printed

i made a treasury for etsy the other day using really bright colours...i was really inspired by all those lovely limes and pinks and reds so i used some of my favourite blocks to make some printed cards packs for the shoppette. really simple, but they make me happy.

sorry about this...

more stock in the form of sketchbooks for etsy. i know, i know, it's all i go on about these days.

harry the happy horse

a vision in lilac for today's nahcotta piece, with a delightful drawing of a horse by me circa 1982. this is actually the last piece, so i've got a ton of binding to do. what a thrilling saturday evening i have to look forward to! :) (actually, at the risk of sounding like a tragic dullard, i wouldn't want it any other way.)

have a happy and restful weekend, y'all!

b,d,h&l are tall letters

orange and brown for today. and yesterday i did speak too soon, this was a pain in the ar*e. it has been reworked, unpicked, reworked again to get here. now i like it. it's quite simple and that's what works with these pieces. right, onward and upward...

i've got a very stroppy kid. frank has finished pre-school today and has come home with a tiger painted face which he keeps forgetting. he then wipes his face and smudges it, then gets upset cos it's all coming off, starts to cry, his nose then runs and we have rivers of snot and tears and tiger face is no more. yuck.

this girl is running away

a peppy new red paper quilt for nahcotta, i'm so loving making these. this one was quite tricky, (it nearly ended up in the dustbin more than once) but i persevered and i think i got there in the end. i'm on a roll now (although i bet i get stuck having typed that out loud) but i've got some difficult colours coming up. (difficult in that they're not colours i use often.) finger's crossed!

on sunday i saw a little cat

blacks, greys and creams for this piece today. it went together so nicely, it was a pleasure to do. the 'little cat' in the title is referring to our first ever family pet; she turned up on our doorstep and never left, much to my dad's horror. not a fan of felines on my paternal side - there's a family horror story about a feral cat shut up in a cupboard and my grandmother's aunt's father's second cousin five times removed was very badly wounded when she opened the cupboard door and out sprang the half dead cat. my father has a tendency to exaggerate wildly, (not a trait i have at all, *wink*) so i have always treated that story with a large dose of skepticism. anyway, we called the little cat 'diana' - and guess what? it was 1981 and charlie and di had just wed, what a bunch of royalists we were. or replace 'royalists' with 'saddos', whichever you prefer.

once upon a time i found a key

this is nahcotta number four - a little yellow offering of which i am quite pleased. yellow is not a colour i use often, so i went out of my comfort zone, and i'm so pleased i did. as with the other paper quilts in this series, it is based on a piece of writing from my 25 year old school books (clue in the title on what the story is about!) and i have a tiny vintage key with two rather handy holes in to stitch on after it's bound. hope your day is as happy and sunny as mine has been today, i'm feeling smug because not only have i quilted all the quilts so far, i've stuck a casserole in the oven and i've got two happy kids playing in the garden. life is good. (as i write this i can hear frank...no arthur, you do NOT hit! it's naughty. mummy, arth's hitting me...better go.)

get used to them, there's more to come

these are probably getting boring now, but i'm loving making them. again, this is unquilted and the pics of these are coming out rather poorly. i think it's the time of day i'm taking them, it's been hot, humid and grey today. anyhoo, this is called 'do your corrections' and has once again some of my school work as background, this time maths and my very, very awful work. every page on it had 'DO YOUR CORRECTIONS' scrawled across it, i swear i only got about three correct per page on average. 1985 was obviously not a good year for me and maths problems. if frank comes home with this sort of work in 6 years time, i'm gonna get him a pivate tutor. shame on you, mum and dad, why didn't i have a private tutor? oh, yeah, that's right i did. and i'm still crap at maths.

UPDATE: 18th july: the above pic is pretty poor, i have retaken it and it is available to look at here

floral lino prints

hello all, hope you're doin' well. big happenings with my workspace; i have had a large redundant cabinet removed, but sadly everywhere is more of a mess cos of course i had to empty the darn thing. so it's all over the floor...you can imagine. but at least something proactive has happened, which is often half the battle. while all this excitement was going on, i made a couple of lino prints. i'm rather pleased with them. may use them for more journal/sketchbook making. will post results when i have a lovely clean, clear workroom! sometime next year then........ ;)

had a bit o' time on my hands...

...so i covered this sketchbook with an original collage. did this yesterday whilst having half an eye on 'columbo'. can you tell the bambinos weren't around?!