Ceremonial covering

 The tan colour background is my sofa so you have to imagine the strips and diamonds hanging free with no background

This is a ceremonial horse covering I bought in Turkey, its from the sixties so not that old but I loved the colours its from one of the countries that ends in 'stan' but I can't remember which one

Front garden

My front garden which is hopefully becoming a wildflower meadow

My Garden

 The focus is a bit out on some of these. Hubby would tell me I should be using manual instead of automatic but you can get an idea.

The colours don't look as good as in the garden

Why wont photos go next to each other, still have a lot to learn.

I have no idea why this photo has moved over the other one.

Oriental poppy- Patty's Plum
I love this flower it fades to a beautiful shabby pink

My garden is looking good this year, beginning to mature and looks quite cottagey.

Warm evening

Its 10pm Friday, a newly new moon, waves whispering on the shore, people walking on the beach against an ink blue sky fading to deep azure. Where am I, Sand Bay, home, perfect.

Turkey

This is a pure silk carpet in shades of blue.
They only work on the bottom of the loom
up to about one foot before wind on.

While in Turkey we visited a carpet co-operative, the women work four hour days and knot carpets so fast it was difficult to see what they were doing, some of the larger silk carpets take up to four years to weave, imagine that, I get fed up if a weaving takes me more than a month. They also make some miniature pieces, about 12 x 12 inches which have 2500 knots per inch,yes really, they are made under a magnifying glass and can only be work on for 45 minutes per day. We also saw wool being dyed, all natural dyes and silk spun.

Turkey

Istanbul

Caravanserai-hostels on the silk road

Cappodoccia- fairy chimneys

A couple of pictures just to prove we actually did go to Turkey. John has taken loads of photos and they arn't on my computer yet. We had an amazing time visiting some very interesting places.

Just back from Turkey

Have just got back from a fabulous tour of Turkey, more later, and seem to have come back to summer. I think we timed that very well, though saying that have just been outside and there is a sea mist coming in and it feels quite chilly.

Trip to Wales

On Monday myself and some textile friends drove to Wales to visit two exhibitions in three different venues. We drove over in rain and cloud but by lunch it was beautiful, warm and blue skies, the weather is so unpredictable at present. Anyway back to exhibitions.
We visited a John Piper exhibition in Cardiff Museum of his paintings of Wales. All extraordinary, his use of colour, line and light is amazing.
Cardiff Museum is well worth visiting, we didn't have long but it has an excellent collection of modern art and contemporary ceramics, and also does a good lunch.
We also visited an international touring exhibition of felt makers titled 'The Climate is Changing'. This was spread over two venues. The first we visited was the Llantarnam Grange Art Centre in Cwmbran, a beautiful gallery space that needs better signage. The second venue was Crafts in the Bay in Cardiff, by the time we arrived here it was warm enough for ice cream, tea and cakes outside.
Both galleries where filled with the most amazing pieces of felt, some I felt had a rather loose interpretation of the title and one or two could have been better presented but on the whole it was an excellent exhibition. Several pieces really stood out for me Mollie Littlejohn's Winter weeds, portraying a jacket expressing aspects of drought in South Australia in the future. Fiona Rainford's 900,000 tonnes, the amount of textiles sent to landfill in the UK each year, and Empty Vessels by Lyn Griffiths portraying Freeze, Flood and Famine. Many more deserve a mention but that could take forever.

Again no camera with me. However I bought myself a smaller piece by Jenny Pepper who was a guest maker at Craft in the Bay. I love anything with pebbly features in it. The contrast between the background felt and the pebbles is greater than it looks here.
Anyway must dash going out for tea and cake.

Rotorua

Rotorua 3

Rotorua 5

 These are my 3 Rotorua pieces all nearly finished.
Unfortunately the colours don't show up too well here, the light wasn't brilliant.

Rotorua 4

Overall I am very happy with them, lets hope visitors to the exhibition will like them as well.