The sun prints I painted in the summer are now stitched and mounted. Some are hand stitched and others are machined as well. On this one I machine stitched a line drawing of the skeleton tree that I can see across the valley from my shed. It has actually got a few more leaves now - must have been all that rain earlier on in the year. I shall be showing them at an Exhibition at Ruskin Mill, Nailsworth at the end of this month - Twilight - I will post a flyer with details later.
I also further stitched my "Fifty shades of brown "moth piece. The background was quite dominant and by adding lines of running stitch in the background I think it looks better. I decided to continue the design into the border. I have now mounted the piece on a light coloured linen.

Here is the completed piece "A Good Book". The text is cut out and appliqued onto a stitched background. I used stencils and reverse applique to construct the "illuminated" letters using silk and metallic thread to enhance it.
Mr Bedford's signature is printed in the bottom left hand corner.
This piece will be exhibited in the Weaver's Gallery, "The Beauty of Books", Ledbury, during the poetry festival from July 2nd to July 14th.
And --- I've updated my website at last!

I've been working on more ideas for my piece which will be included in the Exhibition at Weaver's Gallery, Ledbury, in conjunction with the Poetry Festival. The exhibition runs from 2nd July to 14th July 2013.
I have had so many books to sort out. They were my father's collection. The experience was overwhelming. They were so precious to him but I don't have the same connection.  However, I feel bound to look through every one. I like the idea of recycling the pages but find it hard to destroy a book even to move it on into something else. If they are damaged, that is easier. I made a large piece of fabric paper collaging it together with wax and thread. The book was Letters of Dr John Brown and actually is really interesting if incomplete. The pages are quite small and there are attractive spaces between paragraphs. This has now become the background for my new piece.
There were several books in the Everyman series published by Dent. The book is truly beautiful. There are quotations and beautiful intricate designs decorating the pages. Inside the front cover of The Life of Samuel Johnson was a signature H. Bedford 1906. I realised that I had known this man. I remember visiting him and his wife with my family when I was very young. The memories are extremely hazy but I remember he gave us boiled sweets - and their garden was quite dark with a huge holly hedge at the bottom.
So what a good job I looked in that book. I've used the page with the Milton quotation and the publisher's stamp as the inspiration for my design.

This is the second Journal Quilt of 2013, for February, continuing the theme "In other words". It is a quotation from Romeo and Juliet. "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." The rose is a digital print which I enhanced with inktense pencils and then machine stitched.

This is the March Journal Quilt, called " Sand Stories".
Last March,when I was in Mevagissey, I photographed lug worm casts on the beach and it occurred to me that they looked like a kind of alphabet again. I'm not sure what the story is yet - as long as it isn't a load of ----!

This is my take on the second "whisper", called "Foxglove". I took a photo of a stone wall and a foxglove, used filters and also changed the colour palette then printed on to recycled cotton sheet again. The background is machine stitched and the fern shapes are appliquéd on top. Areas of the wall have been embroidered with  French knots in a chunky thread.
I am enjoying this idea of just looking for a brief time at an image and then taking an idea from it for a new piece of work. The original piece was quite abstract but the colour palette was similar. I spotted a wall and a fern growing at it's base. My first print turned out rather light. This was the second attempt. I shall probably resurrect the other print by adding some inktense colour to it.

This is the sixth of my tiny lichen embroideries. I start off by highlighting the shapes with a small backstitch. The areas are then filled with knots of different weight threads. Beads and jump rings are added for texture. I estimated that there are over 10,000 stitches in this piece. They take a long time to make but are rather therapeutic to sew. You get in the zone, especially with a (small) glass of red wine to hand.

I do like this soft colour palette of pinks, lilacs and greys. They are all colours I have seen on the lichens I have looked at.

This is the base for my Virginia Creeper panel. It is layered with scrim, hessian, wool tops and home spun wool then embellished to create a textured background inspired by a stone wall. This is a response to a picture I was shown, not my choice, as part of a "chinese whisper". The idea is that the members of the group respond to an image which is revealed for three minutes only. The resulting piece is then shown to another person who makes their response which is shown to another person and so on. We are interested in seeing what transpires as the original idea becomes more abstract.

On this panel, linen was applied on the surface then cut back to reveal the textured background beneath. The leaves were made from a felted (by mistake) wool cardigan and embellished on the surface.
The linen cut outs were applied to another panel to make the third stone surface.
All three pieces have been freely machine stitched.

I've decided to display them horizontally.

The three pieces were finished with a cord edge and mounted on a natural linen canvas.

 The first of the Journal Quilt challenges for 2013, this time the format is horizontal, 8" x 12". We could choose our own theme. I thought I would continue my exploration of text, letter forms and writing so have called my theme "In other words". I thought this would give me plenty of scope throughout the year. The problem was, once I'd decided on the title I developed an "ear worm". That annoying tune that won't leave you. Mine was "Fly me to the moon" - in other words --- hold my hand etc etc. I couldn't do anything so decided to knock it on the head by machine stitching the whole song freely on to white cotton. Then I quickly brushed grey acrylic paint over the surface to make a textured background and appliquéd notes and a bass clef as it looked like an ear. The words were appliquéd on the surface and I added a little heart button that I found on the floor as the song was about love and it was Valentine's day. I've backed it on pelmet vilene and may make a book with them at the end of the year. One down,eleven to go!

This is the last Journal Quilt of 2012 - actually finished today in my new shed. It is a mixed media piece. The background is emulsion paint, scrim and tissue - painted and  machine stitched.
The inset panel is a digital print with text and hand stitched.
The quotation is the reason I made the piece.
It is a quotation by Edith Sitwell that I was sent recently and particularly like.
"Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand
and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home."

This is a view of the interior of my new studio/shed. We braved IKEA for a table yesterday and I have moved in my sewing machine. There is still lots to do - the plumbing needs finishing, electrics tweaking and the shelves and storage cupboard to kit out. It has been lovely working in there today.

My own gold medal, stitched with the Olympics on in the background!
This is a mixed media piece based on the glorious lichen caloplaca aurea. John had got a slide of it which he kindly printed out.
I've used paper, cotton and silk in this and textured the background with flour and water paste. The paper is my wonderful rag paper that I brought back from India. I stitched over it with a blunt needle to get a texture and then stitched black "dots" on top. I like the way the fibres show on the edge when its torn. The leaf- shaped caloplaca is cotton with silk and stitched with layers of wadding underneath the layers. It was appliquéd on as a separate piece. Tiny cotton circles representing the fruiting bodies were also appliquéd to the surface and then machine stitched. I had just the right piece of hand dyed fabric for these.

Here you can see detail of the flour and water paste texture which I coloured with Inktense blocks. I was surprised how easily it stitched and expected to lose a few needles, but thankfully didn't.
The surface was coated  with acrylic wax which makes it surprisingly pliable.
I like this one and its the last of the yellow Journal Quilts. The last four will be blue.