Home again!

I'm not sure if holidays are a good thing. When you go away it takes about 3 days before you can relax and unwind and then you get so laid back it's almost impossible to get back into work mode once you're home! Of course we have an incentive - Festival of Quilts is almost upon us and I'm doing my best to finish off lots of stuff for the stand we're taking.

I've been busy in my garden studio since I got home and the pin board is beginning to look like a gallery as I add each completed piece.

Those days amongst the vines last week inspired me to paint this small panel yesterday. I applied a couple of coats of gesso to the wooden panel and then used acrylic paints for the grapes and leaves.

My favourite black cherries are in season right now and they make a great subject for a painting before they become the main ingredient in a delicious Clafoutis. Funny how food and art are so connected - or maybe that's just how it is for me!!

My work space is pretty chaotic with so much on the go. I'm working from photographs of a butterfly collection here. It's probably not very politically correct these days but I am lucky to have a few very old display cases which were originally university specimens. Laura says I must not acquire any more - she says they make my study look like a museum!

I like to mix painted panels with embroidered ones featuring the similar subjects. This digital design is from Husqvarna but I enjoy changing the colours and combining the embroidery with free motion quilting and hand dyed fabrics. I've used gorgeous Madeira rayon and metallic threads for this version of the design.

Here's another little digital embroidery from Husqvarna worked onto a quilted and painted mini quilt. It's only 6 inches square but mounting it onto a wooden panel makes it look quite special.

Although we're doing our best to get lots of new stuff finished in time we've decided to set up 'work in progress' behind us on our demonstration stand at Festival. We want it to look like our studios at home. People always seem to be interested in how things end up the way they do so we hope they'll enjoy seeing work at various stages. There'll be drawings, samples and quilt tops - who knows we might even get some work finished during the show if there are any quiet moments!

Hope you're all enjoying your weekend - bye for now, Linda