of Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas (check out their website  here ) people have been doing similar doodles for centuries.   Just look at the carvings on stones and patterns found in nature.   Fractals such as ferns are particularly good tangles.  

I'm going to Spalding on Thursday for a few days, Keith wants to go to the woodworking show there and to visit the Imperial War Museum near Cambridge.  As he's very good a taking me where I want to go its his turn now.   I'll be taking along my tangling kit and hope to be creative.   I'll show you what I do when I get back.

Meanwhile the postman has been busy again.   Deb Cragan's Textured Landscape is a collage of items and very effective too.   It looks better in real like than my poor scanning.



These two beauties are from Pauline Mackenzie in Australia.  Pauline is obviously an artist just look at her painted card (top) and her Textured Landscape (bottom) she has a great eye for colour.



Back to tangling I bought Yoga for the Brain - A Zentangle Workout by Sandy Steen Bartholomew.  It's not only full of patterns but some really great ideas and a book I would recommend.  I'm taking it away with me.

A few more holiday photos

This time from the Alhambra Palace in Granada.  It is a truly wonderful place and well worth a visit if you ever in Granada.   The photos speak for themselves, the stucco work is beautiful and quite well preserved where people haven't continually touched it.  The tilework was very similar to that we'd seen in Morocco and again reminded me of quilts.

 There are fountains down the length of this pool but they weren't playing the day we were there.

 The views from the windows in the Palace are spectacular and you can see the length of the wall that protected it from the outside.

 More examples of stucco and tile work.

 The gardens stretched for acres and were a series of small rooms, some sunny, others cool all peaceful.

 This little boy was talking to the fish and they were coming to talk to him, or perhaps they thought he would feed them.

 I've done a little sewing since I got back, the first card is based on Summer Solstice and is supposed to be Stonehenge with the sun just rising and a Druid.   I really should have turned him to look at the rising sun and if I had it would have been a lot easier, durr....

This card is based on "Coast" and is of an area of beach not far from where I live.  We often take Buster down here to run along the beach and chase the waves.  You frequently see wind surfers of people flying kites as there is normally a breeze even on the calmest day. 

goodies received

I've received a whole boatload of goodies over the past few days and have at last got round to scanning them so I can show them to you.

The first six cards are from the Surface Design groups 'May Blossom' swap.

 I love May Blossom the cow with her bell, unfortunately it stuck up a bit when I scanned the card so there is a darkening of this card, which is from Pauline.  The beautiful bird is from Lesley which is handpainted and finished with machine stitches. Carole has appliqued a branch and and embroidered blossom onto it.

 Irene's card also has painted the background on which she has sewn some pretty flowers on, I think created on a soluble fabric, very effective they are too.  Jan and Jacquie both depict flowers in different ways.  Jan's are stamped, painted and quilted, Jacquie has made use of printed fabric and photo printed fabric of blossoms plus a rather lovely stamp enhanced with a bee button.

 This card is again one of the Surface Design swaps with the theme of  'Coast'.  The card is from Pauline who has painted the background sky and used puff paint rocks and embellished the whole with hand dyed fabrics and topped of with hand embroidered flowers.

 One last swap, again with SD this one 'Art Dolls'  The top doll is from Debs and made from a tiny glass bottle.  The second doll is from Pauline and has beautiful moulded arms and face.

Last, but not least my QuiltGallery basket swap arrived all the way from Oslo, made for me by Anne Kari Holli.  It's a lovely bag, really sturdy just the right size for me to take to workshops with my lunch packed it it.   I love the faux quilting she has done on this bag.  It's made from strips of fabric sewn then attached to the bag by sewing them down the centre in a criss-cross fashion.  After that she has further defined the pattern by embroiderying large cross stitches in the centre of each  section.  I rather like this idea and hope she won't mind if I use it myself sometime in the future.

More holiday snaps

Did I say we'd been to a Potter's in Fez. Well I'll show you the piccies we took whilst there. The first two are of the labourers building a new kiln with mud, dung and sand.

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The worker at the top is covering the kiln in the 'plaster' the previous worker made.

Under the table the potter is moving the wheel by means of a wooden pedal and a piece of string wrapped round a pole, bit like an early lathe.

The pots are laid in the sun to dry but they must not get too hot or they will crack.

Once they've been dried and fired in the kiln they are ready to be hand painted.  All the patterns are drawn on by hand.  This young lady is one of the few women allowed to work in these premises and is a very skilled worker.   The youngest pattern maker is only 13 years old, the nephew of the proprierter.   They have very steady hands.

Examples of their handwork it is absolutely beautiful and so painstakingly done.

They also make tessellated fountains for gardens from the broken pieces.

Do they remind you of quilt patterns?

This young man is learning from a master craftsman (sat behind him).  They create the patterns upside down so its important he picks up a piece from the correct basket.

Finally the salesman who was trying very hard to sell us a portable fountain, yes all of these fountains have two wheels at the back so you can move them round your garden or home.

I bought a tangine with a Fez Blue design on it.  I probably could have got one cheaper at home but was so impressed with the amount of work they put into making everything I bought one from them.

If you are wondering, we missed the bomb on the Jamaa El Fna Square, it went off two days before we were due to go on holiday.   While in Morocco we did meet with several student protests but nothing serious.  We were supposed to go to Tetoune but as there was a student uprising there we were taken to Mekness which meant we visited all five imperial cities in Morocco.

Back Again

Typical thin horse this one has just off-loaded its cargo and is much better fed than some of those in the souks.

We got back from Morocco in the early hours and its taken me well over 24 hours to recover and download my photos onto my pc.  These are a few of the many taken while in Morocco.  I'll post more later.

Street stalls in Meknes en-route to our hotel.

The 'mens wear department' of the souk.  This square is much bigger, cleaner and lighter than anywhere else.

Decoration on one of the many entrances to the souks in Fez.

The labyrinth of lanes inside the souks in Fez were very narrow, often dark and riddled with skinny cats.

As a comparison this is the entrance hall of our hotel in Fez.

Dyers in the tannery.  The day we called in the smell was bad but better than it had been a few days before when the refilled the vats.  Men splodge about in the mud tubs and scrunch the leather into the dye vats with their feet.   A bit like treading grapes only they smell worse.

  These sacks are full of raw wool.  People pay for the wool a bit at a time until they have enough to fill a mattress.  The wool comes complete with fleas so each year the mattresses are dismantled, the wool spreadout across the floor and the wives deflea it and sew it all back up again. 

One thing we saw constantly in Morocco were Storks nesting anywhere up high.  Here they are on a building site.

Some of the shops outside the souks, this one is a tangine and plate sellers.

IT bits and pieces anyone?  This is in the Mellah, the old Jewish quarter market.

More tomorrow, got to go and sort out dinner.

One that got away

How many times have you set off the washing machine and halfway through the final rinse you come across an 'escapee', usually a sock.  Well I've found an escapee from the EG postcard project so before I leave for foreign parts I'd better pop it up to show:

 Here is Jenny's 'Giraffe and Acacia tree at sunset'.  She has used a piece of her hand-dyed fabri,c added silhouettes and them embellished with machine embroidery.  I have one more card yet to come in but it won't be ready before we go away so it will have to wait until a later date.

We're all packed, the cases are by the front door, the carry-ons are also packed and I've dug out a large tote to carry all my bits and pieces for the journey.  Sorted out some sewing to occupy my hands while we travel, filled up my ipod with books I haven't yet read, and a paperback just in case and packed sandwiches in case we get peckish.  We leave in a few hours (04:05am) so I'm going to have a shower and try and get a couple of hours sleep.

The news tonight wasn't too promising with a bomb going off in a cafe in Marakesh, one of our stops in Morocco.  Never mind I'm not going to worry about it.  Speak when we get back around mid May with, hopefully, lots of things to show you.