Skating on thin ice.....

Yesterday I saw the ducks and gulls skidding about on the icy pond in the park. I wanted to rush home and knit socks for them but decided against it for fear of being cautioned by those very nice community police who cycle round our park to protect the locals from women who want to force the feet of unsuspecting wildlife into warm footwear!

Sunset....

Winter Landscape

The setting sun touches the top of the mossy walls turning the landscape into an enchanting place where magical things happen.

SKIRMISH

a piece of irregular or unpremeditated fighting....a slight engagenent!!!

Many angles

Movement, objects, speech, and words :
We communicate through gross symbols.
We call them "objective,"
But we cannot escape our point of view.

Delicious Autumn

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot

England in Autumn

As days grow shorter, and nights grow longer and cooler, biochemical processes in the leaf begin to paint the landscape with Nature's autumn palette.





Needles and leaves that fall are not wasted. They decompose and restock the soil with nutrients and make up part of the spongy humus layer of the forest floor that absorbs and holds rainfall. Fallen leaves also become food for numerous soil organisms vital to the forest ecosystem.

It is quite easy to see the benefit to the tree of its annual leaf fall, but the advantage to the entire forest is more subtle. It could well be that the forest could no more survive without its annual replenishment from leaves than the individual tree could survive without shedding these leaves.



Do look at the following site for scientific stuff about Autumn.
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/misc/leaves/leaves.htm

Scene in the park this morning....

I could not believe my eyes when I spotted this heron in the park....I am so cross that the pic is blurred - I hope to see him (her?) again and take a better pic soon.

Silent, soft and slow.....

One of the memories from my childhood is of waking up on a winter’s morning and knowing that something had changed since I went to sleep. The bedroom was lighter and the world quieter – much quieter. The snow had fallen – silent, soft and slow. If I could make an appeal to those who have it within their power to change something in our environment it would be for a quieter world....a world in which noise pollution becomes a serious offence...a world in which motorists do not play their car sound systems at ‘ballistic’.....a world in which the sound system in the cinema is not so loud that you cannot hear the dialogue.....a world in which....I had better stop at this point for fear of turning this blog into a rant.
This entry was written to support blog action day.

Nature's art.....

"The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.” Pablo Picasso

Autumn in the park

Autumn flames



A feast for the birds.



Crab apple weeping - with laughter I hope!

Wandering though Florence we saw......

Temptation coloured red!



A famous character in disguise



Glorious colours


This little shop tucked away in a square - it could easily have been missed. I'm so glad we found it - it sold the most delicious soaps and handcream.


We saw this bride and her groom - it was lovely to see them walking hand in hand, their future, unknown, stretching before them but for that moment happy and carefree.


I love Florence with a passion - everything about it - even the graffitti. The colours, buildings, narrow streets, fabulous window displays - not to mention the art and architecture and the food and the wine. Hope you enjoy this small taste of my favourite place in the whole world.

Florence in September

on your doorstep....

Since the birth of my first grandchild I have become intimately acquainted with the park which, enchantingly, separates my daughter and her partner's house from mine. These are just some of the wonders which I see walking my grandson through the park in his pram....

details from the latest fabrication

When do I get my own sewing machine?

a new bag trying to hide in the apple tree

Too bad about the rain but just look at the sky......

Chickenfest

Appliqued wall panel with machine and hand embroidery.....what you might call 'part of my chicken period! Picasso had a blue period - so why not a chicken period?

Someone's on my roof without a permit!

Change in the weather?

Classic bank holiday weather.

Grandmother's bonnets, dandelions and a goose called Glenda

Life is what happens when you are making other plans....

This bag started life as a wall panel in the shape of a kimono and then suddenly it spoke to me and said: "I think that I would rather be a bag - that way I will see more of the world than I would just hanging about looking at the opposite wall!" Well - how could I resist a plea like that. This bag is lined with dancing monkey fabric - so I hope that the bag and they have lots of adventures together!

Life is what happens when you are making other plans....

Thought that it was about time....

that I posted some of my stuff on this blog - or should I say my 'creations'?

The first is a detail of a wall panel using vintage kimono fabric as a background on which I have embroidered fans using threads and yarn scraps to create the shape. The panel is called 'Fantastic' - well what else would it be called?

The second pic is a detail of a crocheted bag which is one of my first pieces. The bag is embellished with buttons and glass beads and embroidery and hand-made beads. The shape of the bag is triangular and is probably more suited to be displayed as an objet d'art rather than a handbag. It is lined with silk.

The third piece is an elaborately decorated handbag, lined in silk style fabric and heavily embellised using the sewing machine in addition to hand embroidery....
and last of all is a small embroidered panel using the same technique of building up a surface with machine couching and embroidery.

On your doorstep........?