Snowy Easter.

In the Palm House at Botanic Gardens last Saturday and the spring flowers were gorgeous.

 

The smell of the hyacinths was overpowering.

These perky looking daffodils were peeping out of the windows...

                               ...at these poor daffodils, heads down, outside in the freezing snow.

Then yesterday we went to Newcastle.

The sky was blue, it was sunny and people were walking on the beach.

Along the promenade and Slieve Donard was covered in snow.

Anyone for a dip in the Rock Pool?

Or maybe the Tropicana Warm Sea Pools!

We headed up into the mountains.

 I was surprised at all the snow still on the road and piled high either side.

It was very pretty.

There were signs of spring as we made our way back down...

                     ...and the cockerel on my old quilt is off to deliver the eggs for Easter.

Must be Spring!

Violets.

There's a blob at the bottom of this fabric page where I dropped some water on it.
I'm plucking up the courage to draw some violets down in that corner to cover it up.

I used my watercolour pencils and then added the detail with Sharpie pens.

The Sharpie pens bled into the fabric a bit. I would love some fine liners that worked on fabric and didn't do that.
I'm not confident at drawing but I'm happy enough with how it looks. I back stitched the flowers and added some acrylic paint.

This is the gate that I chopped out from something else I made. I stitched a few flowers on.

So -  apart from a bit of writing to go on this - I think I might have a couple of pages fitting together at last!

Bluebells & violets.

I wanted to use my pressed bluebell along with the primroses I'd sewn but somehow it didn't look right.
It's not a great sample and the colour's not good. I think my pressed flowers might all look better put together so I'm thinking about how to do that.

Meanwhile I had a look through my old Stitch magazines and found this shadow-work project by Grace Lister from a 2009 issue.

 I had to do a shadow-work sample once and never again! It was snowdrops and I wish I hadn't given it away now - I could have used it here.

I thought if I transferred the design it might work along with the primroses and I could just outline it with back stitch.

When I make up the book I'm going to put my Bluebell wood page adjacent to the primrose page.
I taped the bluebell design on the window, placed the fabric over and transferred the design outline.

I used watercolour pencils, I might paint water over this later depending on how it looks after I've stitched it.

So now I've stitched it and coloured in the leaves and bells, I don't think I'll paint it as I like how it looks.

I'm still reluctant to draw but I'm going to have a go at some violets down in the right hand corner. Drawing is about confidence Frances P. says.  I'm going to start with the watercolour pencils.

IKEA Birds.

I love seeing all the birds in the garden at this time of the year. This lovely birdy scarf was a Mother's Day present.
It reminded me of my IKEA fabric that I was playing about with right at the beginning of my fabric book project.

I cut out the spotty 1/2 of a bird,  below bottom right.

Coloured him in with Sharpie pens. Gathered together all my scrappy bits.

Stab stitched on small strips of fabric and wool.

I've cut him out and frayed the edges.

I liked making him so much that I've moved on to this blue tit now.

I'm going to tuck the 1/2 bird at the side of this page.

I wasn't sure what type of a bird he was. I couldn't call him 1/2 bird.
My friend, Pamela, says he looks like a 'woodland bird'.
So that's what he is.

Primroses.

Remember this! I was taking it apart to re-cycle or is it that new phrase - up-cycle?

Primroses.... Frances Pickering has sketched some in her book below.

My up-cycled leaves might do for the primrose plant.

A piece of muslin, Procion dyed pale lemon, my £1 shop stamps that I made, acrylic paints.

Hmmm - bit of a mess.

Maybe not.

Cut them out.

Happy enough.

Stitch them on.

Done.

             Thank you Edith Holden and your book, ' The Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady'.

Chugging along.

The steam train was in Lisburn yesterday and it made me think that I'm chugging along just like the train. Although I keep working at it - making this fabric book is taking time.

 







I'd half forgotten that I'd bought these Acrylic inks to use for my fabric book. I've been trying them out on some papers.

Nice colours.

I've got some paper laid down, brown on one side and green on the other. It has a waxy feel to it on the green side.
Then I put green tissue paper on top - the type that bleeds it's colour when wet. Tissue paper is one of my favourite things!

This leaf  shape is machine embroidered on muslin. It's a sample from very early C&G days and I don't like it much but it might do for my book. I soaked everything with a mix of the inks.

This was a page out of the Radio Times. It was a leafy scene with a little inset of a Monet painting.
































When my pages were dry I gave both sides a coat with the 'acrylic wax' floor polish.

Then I took them in to my craft group as one of our ladies was doing a demo with her "Big Shot' last Thursday. I was able to use my papers to cut a few leaves and emboss a tree. I also took a piece of failed silk batik -  the Big Shot didn't cut through but made an impression.

The green butterflies were embossed using the Big Shot. It's a piece of tissue paper glued on to wallpaper. It was used for lily pads a while ago.
I cut out the leaf from the muslin. It's a bit 'flat' so I might manipulate it with a bit of stitch.
The embossed tree -  I'll probably cut out the shape and stitch it to the fabric somehow.

 My two grandchildren stayed over Saturday night so we were kept busy with them.

So I'm just chugging along, wondering when I'm going to get to the end of the line with this project, and hoping all the bits I'm working on will fall into place.