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On Saturday it was back once again to a ridiculously busy Leeds city centre - can't abide it when it's busy! too much noise, too many people - and to the Art Gallery for the second of four classes on making a fabric covered book.  (We'd the option of making a fabric cover and paper signatures inside, but I've opted for a wholly textile book.)  With this second session people had more idea of what their individual journal might look like, and it was great to see how many different interpretations we had.   Some were working on their embroidered covers, but I opted to concentrate on making my pages.  I've four double pages in total, slightly different sizes & mainly made of upcycled upholstery swatches.  I began adding extra smaller pages, like this lovely cream coloured material, and more pockets.  There's only so much you can sew in a two hour session, so I carried on over the weekend.   This material was originally curtain fabric from the look of it, and I

  It's been a glorious autumn day.  Chilly to wake up to, then the sun came out & shone brightly, so it was off to the allotment where the earth's softened up after recent rainfall.  I was able to weed and tidy, trying to make the plot look respectable before the cold weather sets in and we slide inevitably into winter.  At home I fitted in some sewing.  The patchwork bug's bitten me again, after having a break and spending time lately with gell printing.  I've been gathering up lots of tiny scraps and joining them together, going for a haphazard look.  Nothing matchy-matchy or colour coordinated.  There's something very satisfying about finding a use for the smallest strips or triangles of cotton, little pieces that might otherwise be destined to end up as cushion filling.   Speaking of gell printing, I've been using prints to turn into seed packets for flower seeds gathered from my garden.  Hollyhocks, scabious, catananche.  No calendula as hardly any of t

  On Saturday it was off to Leeds Art Gallery again, this time for the first class of a four-week course making textile art journals.  It's something I booked months ago, hesitating for ages before committing to it as there're other things I could've done with the money.  But I'd been to a class by the teacher before - embroiderer Hayley Mills-Styles - and knew I'd enjoy it.   It's being held in the Drawing Room, a multi-purpose arty space, where we're surrounded by lots of lovely scrap fabrics, sorted by colour in all those brown bags.  Plus yarn in tempting colours.  All available to make the most of.   Through the glass doors is the Sewing Room where the machines are kept and we can use as needed.   I'm hoping that later on in the course I'll have a chance to do freehand embroidery on one of them.   Note all the stitchy examples of textile work pinned up on the wall.  I love looking at what others have done.  It's always inspiring.  Anyway, b

  If you're wondering what this is, it's called 'Piano Cube' and I was slightly taken aback to see it installed outside, near the art gallery in Leeds.  It's impressive, and my cursory Google search revealed there's a Leeds piano trail 2024 and this sculpture's part of it.   I was at the art gallery for a monthly group called StitchArt, which is a kind of taster session where you try something stitchy that's inspired by a gallery exhibit or artist.  This month's was based on textile works by Nik Savvas, someone I'm not familiar with.  She's done artwork similar to Bridget Riley's abstract geometric designs, but also this kind of thing.   Our task was to create a pattern which - for those of a certain age - was reminiscent of Spirograph.  We were given a sheet of A4 paper, an A4 piece of card, a nifty device we all instantly coveted called a Japanese hole punch, also needle and thread.  Using the template printed on the paper as a guide, w

  It's the first Wednesday of a new month, so I'm traipsing into Leeds today for a StitchArt class.  Don't know what the theme will be for this session, but I'll blog about it tomorrow.  Probably.  For now, here's a quick round-up of crafty things that might - maybe possibly? - be of interest to you.  First off, I've shown this before but in case you've not seen it.  It's my version of a fodder keeper.  An expression I learnt from YouTube where lots of papercrafters were showing books they'd made to keep paper flowers & small cutouts, etc in.  The books had stitched plastic pockets inside to slip things into. Rather than make a new book, I decided this was an ideal use for a photo album that was brand new but never previously used.  I stuck a gell print on the cover to prettify it, and it's been re-stuffed with lots of flowers I've been recently making.  Plenty of these unused albums turn up on charity shop bric-a-brac shelves, so you sho

September already, and that can only mean one thing.  Yes, that supermarkets are filling up with bumper sized tubs of chocolate assortments and shelves of festive tat, much of it plastic.  Okay, perhaps it's time for two things.  The first stirrings of Christmas retail lunacy - yes - but also this challenge run by GelliArts.  I was thinking of coming up with a September arty challenge of my own devising, but this will fit the bill nicely.  I probably won't manage to gell print everyday, but I'll try to one way or another tick off each prompt throughout the month.   I've not had the most active Sunday, but I did dye a couple of pieces of cotton material as I wanted to see what depth of colour I could get from using blackberries.  I'd a jar of rusty water - haven't we all! - and added that to a bowl in the hope that it might act as a kind of mordant, to fix the colour.  (The jam jar was filled with water and a couple of rusted metal scraps dropped in a few weeks a