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Hello from a grey, rainy-sky Yorkshire.  I'm sat on the sofa, waiting for the parcel man to deliver one of the few Christmas gifts I've actually got around to buying.  I really need to get a move on with deciding what to buy people.  I did venture into a few actual shops yesterday, but the impatient crowds, queues at tills and endless jaunty Christmas themed songs being played wasn't my idea of fun.  Online shopping's the way to go!   Right, on to crafty matters.  I was in Leeds yesterday for the last Stitch Art session of 2025.  It was themed around a new exhibition, ' Plant Dreaming '.  It's a beautiful display of paintings, photographs and textiles, plus some fabulous ceramics that I really coveted.   I think these ceramics are by Aliyah Hussain.   Hopefully you can see enough, despite my poor photography.  I also loved these massive wall hangings that were pretty much floor to ceiling.   They make me wan...

Yesterday I hopped on the train into Leeds for another monthly meet-up of the Stitch Art group.  This month's theme was 'eyes', which didn't give me much of a clue what we'd be up to.  Well, it was a lot of fun.  We were doing an activity based on Georgian eye charms, or Georgian lover's eye jewellery.  I hadn't even known these existed, but apparently they were miniatures of a loved one's eye.  You could have a painting of your beloved's eye made into a pretty piece of jewellery, and wear it secretly so others couldn't see who'd captured your affections.  They were made popular by royalty, and while the originals might've been beautifully painted and covered in precious or semi-precious stones, our versions would be more modest.   We used canvas for our base.  It was leftover from other use, already painted with acrylic and cut into small pieces.  I chose this rather Barbie looking pink and shaped mine into an oval, though we could use ...

  ('If I can't have love I'll take sunshine'.  Art installation by Glenn Ligon) Thursday evening:  Honestly, I scoffed a huge mound of pasta, then went back for seconds.  Sometimes you just need to carb load, don't you?  Now I'm lying on the sofa, listening to the test match commentary of England versus India and wondering what's for pudding.  But before eating anything else I'll show you a few photos from Leeds Art Gallery.  I was there yesterday for this month's Stitch Art group.  Because I was early I'd the chance to wander around an exhibition about the representation of women in art, as well as other collections.  Okay, in no particular order -   I love the framing of this.  How the girl's portrait is enhanced by the light purple and blue pattern.  It's by Skye Davies, and is called 'She's in a world of her own, you see, Ecclesborne Lavender'.  This is by Walter Crane, 'At Home: A Portrait' and shows his wife, Ma...

  I'm not exactly good at painting, but I do love to mess about with colours.  These painted splodges are going to end up stuck in a junk journal.   But my flowery messes aren't the main point of today's blog post.  I mooched into the city centre on Wednesday for another of my monthly Stitch Art classes. This time we headed out of the art gallery and into the sculpture gallery next door.  It wasn't a building I'd been in before, but I will definitely visit again as it's a lovely space.  We had a chance to visit the archives, and in particular to concentrate on the work of a sculptor called Roger Ackling.  I confess I'd never heard of him before, but we had a talk from an archivist about his method of working and what inspired his art.  The current exhibition of his work is entitled 'Sunlight' and I'll quote from the printed guide:  ' For forty years Ackling made objects by burning wood, focusing sunlight through the lens of a hand-held m...