More fruit blocks

Danielle wanted to see more of the fruit blocks so here are three of them done on silk and made into cushions. The top picture is one of cherries which I did for my niece and the bottom two are of pears and apples which I did for my sister, again on silk. I also have these patterns done on the turquoise cotton to form part of the wall hanging I'm doing. As well as these fruits I've also done lemons, oranges, plums, gooseberries, grapes and strawberries. I hope never ever again to have to do piping in silk as it did my head in being so slippery! And also because I covered the piping cord in wadding so that it wouldn't show the twist and this made it harder to control as well. So no more piped cushions! At least not until I've forgotten my angst over them.

Thank you Sue and Debs for your kind comments. They were much appreciated as were Danielle's. Occasionally I get these attacks of the dismals and this must have been one of those days. On the whole I'm quite happy to send into the unknown and make no contact! Is there life on Mars? Probably not!
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At the moment I am faced with tidying up my workroom and hiding up my bits and pieces in the spare room as my daughter and children will be visiting at the beginning of February. I am looking forward to this and it is a good incentive for looking at the clutter and sorting it out. My biggest problem is room and I know that once things are put out of sight they go completely out of mind! The next big project is to make journals so I shall have to look out all the stuff I need and have it handy. At least this will use up a considerable amount of saved 'I'm sure this will come in useful' stuff! You all know exactly what I mean!
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Well I must now actually go and do something. I have only ten pages more to finish my book and it is going to be hard to actually do something until I've read it but I'll try! I'm feeling really good as I managed to copy a VHS video onto DVD last night and it worked! This evening I'm going to try putting my Husqvarna instructions onto DVD. As I don't have TV or a video player this is a real break through for me. I knew giving my mum a new digital recorder a couple of Christmas's ago would come in useful. Why has it taken me so long to actually do it!

Fruit blocks

This is the last one of the fruit appliqué blocks I'm doing. There are nine in all plus the strawberry border. The picture above is of the block before it's been stitched. I used fabric pens to colour and add to the leaves and grapes. The tendrils of the vine are coloured in with pencil and I will overstitch with straight stitch.This is one of my favourite blocks; the others that I like particularly being oranges and plums. Eventually I will turn them all into a wall hanging. I have had great fun doing these and will feel a gap when they are finally finished.
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I am doing some lessons on designing over the next few weeks and will start off dealing with colour and line. I am looking forward to these lessons and will stress the importance of proportion as it is so easy to have a good idea and yet never have it reach it's best because of poor proportion of elements in the design. I shall spend the next week of two making samples to underline what I am saying and I'm looking forward to this. I'm thinking of running a series of work as I go on the blog as it would be a good record of what I have done to look at in years to come. It is amazing to think that I have been blogging since early May 2005. I have lost the first few posts that I made as I changed my format and didn't realise that this would lose what I had written to date. But even going back to the first post that remains on the blog it is still very interesting and informative. I have to say that I was more involved in the beginning than I am now. Sometimes I have to make myself write and I know that my interest in blogging isn't as great as it was. I have to ask myself - do I blog for myself or to be read by others? The lack of comments makes blogging for others more of a chore so I suppose really I blog for myself. The fact that over 56,000 hits have been recorded means somebody somewhere is reading it but isn't sufficiently interested to comment; either positively or negatively. And I notice that lots of blogs that I read in the early days have bitten the dust and are long gone. I wonder if they felt the same! It's a bit like putting a letter in a bottle and casting it out to sea. Wondering if anyone will find it and reply!

Where is the year going?

Already thirteen days of this month have gone! The New Year isn't new any longer. Where has all this time slipped away to? I didn't make any resolutions this year; new or otherwise. I try hard but I never keep them! So this year I'm just going to continue as before but with more effort.

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This year I am going to make more effort to achieve my original plans rather than making do with what is easiest. This is one of my besetting sins that I can be happy with something that isn't what I actually wanted. With regard to life this is probably a blessing but when it comes to my textile work it means that I am never getting the most out of my endeavours. But all that is going to change. I'm going to set myself challenges and then I'm going to follow through to the bitter end. However long it takes! This isn't a resolution it's an extension!

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So far this year I have managed to finish several UFO's which has cleared the decks and I am well into another UFO at the moment. Soon they will all be finished and it is amazing how uncluttered my mind is becoming as my workroom clears of piles of unfinished stuff. I tried clearing out some of my cupboards but found I just couldn't bring myself to re-home(sell, give or throw) anything. It has got to the stage where most of my stuff, cluttered or not, is now useable. If not now then definitely useable in the future. I do have to decide as to what direction I want to go in and only keep stuff relevant to that. Maybe a few things that don't fit any category but not box loads.

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And I am setting aside time for thinking! Quiet periods for reflection will enable me to plan my time better and work out ideas so that they can be excuted in the best possible way. As well it will allow me to dream! Dreams mean designs so can't be bad!