Hiking in Wales.

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I were hiking in Snowdonia, the central and northern part of Wales. We had only been to Wales once before horseback riding, and that was quite some years ago. We had wanted to come back ever since, but never made it. An opportunity came up and we decided to extend the stay exploring Wales and doing a spot of hiking. We stayed in a lovely B&B
Aberconwy House
in Bewtsy Coed which was very centrally located for the areas that we wanted to explore. The B&B had the most amazing scramble eggs with smoked salmon and fried tomatoes on the side as one of their yummy breakfast options. It was delicious :-)



During our three night stay in Wales we covered a lot of ground, by car as well as by foot. Armed with our detailed hiking/walking books we averaged about 9 miles (12km) each day up and down the mountains. Great exercise and a nice change from our relatively flat local area here in Suffolk. There for sure is a big difference between a Suffolk mile and a Welsh mile!
Snowdonia/Wales was just as lovely as I had imagined. Fabulous nature, waterfalls, sheep everywhere, wild flowers coloring the landscape, stunning panoramic views. The stillness was stunning. The ladder stiles climbing over the beautiful typical Welsh stone walls were a lot of fun. I took at lot of wall photos as design inspiration for future works. We had a wonderful stay and we so want to go back.


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Quilt exhibition at The V&A, London

I’m so happy that I made it down to London to see The Quilt Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum: Quilts of the British Isles 1700 - 2010.
Lots of my friends had recommended it as a fantastic day out, even though only two hours away I just hadn’t found time to go down to London. Luckily my husband with short notice had to go to London for a business meeting and I jumped on the chance to toggle along. While my husband did his thing, I went to the V&A. Since I didn’t have a pre booked ticket, I decided to get to the museum before it opened at 10 am. While waiting in the sunshine a group of the 5-6 year old girls in their school uniforms and very cute straw hats appeared. They were just the sweetest sight! I later saw them inside the museum where they were having a great time.



The quilt exhibition was amazing and made even more special, as I had the two rooms exhibition rooms to myself, for the first half an hour. The impact of the quilts and their story was a very powerful experience. The exhibition has finished now which is a shame. It really deserved to have been enjoyed by many more people.
If you are visiting London. The
Victoria and Albert Museum is a fantastic place to spend hours. I love going there and quite often wish that I was living closer to it.

The Etsy Twitter Team, HeartsAndLaserbeams and VintageDay

I recently joined a new team: The Etsy Twitter Team. And what a blast it has been! A couple of weeks ago The Etsy Twitter Team was briefly accepting new members. I have for a while been considering joining another team, so I took a good look at the team blog etsytwitter and did some other research. I really liked what I saw, so I applied and got in. Yeah!
It has been absolutely great. I'm still in the process of adding team members to my twitter, looking at blogs, etsy shops, facebook pages as well as adding the team tag. It will take a while before I have made the round, but I'll get there :-)The very heartfelt welcomes and embracing have been stunning. Thank you all!! You have made me feel very welcome :-)

Like in most teams there are a few requirements, and one of them is a monthly mandatory sign in. At the same time we were asked to twitter the shop above your own. The shop above me was Vintageday a shop with beautiful vintage jewlery. There are so many beautiful pieces in her shop, that is was difficult to choose.

Shortly after I recieved an email from HeartsAndLaserbeams
heartsandlaserbeams , who had signed in below me. She had a great suggestion to do a bit of cross promotion this week, hence this blogpost. Sandwiched in between two lovely shops, I thought that was really neat idea. HeartsAndLaserbeams, is a fun shop with a combination of lighthearted and humorous items, that puts a smile on your face. You will find a selection of lovely drawings from which is was really hard to choose. They are all lovely and again with a slight light hearted edge. The wonderful 'Apples Rock' badge at the top of this post is just one of many designs, that can be found in her shop

Absolutly not craft related :-)

Victory! I'm so excited! I know this might sound a bit silly, but today for the first time in yoga class, I was able to roll on my toes in transition from 'up dog' to 'down dog'. It has only taken me sort of about 5 years to get to this point :-)
When we moved to the US about 5 years ago I was so furtunate, that in our rather rural area of the Blue Ridge Mountains, there were lots of yoga classes on offer. Prior to that I had only very briefly touched base with yoga, so I jumped on the chance to learn more and I have never looked back. I was totally hooked. One of my first yoga instructors impressed me in many, many ways, but her toe rolling.... well, I had never see any like it before. How on earth could she do that! How ever much I tried to get my (stiff) feet to do anything even remotely, well that just didn't happen.....untill today!
After moving back to England I joined the local yoga center,
The SelfCentre . A superb place with brilliant instructors and lots and lots of yoga classes. On avarege I attend classes three times a week and love every minute of it. Eventhough I'm not a youngster anymore, I'm as flexible as I have ever been. There are still lots that I cannot do, but thats ok, maybe eventually.... :-)

How To: Create A Roller Printed Background.

The other day I was making some backgrounds for a couple of project. My camera was right there so I decided to take a couple of pictures as I went along. Making roller prints is one of my favorites methods for adding colour/pattern/texture to a surface. I love the randomness and the fact that you can play with both the positive and negative image of a design is great. It is easy to create exciting results in very little time. The printing block can be almost anything as long as it has a leveled surface. Too bumpy and the paint/design will be picked up too unevenly. I often make great blocks from recycled Styrofoam pizza bases. Here I have used print blocks meant for texturing polymer clay.

On my printing plate, in this case a sheet of thick acetate, I put dollops of acrylic paint of the following colours: 2 blues, white and gold. I like using a selection of coordinated colours. I like the random mixing of the colours and small traces of colour showing here and there in the print.

Load the roller and roll it relatively dry on the acetate sheet. Roll over the print block. Lift the print block and use as a stamp. One can often at least two prints from one paint application. I like the shadow effect as the pattern fades. For my work I prefer to place the print block quite randomly, overlapping building up more or less dense areas.

Then take the roller and carefully roll the negative paint imprint that is left on the roller onto the surface.

When working with acrylic paint you have to work relatively quickly as the paint dries quickly. An extender can be added if one needs a longer opening time before the paint dries. This technique works just as well on paper as on fabric.

The finished sheet of paper. In this case I wanted to keep the white background, but in other cases I have painted the surface with a diluted, liquid dye. The acrylic paint will work as a resist and one can create very exciting results.

Have fun and most importantly PLAY :-)

'Out Of The Fold' and Australia

In my last blog post I was writing about our quilts from my textile group 'Out Of The Fold' going on display in Melbourne, Australia. Last Friday when the group met we had our quilts returned to us and Annette Morgan filled us in on her experience Down Under. Very exciting!

Tonight a friend of mine emailed me, to let me know that this Australian blog
suedennisartquilts has two blog posts about our exhibition. And I'm so excited as my quilt, amongst others, has been featured. But above all, it is a superb feeling getting a reaction from a lady who has actually seen our exhibition it in its context.

In the group we have chosen our design theme for our next exhibition in 2011. After thinking long and hard I have finally decided on my design source. I haven't had time to sit down and really get on with the design work, but what I've done so far, definitely has a lot of potential and I cannot wait to get on with it.

My art quilt at The Australasian Quilt Convention 2010

I'm so excited, yet it is a bit surreal. An art quilt of mine is going to be on display at the Australasian Quilt Convention Melbourne next weekend. One of the textile groups 'Out Of The Fold' that I belong, made for our exhibition in October 2009 in Bury St. Edmunds, England a collection of art quilts all measuring 18'x45' on the theme 'Inside Out'. That collection will be on display in Australia next weekend. Annette Morgan , quilt artist, author and the groups mentor is teaching workshops as well as displaying the quilts. It is really so exciting. It could have been fantastic to have attended the Quilt convention. I have never been to Australia, and would love to visit. Maybe one day. It is always totally mind boggling visiting huge shows like that. The amount creativity, inspiration and positive energy makes it such an amazing experience. I hope Annette takes a lot of photos:-)