Kindred Spirits Exhib. May 2008

I need to focus all my energy on new work for our Exhibition coming up in early May at RHS Rosemoor in Devon. Together with Carol, Sarah and Vinnie, we hope to create an Exhibition to knock everyone's socks off. Rosemoor is a huge Royal Horticultural Society Garden with something for everyone in Great Torrington, Devon, set in wonderful rural surroundings.
I will not, therefore be blogging for a while, or indeed visiting any blogs (boo hoo!) but I will be back in two or three months, with a vengeance!
Thanks so much for dropping by - it is very much appreciated. Val

SOUTH WEST QUILTERS RETREAT 2008

Last week, from Sunday 27th January until Friday 1st February, I spent a most wonderful few days in the company of these lovely ladies (plus another six who had to slope off earlier than 4.00pm on Friday!) making mixed media Accordion Style Books.I was the Tutor and the idea was to introduce these ladies, in a gentle way, to mixed media, as they are all Quilters and usually only work in cotton fabric. Actually two of them (Dot and Mandi) were already well into mixed media. However, we started by making a large piece of 'Artwork' which they then embellished in various ways, before cutting it up. In the meantime they made up four double sided pages (a couple of ladies made five!) put together with fabric hinges (to take the keebab sticks which made very good legs) and then embellished these with hand stitching and lace etc. They then covered their books with emulsion paint, and when dry painted with dry brushes what colours they fancied, although you can see one green one there in the picture (well, you always get one in a class don't you!)

Actually, I had more than one in my Group, as you can see in the pic. below - she didn't paint her pages at all - rebellion, that's what I call it!

Unfortunately not all the Books are here on the table, as I didn't start taking pictures until lunchtime Friday, by which time a couple of ladies had already had to leave, and of course none of them was completely finished, although they were all well on the way.

I did think you might like to see some of their 'stuff' while they were working; I'll just briefly name each one as we go:

Jenny

Pam
Sandra
Arlene
Sally
Desira
Jean
Mandi

Dot
Sally
Pat
Linda
Linda (the Rebel!)

Maggie

Out of the fifteen ladies taking the Workshop I think only one had previously come across ATCs, so it was with huge pleasure, as you can imagine, that I introduced them to such delights when I asked each one if they would make me an ATC from their Artwork as a personal Memento of the Retreat. Here they are, all fifteen of them, and fourteen of them are 'firsts'. Just gorgeous, don't you think?