I don't have very green fingers, so I rely on Sarah Raven for magnificent tulips.
While out admiring these in the sunshine on Sunday, a magnificent Peacock Butterfly landed at my feet.
Much needed rain for most of today, so I hope it is sheltering somewhere.
I see the text formatting issues with text and photographs are still not sorted on here.
With time on my hands - to put it mildly, I've returned to garment sewing during lockdown. I joined the group Elevate Your Sewing, run by The Thrifty Stitcher, and have become a follower of Terry Fox's Saturday Sewing Club on Facebook.
I did classes with Terry about 28 years ago, when she still taught at Liberty's, and was delighted to see her on Facebook.
Both Clare-Louise ( Thrifty Stitcher) and Terry are so generous with sharing their knowledge, and they seem to attract people to their groups on social media who are also keen to share their own knowledge with other members of the group.
My elder son has worn a pair of zip-off trousers for years, and as my grandmother would have said " the fabric is so thin, you could spit peas through it". With my expanded knowledge from Clare-Louise and Terry, I have made him a replacement pair. These are black, I just had to adjust the photo to show the details.
I promise these do have two full-length legs, this was just artistic licence for photography.
If you are tempted, these trousers, Kwik Sew K4045, are a great fit for tall, skinny blokes. The zip off method was from this tutorial. I thought the fly front and origami method of making the pockets with side inserts would be my nemesis, but the pattern instructions are excellent on both of these aspects. Fabric from Pennine Outdoor, who were super helpful when my initial choice was no longer available ( thank you Brexit).
As someone who has very little waist, the fit was also very good on me, so I might be tempted to make a pair for myself!
At the start of all of the lockdowns, I needed mindless stitching. No complex piecing, just pulling scraps from a bag and sewing them together. Mindless meandering quilting, bit of hand applique, Quilt 2 is the result. 70cm x 97cm, not large, probably destined for Project Linus. I also had the perfect piece of fabric for the back, found in a charity shop more years ago than I can remember.
I made this quilt during lockdown, loaded photos to Instagram, but did not blog about it. It was sewn completely from stash and is based on this pattern. Surprisingly straightforward to sew, and great fun choosing the placement of the tones of blue. It ended up at 102cm x 120cm, so not huge, but enough to cover a lap.
Machine quilted with straight line, walking foot quilting, in random geometric shapes.
Will I submit it to Festival of Quilts? It always seems like a bit of a cop out to submit a quilt made to someone else's pattern, but I suppose there have still been artistic decisions made in its construction.
I am thoroughly enjoying being a member of Susan Yeates " Inspire" group on Facebook. A theme set each month, a set of tutorials that you can follow or not as you wish, supportive members, interesting asides from Susan. This month's them is mixed media, so I'm off looking for bits and bobs in the " that'll be useful one day" bags!
An exercise based on the work of Jasper Johns
So many fears in the past year, time to tackle some idiotic ones. Drawing the figure, yikes! An online webinar with The London Drawing Group, involving a live model.
Very absorbing, particularly the explanation about the kinesphere, which my brain kept seeing as the kinetisphere. It was intriguing to assign words to the poses after drawing them, and to use the concept of three spheres to map out the position of the body in space. My efforts below, all poses between 30 sec and 5 mins, charcoal and then pencil. Yet again, however messy charcoal is, I much prefer it to pencil, however soft, for this type of quick drawing.
Drawing, painting a bit, mucking about with collage a bit, mostly here, https://www.instagram.com/stitchinscience/. Staying sane.
The immediacy of Instagram is fun, connecting with other creative people from many disciplines is easy........................but it is owned by Facebook......................but here is owned by Google. Choices to be made about how to use these media in the near future. ( This interface seems more intuitive and predictable than when I was last here).
Ginkgo leaf stencils with oil paintstick.
