You can never have too many pencils

At least that's what I heard from our Art Diary winner today!

This is what we sent Jennifer as her prize. Its lovely to hear the parcel arrived safely in Denmark and I know the pens and pencils will be put to good use!

Our Highly Commended winners received a lovely tin of graphite pencils and a selection of our greetings cards. I hope they'll enjoy using them!

I also heard from one of our online students today. Gill is one of the last few people who have been working independently through our Creative Quiltmaking course. She kindly sent me a photo of her finished quilt and agreed to let me share it with you all. Believe it or not this is the first quilt, other than journal sized pieces, she's ever made. Great job Gill - I hope there will be many more to come.

She included a page from her sketchbook showing the source of inspiration for the beautiful curved lines of her piecing.

And a detail shows how the linear design developed from the theme. Thanks for sharing Gill!

I'm busy with preparation for a new DMTV topic. What's new you may ask - I'm always busy with prep! You can just spot the intriguing title of the old book I'm altering in the image above. You might question what all those magazine cuttings have in common but I think you can tell that colour is involved! I'll be trying my best to be imaginative in the way I illustrate many of the rules of colour theory. It's a subject that's so often written about in academic and dusty, dry terms - I hope to be more visual, inventive and fun! All will be revealed to subscribers very soon.

I'm also back hand piecing my mosaic patchwork quilt after a lengthy and frustrating interval. I've been battling a trapped nerve in my neck for nearly six months. It made the small motions of repetitive hand sewing too painful but now I'm much better and I'm doing my best to make up for lost time. Progress is being made but there's still a long way to go. Don't know why we decided a super king size bed was such a great idea but thanks for your patience if you've been waiting to see how it's turning out.

So, with the wisdom of hindsight can I say think of your posture and don't spend all day hunched over a computer like I do? It was the first question the physio asked me!!

Talk to you again soon - Linda x