Another new camera

Well I changed the Nikon camera I bought for another Fuji.  I have had a Fuji camera for 10 years and it has been really good,  I just wanted a new model with a few more MGP.  So I have gone from a 2mgp to a 14 mgp so I should notice a big difference in the quality of my pictures.  I haven't quite got to grips with it yet but I can just about take a photo.


I haven't done anything to my crazy quilt since my last blog, I don't know where the time has gone.  I have been making more fabric book pages, also teaching my granddaughter to knit and sew.  She is 22 years old and was a very creative artistic girl.  She has now become so critical about what she does now that it inhibits her to the point of not doing anything.  I am really pleased that she is enjoying sewing with me once a week.  A couple of weeks ago we made a pair of trousers for her from a re-jigged child's pattern.  They came out remarkably well considering I had to lengthen them, take them in and make them bigger around the waist and hips.  I made two long triangular pieces which fitted in from the waist downwards to just above the knee.  I will try to get a picture of them next time she comes over.  We made them out of some recycled 1950's curtains which had been in a holiday chalet somewhere.  They had a number and the words " chalet 4 " printed on a removable tape.   We have decided to use Chalet 4 as a brand name for anything else we design and make.

 

The garden is beginning to look nice and we have had a lovely display of tulips.  My husband has just made some really whacky wigwam type structures for when we put the sweet peas in.  We raided our boundary hedge for some sturdy poles, they were beginning to shoot so we have lovely sprouting posts.  We will put bean netting down the middle so that hopefully I won't need to keep tying them in.  I haven't tried this before so it will be interesting to see if it works.



Here are a few pictures from my fabric book making.  You will see that I have incorporated some recycled envelopes, some with windows which I am using as a frame for selected images.
 

A painted page and an envelope page with window.

A painted page with hand made block print.

A decorated double page on an envelope.

One side of a fabric page.



The other side of the fabric page.



Work in progress.

                       I hope by the time I next post a blog I will have done a lot more work.



At last I hope for some pictures !!

I have now unistalled my Nikon camera from my computer so I am hoping I will be able to show some worthwhile pictures of my work and of my new car.

The first 2 pictures are of some details from my crazy quilt.

The next 2 pictures are of my new old car which is a 1959 A35. We used to have one of these 47years ago when our daughter was a baby.

I will show you some pages from a fabric and painted book which I am making. I went to a workshop run by Frances Pickering last year and I was so inspired by her wotk that I have been quietly beavering away trying to produce something interesting.



A bit too much table and not enough book.

 I haven't mentioned that I love gardening but unfortunately due to my ME I am not able to do very much anymore and my husband has taken it upon himself to learn about gardening.  I have some lovely pictures of my garden and also some of  near where I live in Devon.

Beautiful wild flowers just around the corner from where I live.

I really love the cosmos flowers as they bend in the wind.

Just a little snippet of views of my garden last summer.  I hope it will be as good if not better this summer, that is if we are going to get a summer.

Another long pause from me ----------

Once again it has been a long time since I posted on this blog.  It doesn't mean I have been idle, far from it.  I decided to try another blog site and to be honest it is quite confusing.  I am going to re-post what I put on that site onto Blogger.  I like the new format and I think it will be a much more useful place to blog.  Thankyou to Ro Bruhn for her comments and I hope that she will pop in again to see what I have been up to.

Soon after the surgery on my right hand I very foolishly started a new project.  A crazy patchwork quilt which has taken up so much of my time, although I am enjoying it.  Because of my hand being pretty bad I decided to put it all together using the machine and also some of the top stitching is done on the machine.  I have done loads of hand stitching as well so it doesn't just look like a quick machine job.

Small embroidered pieces for stitching onto the crazy quilt.

I have decorated the top of the quilt with different sorts of embellishments.  These small embroideries are one of them.  I also stitch on buttons and beads.

Well I have just wasted over 2 hours trying to transfer pictures from a new camera.

My other news is that I have recently bought an old car a 1959 A35.  It is rather lovely.  I will try to get a decent picture transferred over.  I hope it won't be another 2 hours.  Well it didn't take 2 hours but now the images which were taken with my old camera are transferring fragmented.  I am really fed up with it, I think I shall uninstall my new camera's files and try again tomorrow.

A long time away.

I have been away from sewing, blogging and almost everything else in the last six months. Oh well that's
life. I am hopeful that I will really pull my finger out and get moving again.  In truth I have been so poorly
with ME and have also had major surgery on my right hand.  It is taking a long time to heal but I was told
this when I had it done.  A few years ago I was suffering with an affliction which I found most debilitating. 
I had always been a very active person with not a minute of the day wasted. Suddenly I was experiencing
what I call a total switch off. It turned out to be ME after trying to get diagnosed for nearly 8 years.

This week I have just decided to get on with something which I have thought about for some while.  I really
like making braids using multiple threads of knitting yarn or sari silk waste.




The other things which I want to get going on are beads and buttons.  I will make these out of wood, plastic, metal, wire, cloth, in fact anything which will allow me to manipulate the materials into what I want to see. 

I see some lovely blog pages and would love to know how to use some of the ways in which others make
their blogs so attractive.  For instance my most favourite site of all is Ro Bruhn'sit is so colourful and full of interesting bits and pieces, visually stunning as well as the content.I have stashed away loads of quilt tops
which I want to get started on the quilting.  I  bought a quilting frame from Kenneth Lund in America and I
am desperate to get to use it.  With being so ill I have had to put off doing so much of what I love doing.



Some of the quilts which are waiting to be finished.

Some of the quilts have hand stitching on the top and some are machine stitched.  I am hoping for a much better future.