A Surprise Day Out and more...

It was my birthday in August and after a FaceTime call from the Hopper Juniors and minis, Roger took me out on a mystery trip.  All I was told was that I needed to take my walking shoes with me.

Roger drove us to a small place called Shardlow in Derbyshire.

We walked along the Trent and Mersey Canal towards the river Trent.

A bit autumnal for the middle of August!


The bridge over the river Trent


Along the river


Roger walking in true Hopper style.  Naomi tells me Andy does the same!

Trent Lock and a pub lunch

I relaxed for the rest of the week!  It took 5 days before I could walk without pain!

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post either here or on Facebook.  I really appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Do you find that sometimes September is a time to look at the future?  More than at New Year?

I think it's to do with the school year starting in September in England.  Especially as the daughter of teachers, then as a pupil and as a teacher myself, and as a mother of a child at school, my year was regulated by term times and the new school year.  I haven't been ruled by that since Andy left school in 2005, but still September feels like the time to re-set.

I feel it's time to take stock of what I'm doing with this blog.  Obviously Covid has something to do with feeling unsettled.  I often blog about my holidays and workshops I've attended, and neither of these things are happening much just now.

I would really appreciate it if you would spend a few minutes replying to this blog in the comments when you've read my questions.

I write my blog for me.  It's a bonus that people read it - thank you.  However maybe now is the time to make it more focussed for your interests.

So what keeps you reading my blog?

Which of these topics would you like to see featured here?

Travel (when I can do it again!)
Days Out
Textiles
Mixed Media
Step by step photos of a piece of work
Challenges
Photos and photography
My faith
My Word of the Year and the journal that goes with it
How to make books
Other people's work
Posts about mental health issues

Is there anything else you would like to see not in the list?

And my last question. I post every week on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Is that about right? Too many posts? 

I would really love you to reply in the comments below.  If you prefer to cntact me privately clik on Contact Me on the right of this page.

Thank you for joining me today.
Bernice

Last Saturday I showed you the piece I had cut up and reassembled.   I had pinned it to a piece of fine calico and I was going to quilt it and hand stitch the piece taking the handstitching off the collage pieces and onto the cream background.

Well of course that wasn't what happened!  I cut the calico off.  I put a piece of acrylic felt and a backing cotton behind it.

I machine stitched around the rectangles

I cut out bird shapes and tried them in various formations on the piece.

My last Journal Update post was in July.  Seems a very long time ago!

I'm pleased to say that I completed Mary's Thessalonians Word Study.  Here are the pages to prove it!





I decided I was going to do 31 days of doodles - one a dya through August.  But actually I didn't start until I finished the word study.

I still did 31 days, although sometimes I did 3 days at a time to catch up, finishing on September 5th.

They're not very exciting but at least I finished my challenge.


Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

How many pieces of work do you have on the go?

I decided I would try to finish some of mine before I started on anything new.  Of course that only lasted until I did Lisa Walton's Fantastic Fusion workshop recently.

However I have finished some.  I made this wall hanging at Leah Higgin's workshop Print, Stitch, Go in November 2019.  It just needed the binding around the edges .

Last week I cut it up and made it into a cover for a large sketchbook.

Last September I started working on Landscapes with Liske at Littleheath Barn.  I started a couple of pieces but stopped working on them at the end of February.  In fact I think the first piece started at a lutradur workshop in 2016, with additions in 2020!

The sewing is finished.  It needs a card mount and a frame.  It looks large here but it's actually only 19x16 centimetres.

The sewing is finished on this one and just needs a press and a piece of wood - preferably driftwood - at the top as the hanger.  This piece is 16x48 centimetres.

The next piece I tackled was this one.  When I stopped working on it, it looked like this.

I had started handstitching it, but when I came back to it I realised the machine stitching I had done around the squares was very poor.  Plus it didn't speak to me at all.

Regular readers will know what I did next!

Yes!  I took it all apart and cut it up.

I wondered whether I could take some of what I learned on Fantastic Fusion and make something with these pieces.  I put Mistyfuse on the back of all the pieces.

I started laying out the pieces and trying them out.  Moving them to different places to see if that worked.

Eventually I decided I needed to fuse them to a separate piece of fabric that was more or less the right size.

I squared the collage up and continued to add bits.

It eventually looked like this.

Now all I have to do is decided how to stitch it.  I'm going to use the machine and hand stitching.  I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Almost normal Rewind 2019 Rewind 2018 Rewind 2017 Rewind 2016