Busy Times–a holiday required

Hello All.  A long time between drinks, but life has been chucking us wobblies as well as some good times, leaving me precious little time to create. 
In between all of it I have been throwing a bit of paint around some paper and fitting in a bit of art work whenever I can.
My house is becoming a trash can as I save all sorts of recyclables and odds and ends that I think may make some kind of arty mark.  Everything is eyed off as a possible stamp, mask or stencil – LOL – nothing is sacred.  Different papers and ephemera are cluttering up the bottom of the cupboard too.  All fun!!!!
Here are some prints from the humble egg carton. 


The end of the celery makes a lovely rose print.
We have a very small vegetable garden now but we managed to grow some beautiful broccoli this winter. 

Last weekend we went out to Leyburn Historical Sprints for my DH’s birthday.  Luckily it was a sunny warm day with no wind – an interesting day out is all I will say, but DH and his brother in law enjoyed it.

DH, Brother in Law, Ian and DH’s sister, Catherine.

A much needed holiday is just around the corner, so until next time, enjoy your arting and crafting
………………Dianne.

A Finish - Old Fashioned Cookery & Handy Gadget

The Ferris Wheel Quilt is FINISHED!!!  YAY!!  Marvellous what a deadline will do.

I hope the recipient likes it and that it brings her much comfort.
It was difficult to get a good shot of it because of it’s length, but this is the best I could do.
Mathematics is not my forte so my DH had to step in and work out a nice arc to dissect the squares for the quilting pattern. I also quilting in the ditch.  In the end, I was happy with the quilting.


We were gifted some green tomatoes by our neighbour.  What to do?  My late maternal grandmother made THE best green tomato pickle, so I rummaged around and found a recipe which I thought might be close to the one she used to make. In the past I have never been able to replicate them. She never had a recipe, and when we asked how to make them, it was ‘just a handful of this, a spoonful of that etc.’

This was the end result and I was really pleased (and surprised) at how good they tasted and how very much like my Nana Mac’s pickles they turned out to be.  We made many, many bottles and we have been gifting them to family and friends who seem to be enjoying them too.  Chuffed with that!

This is one of the handiest tools I have owned.  Gifted to me by a dear friend whose darling husband made it.  Thank you my friend
I use it mainly for guiding patchwork under the foot of the machine and it is better than an awl or unpicker because it hasn’t got the extremely sharp point to accidentally poke yourself with.  It seems to grip onto the fabric too and stops the piece from slipping.  It is also very useful for poking out corners. 
Are you a pinner or non-pinner?  I used to be a ‘fly by the seat of the pants’ non pinner when I did patchwork, but now I pin obsessively and I am much more pleased with the results. 
Until next time………happy crafting……….Dianne.

D Days – Deadlines * Drawing * Done

It has been a busy time  here at EPQ central. 

There has been family stuff going on and lots of frantic work being done due to deadlines.  Thank goodness for those DEADLINES – it seems to motivate me to get things DONE.

The first thing done and finished was the art quilt for our exhibition in September.  The theme was ‘Botanica’.

Here is the reveal of my piece “From the Seed”.  Lately I have been fascinated with seeds and seed pods and the first thing that came to mind for botanica was this very subject. 

Readers may recall when Shirley and I experimented with dyeing fabrics from botanicals.  It was loads of fun with some success and some we won’t talk about.  Some of the fabrics I have used in this piece are from those experiments.

As you may know, I have been doing lots of collage both in fabric and paper this year, and after seeing Jane La Fazio’s work, I was inspired to lay down the foundation of the piece with fabric collage and use lots of hand stitching and other techniques to bind the components all together.  Make sure you visit Jane’s site HERE and go to her gallery to see her beautiful fabric collage pieces and other creative works.

The top of my commissioned quilt is DONE.  It is the Ferris Wheel pattern from Karen Griska and it was loads of fun to put together – albeit time consuming.

Now just for the quilting which I hope to achieve over this weekend.

I can DRAW! 

When Lilian and I were playing with painting over the school holidays, I refurbished some of my background pieces in my little repurposed diary art journal.

 

This background was too busy and there seemed to be nowhere to go with it, so I made up my mind that I could draw something really simple and I did.  The pear was drawn with a charcoal pencil and then I filled the background in with gesso.

Another busy background was painted over with this white urn which I splattered with dark grey paint.  If you say you can draw  - YOU CAN (so they say).  My next aim is to draw a face in one of my journals.

I am quite fond of this collage I did some time back incorporating some really cute selvedges given to me by a friend. The dressmaker model clip is from Karen at the Graphics Fairy. 

In the past two weeks we have celebrated a life and a marriage.

Our dear brother in law, Tony,  passed away suddenly and he will be sadly missed by all of his family and friends.  He was just 59 years and 11 months.  Tony was dealt quite a bit of rubbish in his life and he always faced things head on and got on with it and never complained.  A valuable lesson we have learned from him. RIP Tony

My DH’s nephew got married and we celebrated with them this past weekend. We thought we were going to their engagement party and they surprised us and got married.  It was a beautiful day.  Congratulations to Daniel and Elisha – a very handsome couple.

Lilian enjoyed herself at the wedding on the jumping castle. You can see around her mouth where she really enjoyed some orange slushies too  LOL.

Until next time – happy creating – Dianne.