Legs. I am making an artist trading doll for a swap on clothpaperstudio. Not sure what I think of what I have done, but I do like these legs.

I used an old map to make rolled beads, wrapped a bunch of threads round then stitched beads on. The feet are made from 2 layers of pelmet vilene, with bondaweb in between. Painted with quin gold acrylic paint.

Claire's handbag and our adventure.

Claire wanted a new bag and has been saving her christmas and birthday cheques. Yesterday was the day to go and buy the bag.

We were driving up the M1 in driving rain when a tyre blew out. Horrible banging noise followed by loss of power and steering. Claire aimed for the hard shoulder pdq and we parked unharmed. We were on the hard shoulder of the sliproad from the junction of the M1 and M32 in driving rain with cars and trucks flying past, very close and very alarmingly. Not somewhere anyone would chose to be.

A very nice man stopped to tell us to get out of the car and offer us his umbrella. He was lovely, a personal trainer and gorgeous to boot. Claire didn't notice she was too busy ringing the RAC. Their driver rang back to check where we were and promised to be with us within 10 minutes - Claire told him to come quicker as we were about to die! I think his heart sank when he arrived as he really had to take his life into his hands to change the tire. I bet he would have won the competition for the quickest tire change ever. However he did it with a smile and a gentle reminder to get the tire changed asap.

We drove straight to the dealership to have the car checked and a new tire put on. The Toyota garage in Wakefield were lovely, kept us supplied with coffee for the two hours we were there, the car had a thorough check, and we eventually went back on our way to the handbags. We admired the rubber marks we left on the carriageway as we drove past.

Claire bought her bag. We came home thankful that she is a good driver and we got home able to complain that we had wasted three valuable shopping hours, both of us have curls in our ever so straightened hair, Ikea didn't have either of the two items I went for (but they did have the 750 items that I had to have once I was in there) and borders was closing when we arrived so I only managed to buy one book.

A good day.

Abducted girl. It was her 4th birthday yesterday. I can't begin to imagine losing one of my daughters.
Please help to find Madeleine, watch out for a little girl with an unusual mark on her eye.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6651307.stm

Little Jester bag brooch. This is 2" across. It is made from a simple 6 sided star which I drew.

I used quilters cotton fabric, two co-ordinating designs. Made a twisted cord in matching threads. The beads are glass and help the points to hang correctly.

Little woven bag necklace. I invested in a universal loom from Maggie Grey at workshop on the web (also available from www.ivyhousestudio.com). This made weaving with copper wire really easy. I wove this little bag with wire as the warp and bunches of hand dyed threads and beads as the weft. The bag measures 1 1/2 inches by 2 inches.

"Her sun set when Gilbert died". Another of my meet my ancestors quilts.

My mum looks so happy in this photo.


One day, in May 1945, mum was told that her brother was missing 'believed killed', later the same day she heard that her fiance was also missing.


My dad was fished out of the sea and he came home, but Gilbert didn't. When mum died, 50 years later, I found Gilbert's letters on her bedside table.

I painted the blue background fabric ages ago. Really like it and tried to paint another, but of course I hadn't followed any instructions and no matter what I tried I couldn't re-create the piece. So it became the most precious piece of fabric I ever owned. I gave myself a talking to and used it for my mum. The photos were fiddled with in photoshop and printed onto hp t-shirt transfer paper. I prefer this paper as it isn't shiny at all, transfers well and it is easy to peel off the backing paper. I had very little of the painted fabric left over so decided to piece the border. I can't make up my mind whether to add anything to the left hand side of the quiltie so will leave it for now. The binding on the left is unfinished as I am not sure how I am going to finish these quilts. I might bind them into a book.