Less fragmentary!

The Anderby Creek accordion journal is really starting to come together. The Cloud Bar felt applique is finished and I then started a little piece of blackwork to create the North Sea Observatory. The photo I chose to work from showed the Observatory at an angle, so at this point it’s all a bit experimental!

Filling in the areas with different patterns to represent different shades started to work better, especially at more of a distance.

And the block work really pulled it all together.

I also had a brainwave for the last piece – sand dunes in layered applique/patchwork with marram grass at the bottom. The way the ‘clouds’ echo in the ‘sea’ with the scraps of hand dyed fabric for the sea and sky is a very happy accident!

All eight pieces completed (two are already in the book).

Now the fun bit of attaching them to the pages.

My memories of our Mothers’ Day expedition last year now safely gathered together.

Read Full Post »

Spellbooks!

I’ve been asked to run some hour long spellbook making workshops at Normanby Hall Country Park  for Hallowe’en and have had loads of fun designing and making some printable origami books and a blank book with a twig binding. Both types of book are simple enough to be made by even quite small children, but I think the results are good enough to appeal to adults too, so I’ve made it age 6+ to adult. The workshop details can be found here if you’re interested.

I’ve been making origami books with children for years now and I reckon I can fold and cut one in about ten seconds flat! It’s a real ‘awe and wonder’ moment when you fold the cut sides over and a real book forms under your hands!

I’ve also discovered that I can use Publisher to design a sheet of A4 which when you fold it, the pages come out the right way. So as part of the workshop the participants will make an origami book to gather information about some plants and stones that were considered to have magical properties in the Middle Ages.

Then another origami book for their own spell book

And a bigger twig book…

…with a corkscrew hazel twig that can be decorated for the binding.

Which can also be decorated and made into a spell book.

Fingers crossed now that people like the look of the books enough to want to make their own..!

Read Full Post »