This 'n' that

The eagle eyed will have noticed that I've added links to a couple more of my favourite sites today.

Catherine is one of the DesignMatters team and a fellow member of thr3fold. She's recovering from a recent house move and is now busy organising her studio space. Moving house is fine but moving all those art materials, books, fabrics and sewing machines is quite another thing. The removal men must have earned their keep! Catherine tells me she's enjoying unpacking her 'stuff' so she can get back to her creative work to keep herself sane!

Stephanie is one of our favourite mixed media artists and writes an entertaining blog. You may have seen her, and the pieces we made when we took one of her classes a while back, on our Facebook page. Stephanie updates her blog regularly and is always generous with details of her working process and the techniques she uses. Her distinctive style is quite unique and completely inspirational.

I'm sure you'll enjoy keeping up with both of them!

If you follow Edwina's blog you'll have seen the beautiful Irises blooming in her garden this week. Not to be outdone I've been out photographing some of my own. I feel the urge to get the watercolour paints out right now! I love to try and capture the colours and shapes of Iris but the patterns in the throats of these blooms are a real challenge to paint!

I've also been waiting patiently for these beauties to bloom. The smaller Alliums have been in flower for a couple of weeks but this variety always makes us wait.

I'll give it a few days and then post another image of the globelike head in its full glory! Don't you just love those soft blue green leaves with the delicate mauves of the petals? Complementary colours at their most subtle.

And now as they say for something completely different. Yes you can believe your eyes - I have cut a hole in a quilt. Why is it that the bit you want is always right in the middle? I've been cannibalising this old quilt to salvage some quilted fabric to make feathers. That peachy bit was perfect!

I can't give away too many details of the garments we are creating for the Fashion sans Frontier show at Festival of Quilts this summer - we have to keep some secrets after all. What I can reveal is that there will be feathered embellishments involved! Here's some early sampling of painting and beading.

Thanks for visiting! Talk to you again soon - Linda