Autumn Leaves Embroidery Sampler

This is the last of my samplers for the first module of my City & Guilds embroidery course. I still have to put everything together before I send it all off and try to mount everything in an attractive way! And answer some questions about the dreaded health & safety! Because common sense is apparently out of fashion and people have to be told these days not to swallow needles because it's bad for their health!!

Olive Oil and Lemon

Yes - more food related scribblings. Must stop this and find some other subjects. Maybe a self-portrait - oooh, scary! Or a portrait of my Irish Wolfhound - she'll never stay still long enough. Actually, I'm rubbish at people and animals so may try these out off-blog.

Coffee and Jam

This is THE MOST IMPORTANT piece of equipment in my house. I can't do without my coffee and am really fussy about how it's made. Instant coffee is a complete no no. Filter coffee is so so (OK at work). Cafetiere is good if it's just been made and the coffee is a really great one.

But above all those is coffee made with my bean-to-cup machine. I've listed some of the coffees I love and am always open to suggestions for others (as long as they're good, strong coffee).


And this is my favourite jam. What could be better than a warm croissant spread with apricot jam with a great cup of coffee? Complete heaven!

EDM 201 - Stapler

I think I have a long way to go. Trying to do at least one sketch a day because I'm sure it's the only way I'll learn.

Red's my favourite colour!

I really did have a sore eye when I painted this and since I wear contact lenses and had one out I was getting some very funny mixes of perspective. It's OK again today though so I won't have any more excuses!

F-C PITT artists pen again with watercolour.

My Keys - EDM 37

I drew this again with Faber-Castell PITT pen and added some watercolour this time (see, I can do colour Filtil). It's pretty cranky still but I'm just enjoying it so much that I don't really care.

Now I'm going to start a proper journal so everything I do is in one place. Torn between wire-bound or stitched. Aarghh - so many choices to make!

My Kitchen Windowsill

This is the first of what I hope will be lots of pen and ink sketches (maybe with colour washes later) that are supposed to demonstrate my improvement from this to... wherever I end up. I've been reading The Creative Licence by Danny Gregory who reckons anyone can draw with enough practice! Well... we'll see.

Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pen and NO ERASER!

Please don't read anything into the fact that I have Omega 3 supplements on my windowsill!!

I've just noticed that my keyboard, which has a sort of soft-feel black finish, has a fine sprinkling of gold dust over it. Seems to be everywhere - must have been left over from my dingbats project. Very Christmassy!

From dingbat to design

This started with a dingbat which I magnified, traced and placed randomly on a page of my journal. I filled the shapes with masking fluid and then painted and splattered with acrylic inks over the top plus a generous sprinkling of bronze powder. I think this may become some sort of a stitched project in the future but haven't quite figured out what. For now I just like looking at the cheerful colours - and we all need cheering up just at the moment, god knows.

Happy Thanksgiving Day to everyone in the US. I really hope you serve bread sauce with your turkey over there, or is it just a British thing? Turkey ain't turkey without bread sauce!