MORE SEWING THIS WEEK

 

It's been a wet and windy week here in France so I've been very happy staying indoors playing with my sewing machine.  I realised at the garden party last year that I needed to come up with some new products to sell as the hand bound books have slowed down in sales.

 

I have a lovely collection of printed fabrics that I use to cover the books and the idea of pencil cases or cosmetic bags came up.  They are so easy to make and only require the purchase of a matching 20 cm zip to complete.

 

I already had some iron-on stiffening to give the fabrics some body and by the end of the day I had made this lovely collection to put on sale next April at Justine's charity garden party.

 

I had a lot of fun photographing them too as I've only recently discovered, quite by accident, the 'creative shots' button on my camera.  It takes several views at a time, zooming in and cropping and changing the angle of the view.  I really love this last one, especially as it features the poppy bag, perfect for yesterday, November the 11th.

 

 

Here is the latest collection of sketchbooks I made and already some of the match the bags so I might be able to sell them as a set....

 

And finally here is a pretty summer top I made for my friend Carolyn after we bought some fabric while we were on holiday together in September.  We were at Rochefort-en -Terre and found a delightful craft shop selling handmade items as well as the fabrics and findings to make them yourself.  We had a wonderful time browsing while our husbands waited patiently outside on a bench, thankfully not worried about how long we were and how much money we were spending!

I couldn't resist making another little bag for her too as you can see in the background.

TRIP TO ENGLAND 2016 PART 2

 

This is my 250th blog so I've decided to start with my latest portrait of Jimmy.  It's drawn in museum pencils on mi-teintes paper.  This photo was on my mother's day card and it was quite hard to capture his cheeky smile.  I've got lots more photos now to play with so watch this space!

 

Our first weekend in England was spent with Jo and the 2 Jameses in Whitstable. The weather was rather cold but at least it was dry and sunny enough to sit in the garden on Sunday afternoon with a glass of Prosecco before our roast beef dinner.  I drew the corner of the garden which has a lot more light now thanks to a radical pruning of the willow tree.

 

On the Saturday we walked into town for a pub lunch and a look round the fascinating shops, many of which are independent and very individual.  On our return home we all sat down to watch a movie while we warmed up with a cup of tea.

A quick scribble of James senior while he was cooking the dinner and kept popping out to the garden for a swig of his drink!

 

Not far from Whitstable is Reculver, the location of an ancient Roman camp.  There are some ruins of an old abbey as well as a more recent reconstruction of a church which now acts a navigational mark, standing out on top of the hill.  There is a wonderful children's playground just to the right of those red flags where James and Jimmy played for ages before we ate our picnic lunch.

 

 

After a week visiting Mum we finished off our trip at Justine's for the long-awaited garden party.

As usual I had plenty of customers, some of whom were old faithfuls and some brand new, coming to the party for the first time.  I would like to thank you all for making the effort to come and support Woking Hospices, our good cause, for whom we raised £481.

 

SPRING TRIP 2015 THE GARDEN PARTY

 

We had a lovely week at Tilford with Mum and here is one of the trees I could see from our veranda.  I've drawn it in the new Derwent line painters in a pointillist style.  It took ages but was great fun to do, especially as I've had a lot of trouble with the pens blobbing before, but this time they behaved perfectly.

 

On Saturday morning we set off to Justine's house near Guildford for her annual garden party in aid of the Woking Hospice.

Here is my table laid out ready with all the books and cards I had made over the last few months.

 

Here I am a couple of hours later counting the money and with very little left to sell on the table.

I donated £70 of my takings to the final total of £400 that was taken during the afternoon.

 

My brother Chris and sister Juliet came to the party as well as lots of other extended family members and friends of Justine and her daughters.

 

Here is Kirsty, my eldest granddaughter, setting out the delicious cakes she and her sisters had been busy baking in the previous couple of days.  Stephanie, the middle granddaughter, took lots more photos but as she's very pre-occupied with her A levels at the moment she hasn't had time yet to download them.

 

I'll finish with another little sketch from our stay at Tilford, a pretty wild flower I have always called 'milkmaid.'

Next stop on the journey, a visit to Joanna, my youngest daughter, at her new home in Whitstable which I'll post in a couple of days.

ANOTHER BUSY WEEK

 

It's been a busy couple of weeks, getting all my projects finished ready to go on holiday leaving my studio nice and tidy. 

 At Christmas we treated ourselves to a couple of special bottles of whisky and I made sure we chose ones that came in those smart cardboard tubes.  There were two sizes and I cut each of them into 2 pieces of 10 cms to make into pen pots.  I cut out some scraps of fabric to fit and stitched a seam so that they fitted the tube perfectly with a turning at the top.

 

 

I stuck the lids on to the tubes for the bases and spread a bit of glue around the lower part to help anchor the fabric before I turned the tops in and glued them to the inside.  I found I had to make slits in the turnings so that they fitted neatly on to the inner surface of the tub.  I lined the inside with sticky back plastic to hide the cut edges and decorated the base with a length of narrow ribbon.  I hope these will sell but if they don't I've got plenty of pens and pencils to fill them with!

 

 

                                          
                                                                           
   I made another 8 A5 sketchbooks in the double pamphlet style and 14 A6, all covered in assorted fabrics and craft papers and I also printed off a lot of my paintings and drawings to make into cards.

                                       

 

Why am I going to all this trouble you may ask?  Well, it's all in a good cause, my daughter Justine holds a charity garden party every year in aid of her local hospice.  Last year I made a lot of hand bound sketchbooks and did very well selling them as well as cards and gift bags.

 

 

We've already booked the ferry for a trip to England for this year's party and I'm really looking forward to it as I get to see all my family who come to support us and eat the delicious cakes made by my clever granddaughters.

 

Last year we had a dry day and were able to sit outside to enjoy the goodies, you can see Justine's pool house in the reflection in the window where all the teas and cakes were served.  In the morning I picked a huge bunch of bluebells from the copse outside her garden gates and made these lovely table decorations which co-ordinated beautifully with the garden furniture.

 

Here I am with my table of wares in Justine's 'beading shed'. I was also in charge of selling her beautiful hand made jewellery and hardly had a moment to sit down as lots of friends and neighbours all turned out to support our good cause.

 

This is the beading shed looking lovely with it's pansy window boxes.  Justine loves gardening and had produced a lot of seedlings and cuttings for sale all of which sold out.  At the end of the day we had made over £500 for Woking Hospice.

 

Last job of the week was to prepare for the holiday by getting my sketching kit together.  I made a pencil case last year from some odds and ends of fabric which holds all my museum pencils as well as a handful of pens and waterbrushes and a pencil sharpener.  I'll take a couple of sketchbooks, the new one covered in the embroidered fabric and a smaller one that I keep in my handbag for on the spot sketching. 

All that remains is to pack my case and catch the plane on Saturday afternoon so I'll say "au revoir et à bientot!"

BACK HOME FROM ENGLAND

 

I've recently returned from a week's visit to England to see my family and participate in the annual charity garden party put on by my daughter Justine.  She lives in a beautiful house surrounded by a fabulous garden which she loves to work in growing wonderful flowers.  For the last 4 years she has opened the garden to family and friends in aid of the local hospice.  The girls make cakes and biscuits to sell and her mother in law comes with a friend to make and serve all the teas. For 2 days we all worked hard baking and cleaning, picking flowers to decorate the tables and looking forward to seeing everybody.

 

 

I had spent a lot of time in the winter binding sketchbooks and making lots of cards from my original paintings to sell.  Justine is a talented beader and had plenty of her jewellery on sale too as well as lots of plants from cuttings and seeds.  We set up our wares in her 'beading shed' next to the swimming pool garden house.  My granddaughter Stephanie took plenty of photos and this is one of me just before we opened for business.

 

 

It was a bit slow to begin with so I started a sketch of the back of the house which I had to finish later as I was soon inundated with customers. Some of the visitors were very interested to see my sketchbooks full of drawings and I'm sure I inspired a few to take up the sketching habit too! One  of Stephanie's friends was studying art at school so I lent her my coloured pencils to play with in the book she had just bought from me.  All too soon the afternoon came to an end and we counted up the takings which came to over £500, the best result yet.  I sold most of my books and cards and all the plants went too. I'm already planning my products for next year.

 

 

My other daughter Joanna took me back with her to Kent for a few days and we spent a lovely time together and playing with little Jimmy, her son now aged 2.  One day we went for a drive in the country and along a narrow lane we came across a couple of lambs that had escaped from a field.  Jo stopped the car and I tried to herd them back to their mothers who were bleating loudly at them to return to safety. It wasn't easy as they were fast movers despite their short fat legs but I finally got them to crawl back under the fence!  Jo and Jimmy enjoyed watching from the safety of the car and I had a lot of fun drawing this from memory when I was on the train back to Stansted airport to go home.

A BUSY TIME

 

The last few weeks have been very busy for me. My daughter Justine announced the date of her annual garden party in aid of charity and this is the first year I have had the opportunity to be there.  

I booked my flights straight away and got started on making some things to sell.

 

 

I went through all my old paintings and cut some up to make original cards as well as doing a few new pictures which were all attached to purchased blanks or offcuts of the coloured card I use when I make birthday cards for the family.  Then I scoured my sketchbooks for suitable images to print off for more cards.  I ordered some cellophane bags and now they are all wrapped up with a personal label on the back I think they look very professional.

 

 

After that I set to and started on a batch of 10 handbound notebooks.  Last year with this idea in mind my brother-in-law had given me some quality computer paper from his stationery firm.  My bookbinding instructor had given me some offcuts of the stiff card used in the covers of books as well as some short lengths of ribbon she had.  I've been collecting pretty patchworking fabrics for a while so there was plenty to choose from for the covers.

 

 

It took me over 2 weeks working every afternoon to get these done to add to the dozen or so I made last year and delivered when I went for my autumn visit.  I made a showcard to display the prices as well as some ideas for the use of these pretty books using a cupcake giftwrap as a background which goes with the theme of the garden party.  Justine and her girls will make cakes and biscuits to sell as well as the jewellery and plants Justine produces. She also invites some of her crafty friends to come and sell their wares so we're hoping for a bumper day with plenty of visitors. The date of the party is Saturday April 26th so I hope any of you who know me and are not too far from Guildford will make the effort to come and support us!