Lynne Pretty

On Wednesday evening it was The Kings Lynn Embroidery Guild

meeting and Lynn Pretty came along to talk about

her 'Travels Textiles and Quilts'.

She showed us some textiles she had collected from around the world

and the memories she had acquiring them.

She then went on to show us her quilts and wall hangings.

Her first Quilt based around India Inspiration.

It was Exhibited at the V&A!

A lot of Lynne's work is based on history and source inspiration.

Which was lovely to see. Her work involves mixed media and

tightly packed machine quilting.

At the end she answered lots of questions from the group and

shared how she layers up her fabrics.

It was a wonderful inspirational evening,

Thank you Lynne.

See more of what goes on at our Guild

HERE

Fen Edges

When I came home from card making @The Gallery

on Wednesday, I needed to get down to some

textile creating.

Some of the fabric is remnants from the blue and green quilts,

dyed and painted fabric is from material,

I painted the same time last May!

It must be this time of year brings this colour out in me!

See this earlier post.

HERE

I had laid out the pieces for a wall hanging on my design board

and it felt the right time to sew it all together

and this is the result so far.

It is now ready for embellishment and stitch!

See more of my Banner Wall Hangings on my website

www.art2inspire.co.uk

Card Making

Wednesday morning was a card making session with Kim

@The Gallery. We are still working with Eastern Inspiration.

In my case Chinese and Japanese.

We are using all the different techniques.

Here are some of my cards that I made that morning.

The top card needs finishing but doesn't two hours

go quick when you are having fun!

See more of my Paper techniques on

my Portfolio Pages on my website

www.art2inspire.co.uk

Machine Embroidered Leaves

Jeanette's new mixed media textile work is based on Autumn Leaves and

is inspired by a community wallhanging picture she saw in a magazine.

She wants to learn many different ways of making leaves and

Next week is printing and painting the background

fabric to the work and designing more foliage.

See more of Jeanette's work by clicking on the labels below.

Gallery Workshop Afternoon

Gallery Mixed Media Tuesdays are in two sessions, 10am-12.30

and 12.30 until 3pm.

As you can see there are a lot of different textiles being

worked on, Machine Embroidery, Machine Quilting

Patchwork and Embellishing in this afternoon session.

Rebecca and Frivella had come to have an Embellisher

Taster Session to learn my techniques and to get used to their machines.

See more at what is going on @The Gallery

www.thegallerydereham.co.uk

Gallery Tuesday 24th May 2011

Sylvia is trimming the free machined quilted cot quilt for her

future Great Grand Child.

She began classes in January for the sole purpose

of making a quilt for her expected Great Grand Child then.

She made a beautiful animal quilt and it was given to her

new Great Grand Daughter.

The next month a large envelope arrived in the post

with lots of bits of yellow fabric and some animal squares,

with the plea from her other Grand Daughter who was

expecting.

"Please can you finish this I don't know what to do!"

Sylvia laughed and we made sense of the odd

cut strips and patches already cut out and she put it

all together as you can see above.

I few bits of piecing had to go on for the back!

Sylvia loves Machine Quilting and it looks really great.

It's having red bias binding to finish it off.

A very lovely Great Grandma Gift!

See more of Sylvia's work by clicking

on the labels below.

Norfolk Open Studios

Monday the 23rd May was Stewart's and mine 24th Wedding Anniversary,

so we would celebrate it on the Sunday.

We decided to go round a few Open Studios and have a late lunch out.

First we went to Print Artist, Zelda Eady's at Mattishall.

The Studio photograph is above.

A wonderful studio set in the middle of fields with sheep in them.

In her studio was all her work and wonderful printing and

relief presses. Works of art in their own time.

Zelda's daughter Ellie had made a giant mobile

of a thousand origami Cranes and it hangs from the ceiling

of Zelda's Studio.

Amazing.

( There is a colourful picture of a section of it, above).

Zelda and her husband shared their time and home and we even got

a tour round their garden which was lovely.

It's great to share time with people and what they love.

Then on to Marion Barnett's 'Little Green Shed'.

Marion's location again is a beautiful one.

Her Studio was very atmospheric with music playing and work

everywhere.

Visit her blog at

www.artmixter.blogspot.com

Then on to Elmham House and 'The Big House Artists',

The artists were in the Stables and The Sculpture Trail,

winded around the gardens.

We then finished with a lovely lunch at The Crown, in Gayton.

See a small selection of the Sculpture above.

For more information, visit

www.nnfestival.org.uk/openstudios

Willow Seating Area

This weekend the willow needed to be harvested,

before it gets too late and you can't bend it into shape.

I had left it a little too long but knew the seating

area opposite the Japanese garden needed doing.

Stewart started the pruning the larger willow branches,

making the holes and planting the up rights and

I stripped off most off the foliage.

Pilling up the different sized poles, I

then began to weave.

It took all day and I think you can see the difference?

The Willow man sat on and watched!

See more of our garden at

Quilters Cottage

HERE

Poppies

Coming home from a holiday you always seem to look around your own surroundings.

Down in the Vegetable Garden the Poppies have flowered.

They are the most vivid of red I have ever seen them.

The bees are having a field day!

See more of our garden at Quilters Cottage

HERE

Bracket Mushrooms

There are always wonderful things to photograph and

notice when you are away on holiday and I couldn't

resist this Oak Tree with this collection of Bracket Mushrooms.

It was standing in the pasture field next to Berwick Church.

After checking there were no bulls in the field

I went to investigate and took some photographs.

To see a time lapse video visit my tech site

HERE

Berwick Church

After visiting Charleston Farmhouse you really need

to visit St Michael & All Angels Church at Berwick,

just a few miles away from Charleston.

All the Murals were painted by Vanessa, Duncan,

Quentin and Angelica.

The murals were painted on boards and transported

down the lanes to Berwick from Charleston,

on horse and cart!

All the figures are modelled on themselves,

family and friends.

The view from the Church Yard is spectacular.

To see more of the church and the paintings

visit

www.berwickchurch.org.uk

Charleston Farmhouse

We started at the shop and went through the gates to the

front door. Everything in the house is priceless so we were

given a few rules!

We entered the front door into the hall and straight into

The Study, once a school room for Quentin and Julian.

Then room by room exploring the art and atmosphere.

The Studio was left to last and it was just as you would

expect after the tour we had just had memorable,

as if they had just left the room.

Nearly every room of the house

has a view of the amazing garden.

It looked very picture like from many of them.

You are not allowed to take photographs of the inside of the

Farmhouse so I brought the interiors book and it is

wonderful. The book illustrates the tour you have been on and fills in

historical context and information.

See images and information of the Charleston Farmhouse

HERE

Charleston Farmhouse,The Bloomsbury Group

Visiting Charleston the home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant,

members of The Bloomsbury group, has been on my wish list

of places to visit for a long time and as we were in Sussex,

we took the opportunity.

The farmhouse is situated in the middle of The Sussex Downs

not far from Firle Beacon in between

Brighton and Eastbourne.

We arrived at 1pm and the house is open by tour only.

Tours are limited to about nine and ours was at 2pm.

We went round the Exhibition in the small Gallery of

the shop. The Exhibition 'Naked', drawings, paintings and sketchbooks

of Vanessa and Duncan's based on the human form.

Then around the garden,oh! what a garden

a real painters garden a smaller scale to Monet's Garden,

(another place on my wish list)

Beautiful! and so inspirational.

We then needed another cup of tea and had this sat in

Quentin Bell's Ceramics Studio!

and watched a DVD on how the house was restored

when the trust took over in 1978.

We then waited eagerly for the tour to begin!

See more by visiting

www.charleston.org.uk

Camping Exhibition

Well, we are definitely diverse in our choice of buildings to visit

from monumental castles,abbey's and ancient buildings

to TENTS!

Stewart and I have camped nearly every year of our married life

and we were both camping before that.

On the way to Charleston farmhouse we looked in

on a Camping Exhibition.

We are always looking for items to make camping interesting.

We were looking for a front awning to our 4 man tent and

a luxury item, a camping wood burner.

( The type Ray Mears uses in his Winter Expeditions).

As you can see by the photograph it was beginning to rain!

Battle of Hastings

After walking the battlefield we decided we needed refreshment

and went into The Pilgrims Rest.

A restaurant and cafe opposite The Battle Abbey Gatehouse.

It was atmospheric and definitely Tudor.

The original Pilgrims rest was a 'Hospital' to the Abbey.

The monks who were from Marimouter in Alsace served

Pilgrims,travellers and any strangers that needed help.

The 12th Century, 'Chronicles of The Battle' mentions the 'House of Pilgrims'

and in 1340, The Pilgrims Rest is written in

The Abbey's Almoners Accounts.

Well , Stewart and myself needing a cup of tea

rested in the very Tudor Meeting Room.

The rooms we were sitting in were part of the 1420's

alterations and were very well done indeed.

Very atmospheric!

The staff were very hospitable.

See more information about The Pilgrims Rest

HERE