Snowdrop walk

On a cold day towards the end of February I went on a snowdrop walk and workshop with my friend Beryl at Knot (where I regularly go for classes/workshops).  The town where she has her studio (and where I went to college) has the remains of a priory (dissolved in 1540 and partially demolished sometime between then and 1709).  The east gable was kept as a feature and it's very striking and instantly recognisable to people who know the area.

The remaining gable of Gisborough Priory

The grounds of the priory are owned by English Heritage so we weren't allowed to go past/through this hedge on the left - this was the best photo of the priory I could get but there are lots more here and there's a tour of it here if you're interested in seeing more.


Our walk centred on the Monks' Walk which is in the photo at the end of my last post and which was established by 1773.

Monks' Walk - a double avenue of lime trees

It's hard to tell in the photos but there are thousands of snowdrops in the centre of the diamond formed by the avenue and it was a beautiful sight.

The (adult) figure on the left gives some idea of scale...

The priory is in the background along with another adult to give a sense of scale

After wandering round for quite a while (I could have stayed longer but it was freezing!) we walked back across the car park to the Knot studio and (after a warming cup of tea) set to work sketching out ideas and playing with fabric.

I'm not much of an artist I can't draw a straight line with a ruler so I don't have any drawings to show, just a series of photos of my work in progress.  I'm afraid I didn't take any progress photos during the workshop (I was too busy having fun!) so the first one is after about four hours work.  We used a combination of paint, Bondaweb, fabrics and stitching to create the pictures on a calico base.  It's hard to tell from the photos but I also burnt back some of the organza using a heat gun and tore parts of the net to create more texture.

At the end of the workshop.

Adding more stitching.

Adding snowdrops.

Close up of the trees and background stitching.

Close up of the snowdrops.

Finished!

I was aiming to create a sense of a drift of snowdrops that the eye could follow through the trees and wanted to give a sense of scale and make the trees very tall (hence no tree tops.  I also wanted them to appear slightly ghost-like, partly as a reference to the past and partly because I wanted a very delicate look to the picture.  (Get me, I'm at risk of sounding like I know what I'm talking about!)  I stretched the picture over a canvas block (using the staple gun brought back many memories of hours stood on a chair creating classroom displays!) and it'd now hanging in my parents' front room.  My mam has a 'thing' about snowdrops and she gave strict instructions about what she wanted (snowdrops on a canvas block where the picture went round the sides of the block!).  In fact she said that if the picture didn't have snowdrops on it she'd be sending me back for another go!!  I had a lot of fun making it and will definitely be making some other 'arty' fabric pictures in the future...once I've made some more quilts!



I know this post already has lots of photos but I wanted to share some of Archie and  Alfie that I took a few days ago.

What's that?  You want what?

Oh, you want a photo of my bandage, well why didn't you say so?!!

There's no way you're getting this bed, it's mine!

(The bed - really the cushion from an Ikea footstool! - is now wrapped in a towel as someone (naming no names but he's big and grey) ripped the other one whilst he was being a bit overenthusiastic with his bed scratching!)

Archie has had another blood test which is why he's got a lovely red bandage on his leg...and a bald patch!

Please stop pointing out my bald patch - it's not nice to laugh at the afflicted!

I've heard about male pattern baldness but this isn't what I was expecting!

The vet phoned with his test results and there's good and bad news...the good news is that his kidneys (which can be affected by the anti-inflammatory medication he's on) are fine.  The bad news is that one of his liver levels is too high and he has to start taking tablets to support his liver function.  (He's showing no symptoms at the moment so if it hadn't been for the blood test I wouldn't have known there was anything wrong - maybe that nasty husky did us a favour after all!)   The even worse news is that I went to pick up the tablets today and got a huge shock.  The vet hadn't mentioned how much they would be (and I was too shocked by the news to ask) but they're £53 for 30 tablets and he takes one a day.  £53 a month!  When she told me I felt sick...there's no way I can afford that every month so I'm hoping that next month the vet will say he can drop down to a tablet every other day.  Or suggest a cheaper alternative if he needs a daily dose.  Fingers crossed he doesn't need to take them every day for a long time but I suspect he might...I might have start making him earn his keep - any ideas?!!  He's very good at sleeping and eating so maybe he could be a bed tester or a biscuit sampler?!  Do they pay well?


That feels like a bit of a miserable finish to the post so here's another cute photo of Archie.  There's a pile of bath towels next to the wall in the front room as they're waiting to be cut into smaller 'dog' towels and he decided that he'd ignore the nice comfy quilt on the floor and make one of these into his bed...

What?!  It's surprisingly comfortable!!

I haven't taken the group hexy photo yet so I'm afraid you (and I!) will have to wait a bit longer to see them altogether but I'll hopefully get it done sometime next week - I can't wait to see how they all look!


Must go, it's my niece's Christening tomorrow and I'm being picked up before 9am so I need an early night!!  Hope you're having a lovely weekend!