Being a tourist

Last weekend we had the pleasure of playing host to a lovely internet friend who came over to the UK all the way from Portland, in Oregon USA.

As she is a member of the Photo Café frequented by my OH, he set up a meeting in the South for those members who live within the area. I'm not a member of the Café but got to go along for the fun of it.



We started our tour on Saturday at the Abbotsburry Swannerery. This is not a hospital for sick swans, as I thought, but an ancient breeding farm set up in the 1040's by Benedictine monks as a source of food for lavish banquets.

I don't suppose anyone still eats them today , but that doesn't stop them thinking they need to eat as much as possible in as short a time as they can.



I liked this shot as a pattern inspiration with their lovely neck shapes, you don't often see so many together.



I was amazed to see this information sign explaining how Anna Pavlova and her troup rehearsed with the swans for Swan Lake. Maybe it was more of a publicity stunt at the time. I prefer to think she really did want to study how they behaved and moved.



Of course I couldn't let the opportunity slip by for some pattern/texture shots.



This wonderful fungus was just begging to be photographed.





On Sunday we took a trip to Arundlel to see the castle. It's a beautifully preserved castle with an amazing history that the guides are only too happy to explain if you're interested.



I was a bit surprised to be confronted with these beasties on our way in.



But later in the day I was rewarded with this beautiful piece of sheer inspirational magic.



And this one was just one of those lucky shots, doesn't often happen.

On Monday we went London and as our guest had done the usual sights on a previous visit we went to Camden Lock. As part of my present C&G module I need to look at architectural grids and rooftops, and so I was delighted to find these pics.





I also noticed these amazing fashion designs outside one of the little Camden boutiques.



And finally I couldn't resist snapping this brilliant reflection as we drove past.

Great weekend

We had a lovely weekend in Devon, the weather was glorious, a little bit of an Indian summer at last.

I met up with Val as planned at the Rosemoor gardens, which are very beautiful and quite different to our local RHS at Wisley, in Surrey. We had a lovely long chat and exchanged our work for a 'show and tell'. I got to see Val's latest embellishing samples in the flesh, wich I can tell you were brilliant as they look so full of life and colour. That's the unfortunate thing about the web, it does tend to flatten images of our work.

I was also priveldged to see Val's latest PC for the CG challenge, which will be winging its way to Lynda. It's a beautiful piece with a very cleverly worked embellished BG, which you can see here .

Val is a lovely person with a wealth of creative experience that she's very happy to share, so it was a real treat to sit and compare notes and absorb some of her creative advice. I came away from our meeting full of enthusiasm and confidence for the remainig work I have to do on the C&G. I hope we will be able to meet up again one day for a catch up on the next chapter of our creative story.

I even had time to take a few shots in the gardens of some very inspirational plants etc.



The colours on these Chard really caught my eye.



This sunflower was well passed its best , but the dried flower head has a wonderful texture.



Couldn't reist these artichokes against such a blue sky.



And how about this glorious texture on the melon.

My friend's wedding was beautiful, she looked absolutely radiant, unfortunately I can't post a pic yet as the happy couple have gone on their honeymoon, and I haven't got permission to post a pic.
The setting for the wedding in the Sculpture park was a great idea, there was so much to see between the various stages of the wedding. I managed to snap a couple of the sculptures that I really liked, sorry no names, you'll have to make them up.





On sunday morning we went to Woolacombe Bay which appeared to be a major surfers' magnet. It had a great atmosphere with all their vans lined up on the cliffs above the bay. You'll probably know by now that we have a soft spot for VW campers as we have one ourselves.

Excited!!

I'm, off to Devon tomorrow for 2 exciting reasons.

Firstly I'm meeting up with the lovely Val tomorrow at the RHS Rosemoor gardens, which I've never been to despite being a member of Wizley Gardens, which is the Surrey equivalent, since '93. I'm really excited to be meeting Val as she's going to bring some of her embellishing samples for me to have a look at in the flesh, while we indulge ourselves with some naughties form the cafe.

The second reason for the visit is that we're going to a friend's wedding at Broomhill sculpture park, which looks amazing, so all in all it should be a very special w/e.

I would like to make a couple of thank yous in this post too.
I have been very touched by the number of bloggers who welcomed me back after my enforced internet break, it was so nice to know that my ramblings had been missed.



Secondly I was delighted to receive the 'I love your blog ' award from Carol this week, it's so nice to know that people enjoy your blog enough to want to give you an award.
At the moment things are pretty busy, so I think I will just have to say a big thank you and pass this on to all those who have given me so much friendship and support since I started blogging.

I have been promoted yet again by my lovely DD2 and am now responsible for the in stock baby carriers. You can see them here. Once again there have been a few tricky moments as I get to know the new fabrics and design, but I think I'm up and running now, but very busy with a steady work flow, so time is tight.

I'm still managing to keep my 2 DCD's (dedicated creative days) a week that I set out to do on Jan 1st, but they are now focused on the finish date in March next year for my C&G embroidery course. No mean feat considering it's taken me 2 1/2 years to get half way , so now I have to do the other half in 6 months, hmmmm!

Anyway the point of all this dribble is to explain why my presence might be patchy over the next few months. But I'm so nosey I dare say I won't be able to stay away for long.

And because I can't bear to put up a post without pics here's a few to be going on with.



I saw this lovely planter at a local NT house the other Sunday, made me think of my progress at the moment.



This lovely carved seat has been placed in a recently reworked little retreat garden at the Arundel Wetland Centre.



And this paper-cut design is the first piece of design work for the new module 5, which I will post about later, just wanted to prove I have been doing something creative.

I'm back!!!

At last!! After a week and a half we're back on line. AOL finally found out why our router wasn't talking to the phone line.
Thanks to all those who sent messages, it was much appreciated. I shall now have a great time catching up with everyone :-)

It's a very strange feeling being without internet contact, makes you wonder how we managed without it, all I can say is that I've tidied the entire contents of both studios, revamped a previous C&G module that I bungled, and am now looking forward to the new module after a succesfull assessment on module 4.

It's great to be back!!

Message from Sharon

Hello!

This Sharon's daughter Hannah posting on her behalf. Her internet connection has unfortunately gone kaput and she has no access whatsoever to the blog or her emails, so please be patient if you are waiting to hear from her, she'll be back as soon as possible!

August PC

I'm running rather late for the CG August challenge , but just about made it in time. My swap partner is Debbi so I'm preying she'll like my lateral approach.

The source picture for this month was as you see above , and I decided to go with the verse, after I'd been to the Steam Festival. Now I'm sure you're thinking, this woman has really lost it this time!! what the heck is the connection. You may well ask!
The thing is, I was so struck by the wonderful dedication that lovers of steam engines have for their metallic beasts, that in Ebeneezer's case is over 100 years old, and yet he has hundreds of friends, so there you have it, that's my connection, to the verse.



I took the original pic and played about a bit with cropping straightening and burning out the highlights and then put on a posterise filter in PS, and repeated this 3 times to get the depth I wanted.





I then transferred the image to a piece of cotton fabric using a PC World image transfer sheet. It transferred very well but was a little plasticised which made FME on the piece a bit difficult. As I'm using my DD's posh machine at the moment I took the opportunity to write the name in the corner.



If you want to see Ebeneezer in action, he's on the end of my video in the previous post.

Steam festival

I've been trying to get around to putting up a post on the steam festival at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum for the past week , but there's been so much going on I haven't had a chance.

Anyway it was a fantastic day out last Sunday, with lots of wonderful stream engines, most of which were chugging away giving out a nice bit of warmth from their furnaces on what turned out to be quite a cold windy day.



I don't know how many of you have stood next to one of these engines, but they really are like a living beast and the rhythm of the pistons is just like a steady heart beat. You might gather I'm rather smitten, to the point where when they announced that the public could have a go at driving one I was first in the queue.



There was a beautiful carousel (on the video clip with a wonderful organ) that was powered by an equally lovely steam engine that had always been used in the fairground, and was lovingly kept in an immaculate condition. And just to prove what I mean here's a close up of one of the wheels.



And the star decoration on one of the boxes, fancy cleaning all this brass, that's dedication for you. To give you an idea of just how much it takes to bring these engines back form the brink, here's a wheel that hasn't been restored.





Even more brass



This amazing man not only created this steam bike from scratch, but also made a steam gramophone (also on the video clip)




The final event of the day was a series of steam engine races and in this one they had to roll the barrel up the field without crushing it, the marshal you can see running had the job of putting the barrel back under the roller if it went sideways. It was of course instant disqualification if they squashed him :-)



One crew got a bit excited and squashed a barrel under their wheel so tightly that they had to call for this chap to get them out of trouble.



I made a small video with my digi camera, so please excuse the quality, it's on my list of 'must haves' to get a an upgrade, but I wanted to try and give the nostalgic flavour of the show. On the end of it you'll see a beautiful old steam engine who's name is Ebeneezer, he helped to build the road that leads to the original Wembly Stadium, but more of that on a later post as you'll see the significance.