Missenden Abbey Weekend Workshop

This is the view that greeted me from my bedroom window at dawn on Saturday morning. As a tutor I was lucky enough to be accommodated in the main building at Missenden Abbey. The view is over lake, and it was truly magical to see it unfold. As the sun rose the white frost began to shine. The camera couldn't capture it, especially as it is taken through a small pane of one of the windows.

There were students on the course from all over the UK, including Northern Ireland. We had lovely weekend and they produced some fantastic pieces. Stupidly I forgot to ask their permission to put their pictures on my blog, so you will have to make do with this view instead.

Back to the grindstone today. Lots more dyeing to do for Textiles in Focus at the end of the week. The Vegetarian silk in the fabric rolls has really taken off and I have once again sold out. I honestly thought I had enough to last us until after TIF! so it's back to the dyepot....... Now is the time to place any special orders and I'll incorporate them into a dyeing session!

Take It Further January

Well, it's finished. The colours are much closer in reality, but here is the initial design




And here is the finished piece.



I'm surprised that the stitches aren't more in evidence in the finished piece. I have layered scrim over a layer made on the embellisher, The scrim has been pulled into a textured layer. I'm quite pleased with it and enjoyed doing it - even though it is blue!

I've got the blues

I never work in blue. I have the greatest difficulty in working in blue, so I have chosen this colour for the Take it Further Challenge.

I have been playing around with paints and printing, and have come up with this design. I'm not sure if it's finished yet, I think it needs a little tweaking, but it is a start.

I'd be interested to have your thoughts.

Layers

I call this effort 'Altered Ego'. It isn't really a self portrait, but it looks more like one than the original artwork! Originally designed with torn paper shapes this was put together with layers of hand-dyed felt, partly felted, then cut back and finally meshed together.

Looking forward to seeing what the rest of you have done.