transforming bullions.....

prints c. christian lacroix

Remember my bullion knots from the other day? I had plans....these are those...I love them like this and if I get time I may morph this into an actual stand alone piece of work. Any excuse to create bullion knots....The pictures have been taken of my white cloth. I hope to share those tomorrow and then on Sunday it will no longer be mine..I have started another one, another gift. You have seen that, just a tiny bit of white with cross stitches. This weekend I may continue with that or I may make bullion knots, decisions, decisions...

ledgers and a new white cloth....

I am still consumed by ledgers.....and white. My wrapping cloth is finished in terms of joining, titivating and marking out the edges. All I need now is space, mental and physical in order to lay it out and attach the back. Yes, I need an empty house,......maybe Thursday. In the meantime I have started another white cloth...why? Because I really needed to stitch with white, piece some white.

Ledgers is so much fun too, it's like play time at school...paints and mess and a little chaos....

home alone.....

This is how my house looks when I am left home alone, unsupervised. It could be worse...I haven't caused any trouble, haven't spoken to any strangers, haven't had wild parties. All in all I have been very good. On reflection however it probably wasn't the best idea to just empty the packet of Rainbow Drops straight onto the white board. There were crumbs and sugar everywhere. I had to refrain from eating them until I had painted them...the self control was amazing! 

I am enjoying adding to this piece of watercolour painting every now and then. These are only small studies but if I keep going every week or so adding a little more then in no time at all I will have quite a large painting. You will probably notice prints too, prints off my embroidery. I like to do this sometimes, it gives a  different perspective looking at embroidery in print form....I am pondering these for a while.

oh no....she's been painting again..

I have been painting again...another hour or so that's all. I figure if I get an hour in every few days then I will become more confident, the painting will improve. Embroidery has also been happening please don't think I have ''gone off'' embroidery, that would never happen. I have some pictures of white cloth to show you next time... this has not become a painting blog. The video is very short, about four minutes.....

The new classes are filling up brilliantly, thank you. So if you want to join us, especially on the ledger journey you need to go here to register.

I don't normally talk about current events on here but I really have to say that I am SO excited about the Thames Pageant...I really can't wait. I am counting the minutes, it's going to be amazing.

doodling with my paintbrush....

               

No embroidery today so I guess that means I got you here under false pretences....sorry about that. There are buttons though, does that count?

I painted yesterday afternoon. I really enjoyed it but boy does it take a lot of time....in an ideal world I would set aside some time for this so I may try and juggle, go to bed a bit later? get up a bit earlier? do less housework? Yes that's it....less housework it is then.

Don't worry, I will have embroidery next time.....I haven't gone to the dark side.

backgrounds.....

I did warn you that I had developed a liking for these kind of  backgrounds...but never fear, it won't become a permanent ever present feature as I have very few paintings of my own. There are two here...little strips, studies of cherries and rose hips. They might not look like the best paintings in the world to you but to me they are marvellous.....I wrung them out of myself during a very stressful assignment way back. An assignment that I neither wanted, liked or enjoyed. Having said that....I am delighted I kept them. And the points, loops and puffs? Well I am consumed this week by titivation, edges, adornments because that is what the girls are on. I have been doing some titivating of my own too and will show you another time. I had better get looking for another painted background for them....

If you didn't stop by yesterday you missed my newsletter....you can read that here if you like and you can read about more classes here and here...

now I am off to rummage through folders in search of painting....

sketchbook pages

I'm spring cleaning.....allegedly. I keep getting distracted by things I find, some of them I haven't see for ages...Painting...me painting...yes I really did. There's no embroidery at all in this post and it feels wrong somehow. Please accept my profuse apologies for getting you here under false pretences. Everything will revert to normal tomorrow....providing I actually get some cleaning done....

colour matching...

You know how sometimes you just want to curl up with a good book? Well I felt like that yesterday, only I didn't curl up with a conventional book...I curled up with tiny sketchbooks of which I have many. For someone who doesn't consider herself an artist where pencil and paint are concerned I can tell you I have a lot of sketchbooks! Most of them are blank, nothing to be seen except blank pages. Some of them are crammed, (very few of them and usually the ones I was forced to do for my studies) and some of them have maybe five or six pages of work in them and that's it. I buy them, I constantly buy them...one day I say to myself I will draw. I have a burning desire to be an illustrator...probably never going to happen but I would consider that to be my ''dream'' and it's good to have dreams even if they will never become reality. So today I am sharing a sparse sketchbook with you, not many decorated pages but kind of 'cute' I think. I hope you like it.....

Small Colour Matching Sketchbook from karen ruane on Vimeo.

I am excited for the weekend.....this little book has me invigorated. We had a couple of latecomers to the class yesterday and that's amazing...no deadlines in Karen's Global Embroidery School, no pressure, so if you want to join us then the more the merrier.

I hope you have an exciting and happy weekend!

drawing and painting...

This is how I draw and paint when there is someone behind me with a whip!! Metaphorically speaking anyway. These are from around 2004?? Not quite sure. I remember the module though and I remember being so pleased with myself when all the work came together and looked like this. I decided to put my name all over these as I have been reading of quite a few people having copyright issues lately. I know you wouldn't copy them, I trust you implicitly but you never know what kind of reprobate may stumble upon these ramblings at any time so better safe than sorry. Why would anyone want to copy this I hear some people say,, some may think it's not worthy of copying, that it's rubbish, regardless....it's my rubbish that I worked hard on.

I have also put these on my sketchbook pages if you want to look at them later, next month, next year when they find their way to the archives of my posts, it would save you trawling through everything.

Thankyou so much for all the sympathy yesterday. I am feeling a little better today. I had a very early night last night and sleep always helps doesn't it. My tissue count appears to be falling and the sneezing is now once every ten minutes as opposed to every second so that's what I call progress. I have so many people to get back to in the e-mail sense and if you are one of them I will do my best to get onto that later, maybe this evening, please forgive my stupified pace. This afternoon I am making muslin bags for my hook and eye pieces....I hope to be able to show you those tomorrow.....woooo muslin bags!! I really don't expect anybody to be as excited about that as I am...I worry about myself sometimes really I do!

Finally........I'm going in a minute honest.....can I ask those of you who won my last give away, the two pin pillows and the mini design sheet, have you got them yet??? I know one person hasn't you see so I am a bit concerned as I posted them ages ago.

Have a lovely saturday....