be crafty be happy

Back from the tour and another embroidered bag

Wow!
What a trip! twice as many as here!the French side won! with over 860 hits for the week-end... twice as many as here.

Thank you for taking part, without your efforts and photos there wouldn't have been any travel at all!

Thanks too for the added historical notes and other details about your towns and villages, it was always a worthwhile visit, every place has its history, has facinating stories and is worth seeing!

 I'll gradually change the links from the main pages to the specific travel entry so that the holiday is easy to find again.I also hope you have made new friends, met some kindred spirits, I know I will increase my list of daily blogs to visit AGAIN .. will there be time for anything else really? I'd better throw the TV away.

After all these visits I'm back in the back garden.. or just about, as I used the Lake District as inspiration for this new embroidered bag.

From photos to paper:

Painted on thick cotton or linen:

Machine embroidery:

 

And hand embroidery too..

A few hours on the sewing machine and I have a finished bag:

I'm pleased with it - I rarely make bags like that, they take a bit longer to make. Do you like it? It's roughly A4 in size.
I think what is in the back of my mind is: could I sell these? It would be through Etsy, but because they take me a long time, the price would be affected.
Would you buy it? What do you think would be a reasonable price for it?

Miss*L

Happy HOLIDAY!!!

The big day is here!!!

No taxis, no waiting, no queues, no forgotten passports, no heavy luggages catering for all weather conditions... Our ONE DAY HOLIDAY starts now!!!  17 countries,   75 cities!!!

**Updates: 

AUSTRALIA IS HERE!!!

 I have also added a * on blogs that haven't posted yet.

(****Please remember that the start of the 21st June spreads over 24 hours... some blogs may not be ready yet when you visit, so remember to come back later to see their updates!)

Thank you ever so much everyone for giving me this holiday. I really really appreciate all of you taking part and visiting. Thank you especially to Fine who really helped spreading the idea!

As with real travel, people will speak the local language sometimes... never mind, we still have the photos!!!

HAVE A GREAT TIME! Click on the links and they will be displayed in a new window. You can find  the *approximate* location of each participant on the maps below. ( let me know if  I got yours really wrong)

(PS: Typepad is serious letting me down at the moment, I am sorry for the weird layout, colours all over the place etc, but I have a full list and included everyone!)

Visit Argentina:

   1 Marina, near Bueno Aires 

Visit Australia******:

    2 Natasha in Melbourne!!! Hurray!! Thank you so much!

Visit Canada:  

3 Audrey, Terrebonne, Québec

   4 Cherrybee, in Montreal, Canada

  59 Samy in Québec, Canada ( link now working again sorry about the mix up!!)

   5 Sylvie, in St-Hubert, Canada

visit Chile!!

    68 Maria in Talagante, Chile

Visit France:( separate map)  

    22 Abc, in Matin en Forez, France

    60 Agnès, Vichy, France

    61 Béatrice, in Marseille, France

    55 Bibou in Bastia, Corsica, France

    23 Bphanou, in Cognac, France

    24 Celadon, in The Alpes de Haute Provence region, France

    25 Choupette, in Mougins, near Cannes, France

    26 Christèle , in the Landes region, France

    27 Coeuralouvrage, in Andresy, France

    28 Comme un poisson, in Lille, France *** Photos now published thank you!

    29 Côté Arcades in Louhans, France

    30 Cilya  in Toulouse, France

     73: ****nouveau participant:Ctextile à Nice

    71 Damourdo in Paris

    70  Enriqueta in Paris

    31 Fine  in Sanary sur Mer, France

    32 Grillon, in Fouesnant and Quimper,  Brittany, France

    73: ****new entry:Jany in Aubenas  

    33 Jef, in Marseille, France

    34 Karine, in Vanves, near Paris, France

    35 Laétitia, in Belfort, France

    36 Lakevio in Paris, France

    37 Léokadie, in Roussillon region, France

    38 Liza, in Noyal Pontivy, Brittany, France

    39 Lucie et le cybermamys, in St Etienne, France

    57 Lucylaine in Peymeinade, France

    40 Madie, in Yerres, near Paris, France

    41 Mandine, in Levens, France

    63 Mary, in Tours, France

    42Maryline, in Le Mans, France

 *** new entry: Mélanie in Provence ( south of France)

    43 Mimounette in Avignon, France ( scroll down to 18th May)

    44 Mimounette in Aix-en-Provence, France ( scroll down to 5th June)

    54 Mireil, in Crans, France

    45 Muad'Dib , in La Roche Sur Yon, France *** Photos now published! Thanks 

    46 Nadia, in Le Bailleul, France

    65 Nath, in Angoulême, France (Thanks Patouillette!)

    62 Odile, in Guéret , France

    47 Orèle, in Déville lès Rouen, France

    48 Pascale, in Auvergne region, France

    67 Pénélope in Picardie region, France

    58 Solange in Montluçon, France 

    64 Stéphanie in Cognac, France

    49 Sylvie, in VOUJEAUCOURT,  France 

    50 Térésa, in Aix en Provence, France

    51 Tigroute82 *, in Montauban, *** wont' be able to take part, a virus has taken over her computer, good luck in re-building the missing files!

    52 ValPerles, in Cucuron, France (LINK NOW WORKING)

    53 Volsul in Toulouse, France

Visit Greece:

    6 LIZA, in Greece

Visit Guyana:

    7 Oxygène *,  * probably won't make it as is travelling in Kourou, Guyana

Visit Japan: 

    8 Marie, in Tokyo, Japan

Visit New-Zealand:

  9  Pikininiz in Papamoa, New-Zealand.

****New country:  Portugal

72 MissArte in Lisbonne

Visit Spain:

   10 Laila in Barcelona, Spain

Visit Sweden:

  11  Cecilia in Helsingborg, Sweden

Visit Switzerland:

    56 Christine in Chaux-de-Fonds

Visit the Netherlands:

    66 Corina

Visit Tunisia:

  12  Khanouff  ** Photos now posted, in Bizerte, Tunisia

Visit the UK:

   13 Chantal in Bath, UK

   14 Miss*Laurence, in Poynton, UK (that'll be me then!!! see below)

   15 Victoria in Epping, UK **** Photos now posted! Thank you!, 

Visit the USA:

    16 Cat *, in Miami, USA

   17 Constance, in New Jersey Shore, USA

   18 Julie, in Texas, USA

   19 Kelly *** Photos now posted , in Utah, USA.

  

21 Ulla, in Northern California, USA

I was curious to see the extent of our travel, so here are the maps

 

 

Map of the world googlemap

Topographic map of France, produced by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, from the Perry Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas.

******WELCOME TO POYNTON  (UK)!!!*********************

and its surroundings.

Bramhall Hall is probably the oldest mansion around- mentioned around William the Conqueror's time, 1070, no less! The oldest part of the current hall dates from the 14th century .... I just love the intricate carvings and the chimneys, the old stained glass windows, the cosy size of the place ...

The next one up is Lyme Park Mansion:Another prestigious pedigree.. dating as far back as the 14th Century. The current house was re-designed in 1720s, to resemble a Venetian Palace... And it is famous here for being Mr. Darcy's home in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in a film from the BBC.

However, just as nice and down the road... the small town itself.

Poynton used to be a  mining village, so you can find old mining cottages - the last collieries closed in 1935. These rows date early 1800s.

Later house styles are still attractive, I really like the  different styles, they make me want to paint and stitch ( or move...)!!!

And finally the local landmark...

THANKS for visiting... please come again sometime I enjoy your visits!

Have a nice holiday!

Canvaswork and tee-shirt embellishments

We've had the last play of the season at the theatre, so I was in command of both sound and light in "the box" all week. The play was Round and Round the Garden  by Alan Ayckbourne. It was quite a funny play, part of a trilogy - the 3 plays are the same but in a different room- the garden, the living room and the kitchen. It's quite clever, as you can have an individual play for each, which makes total sense, but the missing bits happen in another... Anyway, no costumes for that one, but we are still having troubles with our sound system, crashing 6 times during the play... so I missed some cues, but at least the audience never noticed.

Meanwhile, since there wasn't that much to do I was happily embroidering some canvaswork every evening ( in semi obscurity) , as we had had a workshop last Saturday at the Guild. It's an old fashioned type of embroidery, used in tapistries and samplers, it is mostly geometrical:

I must also tell you of my latest tee-shirt endeavours.
I love buying plain tee-shirts "for later" I tell myself... and for once I actually worked on one.
I cut out some lino to make a stamp out of some of my doodles ( always keep your doodles!!)

  

I tested the printing on canvas, before the tee-shirt fabric.

Finally I got hold of my mother of pearl buttons and placed them around the neckline randomly.
I've always loved those buttons, and wanted to give them pride of place in the design. I love how they are all different and interesting.

I made up some " flowers" in fabric by just sewing two circles together, then sewed a buttonhole in the middle... and voilà! I can add a flower anywhere on the tee-shirt, and use either side to match my clothes... I'm sure I'll use that idea again!

And don't forget you can still take part in my 

One day holiday on 21st June!

!!

Starting the week in red

Sara at Sadie Olive is going for a red week, so I'll post a few local reds too today..
This week was a disappointing half term grey and wet, spent mostly in clearing ups and very short outings. We managed to see the Indiana Jones though, and swim / cycle a bit too. Still I suppose it's good for the garden. Except our mini veg garden, which is not mostly bare since the excitement of seeing some carrots and salads shoots only lasted 1 night as they had become part of "someone's" ( think wet and slimy here) free night out meal. So I'll be thinking of a new plan for next week.

Meanwhile to follow on the red thread here, I have been catching on with the blackwork ( well in red but it's still blackwork).
I was tearing up some cotton pieces the other day and a thread got pulled out in the middle. So I had a little play with making gaps pulling 1- 2 or 3 threads in an uneven check pattern. (This is not the embroidery technique called pulled thread by the way, since that is actually a stitching method that pulls threads together to make the gaps.)
I liked the checks, so I decided to use it as a mini sampler of blackwork stitches. Not very  elaborate, but satisfying and quick.














More red threads:
There's a lot of red details at home since I always liked red (indeed half my clothes are red or orange...)- so I didn't have to go far to find some...















































































Try to see red in a positive way this week...

Another refashioned outfit and ethical living

Hello!
Well, not a lot of sunshine this week, some serious winds though.
So I had time to finish "messing about with my clothes".
Out of my daily doodling came another pair of decorated jeans.
















I had bought them in a charity shop ( like quite a bit of my wardrobe), hand dyed them green and settled for a sort of  stylised flowers look.
I just loved this colour combination:






















here is the finished set:





















Since I was  started I carried on with a shirt" from the same shop" I didn't like its garish pink, so hand dyed it orange.
Covered some buttons in fabric and added details with the same designs...






























I remembered that I had always wanted to try yoyos on my clothes...






















When I was finished and showed it to the family they said " you should put a label on it"... I had forgotten about my woven labels.. but here it is for the 1st time!

And finally I wanted to tell you about a book I picked up at the library by chance and could drop until I had read it through and through: " A Life Stripped Bare" by Leo Hickman. A brilliant funny and realistic diary of how to become an ethical consumer.
3 giants of ethical living audit his current lifestyle ( all 100% familiar I can assure you), and voice the complex set of various concerns just about every item: label, production line, ingredients source, toxicity, wastage, energy efficiency, substandard labour conditions, intensive farming, deforestation etc... A bit hard to swallow in places, but at the end of the day every single item discussed was highly relevant and true...
So I highly recommend it and have also added more ethical companies to my list in the right column, where I will be shopping often now.

I wish I could find more ethical/organic off-the-roll fabrics though... I have suddenly realised that my art supplies may not be very ethical either. Well, I've got enough for a while I'll just have to stop buying and search for better options instead.

Have a great day!

PS: Typepad ( my blog provider) have decided to change a lot of things about the layout/buttons/configuration of their blogs and it is currenlty driving me insane! Please excuse the big empty gaps and other strange layout happenings thorugh out in the next few weeks, I hope to resolve this very soon!