... well, Uttoxeter Race Course, to be accurate.

But there was not a horse in site.

Because it was Quilt Exhibition at Uttoxeter, held at the rather lovely race course there.

And I had entered two pieces into the Innovative Embroidery class.

What I like about this little show is the fact that it has an embroider pavilion (yes - it really is a pavilion because it directly overlooks the racecourse.)

The down side of this pavilion is that in bright sunshine (and it was a lovely sunny day) photos can be a bit tricky because of the way the sun streams in through the windows.

Anyway, I took a few photos.


















 A lovely day out!

I think I have mentioned it before, but I find the work by Welsh artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins truly mesmerising and powerful.  It is my secret ambition (well not so secret now, since I am sharing it here) to own one of his pieces.

But that day is a little way off, so in the meantime I just enjoy his blog posts.

One lovely thing about Clive is that he shares the process - you get a real sense how he works from the various photographs that he shares. It is a very generous thing to do.

One recent example is Flowering Skin - you can follow the link and see how the work developed.  If you have time, I urge you to have a wander around his various posts, because as comprehensive as this description is, it does not include all the preparatory work he carries out assembling mquettes of his subjects and models for backgrounds etc. to help him build the composition of the picture.  But you will find all of that elsewhere on his blog.  You will just have to have a little hunt around.

He has also posted a similar piece about another work, Drift.

He is using horse imagery a lot lately.  You will find explanations for that on his blog too, but you might want to have a read about the background of the Mari Lwyd here. Obviously, his own experience goes much deeper.

Let me know what you think - as I say I am a real fan.

I wanted to share this blog post with you.

Sheila from across the pond in Idaho ( the blog title is a bit of a clue!) writes a truly lovely blog.  Her writing is style is just excellent, and I do love to visit her blog and see what she has been up to.

I particularly wanted to share this blog post. Recently,she gave herself a really technical challenge in the assembly of a quilt top based on a fountain. Having wrestled with a few technical issues, she then wrote a lovely blog about it, sharing the process. You can read it yourself on the link below.

Idaho Beauty's Creative Journey: And it's done...

Having had a few technical issues myself with some of my own quilts, I really empathise with this blog post.

Have a little read and see what you think.

 And so, yes it could also be said that I was yet again satisfying my shed addiction.

But this isn't any old shed.  This belongs to Laura Kemshall and is in fact her Wooden House. And her little wooden house is in possibly one of the prettiest villages I have ever been to.  It is in a little village called Worfield in Shropshire, but only 10 miles or so from Wolverhampton so not so far from Birmingham.

And you have to cross a wooden bridge to get to the wooden house - which on a glorious spring day just made my heart sing!

And I was there to do an Altered Book workshop.

Now, if you pop back here on a frequent basis, you will know that I often make books.  In fact I really do love making books, and if you pop over here you can see 'Have a Heart' which I made quite recently.

But I have never really got into altering books, and as Laura was offering a workshop it seemed an ideal opportunity to go and play and also inspect the converted Cricket Pavilion - the Wooden House.

So, let's start with the Wooden House.

What can I tell you, except that to call it a 'shed' is, well, downright rude!

It has a little kitchenette at the back and a loo (completely self contained - you could live there!) and the light airy space is so fabulous.  In the renovations they kept the original sliding windows (ideal for serving cucumber sandwiches I am sure) and replaced the shingle roof.  It is quite magical.


Now, that is my only interior shot because I was there to work! I put my head down and boy did I work hard that day!

In fact, I worked so hard that I did not catalogue the whole process with photos, so there are a few gaps here!

First of all, choose your book.

Now I had already bough a book an reptiles from a local charity shop, not because I am particularly drawn to the subject but because the pictures are lovely and the paper feels almost like a rag paper.

I knew it would work and the images would challenge me.

Laura started off by showing us how to prepare the pages and how to start to give the book interest by snipping away and giving shapes etc.

She also showed us how to group the pages with either matt medium or stitch.

This is the second book I chose to work on.  Older than the first, with much flimsier paper.  It is a book about art, but with no pictures of any art!  How bizarre but what an opportunity - and some lovely words and phrases sang out at me.



And then with some stitch in place it starts getting creative.

My old friend Gesso here,

but here, using matt medium to cover a page a make a resist.


We used a water based drawing ink that Laura supplied ready mixed to create these backgrounds and the water based products are resisted by the medium, unlike acrylic paint that would simple cover it up.  I just love this effect.  And look at that fabulous oval aperture - created using an oval cutting tool (something to add to my shopping list!)

At lunchtime (and don't get me started on the fabulous food that Laura plied us with all day - that could be a whole blog post in itself what with the morning shortbread, the afternoon muffins and the lunchtime quiche - dropped in by Linda!) we popped over to the other studio, just across the front drive, to see the throbbing hub of the Fingerprint workshop.

And here is the beast itself, in effect a great big digitl printer, big enough to take a roll of fabric.


And a view of the studio with the display shelves at the end.


 Here is that first gessod paged, with ink and words highlighted.


And again, with more ink added.  It was such a good drying day that I was able to build up layers of ink.


My messy little corner in the Wooden Shed.


 And another page in the reptiles book, on the left using matt medium as the resist and using a simple mask to apply the matt medium before adding the ink.


 We also used oil pastels to create a resist.

This is a cheap brand that is new to me.  I am not really a pastels user, but I did enjoy the process.  These had a lot of pigment and felt more like a wax crayon than a greasy pastel.


Of course, Laura had some work for us to look at (done either by herself or Linda).  The butterflies below are created by bleaching out the ink.  I am going to try that!



The same is true of the spots in this book too.


And back to mine!

These pages are done using one of my favourite techniques, stencilling gesso through a stencil to create a variation on the page below.



And on the right hand side here, I stamped some matte medium to create an interesting back ground.  I love the possibilities with matte medium.




More resist using matte medium.

This one was actually done by her Grandmother. It is lovely.

And talking of loveliness - in the lawn!

And finally a random chair (which I rather like) which would just look so great with one of those cushions!

You can buy online  or, if you are in the vicinity (Gosport, Hampshire) pop round for a browse.  They are lovely, welcoming people.

And if you fancy a Garden Studio of your own, here is the link.  (and also a demonstration of how a bit of imagination can transform a rather ordinary looking shed!)  By the way, if you are tempted, they invested in additional insulation in the roof and floor - this has to be an all year space.

Do you sometimes find that when you should be doing other things (tidying the unholy mess that I seem to create, finishing work already started, preparing for the Altered Books workshop with Laura Kemshall, working out how to send framed embroidery pieces to a show - rashly I did not think that one through!) suddenly, wham, you have to start a new piece.

I often seem to work in a series now. I should probably do more sketchbook work, but tend to just dive straight in when I am working in a series - only using a sketchbook when I start something really new, and even then probably not with the discipline that I should (all part of the untidy mind I guess).

Well, after my session with the paints (the neat rows of blobs) and the treasure gold, I was looking through my stash of mono print tissue papers, the ones I had already stuck onto rag paper, and another image jumped out at me.

You might remember this one.  Before stitching.

Anyways, I had made more than one print from this image. I know the technique is called mono printing but just sometimes you can squeeze a second print from the plate.

Here is the second print with some stencilling started.

Building up the diamonds with small paper diamond shapes stuck on (chocolate wrappers, since you ask).


Building up the paper collage, the strips of paper are painting dictionary pages (a bargain from the chartity shop for a £1.00 because some one had already cut some pages out).