Silk Necklace

I made this silk necklace as a birthday present for a friend.

Let me introduce you to....

Today I am featuring work from three different shops. I have chosen one item from each shop as shown above. details of the items are below and if you would like to take a closer look click on the links, these are in grey text.

I have chosen these as I love textiles and soft textures whether woven, stitched or felted.

Now l will introduce you to Judi, Denise and Judy. They all live a long hop over the pond in different parts of the USA and their shops are on etsy. We belong to a friendly and supportive team on etsy called BBEST which stands for Boomers and Beyond Etsy Street Team and that's where we met, online

Judi from Imaginuity

Judi describes her studio as a crow's nest filled with treasures to inspire her imagination and she says she has been dreaming and designing with textiles since she could hold a needle.

Some these treasures have been artfully and skilfully combined in the crazy patchwork cuff that I have chosen.

She makes statement necklaces and fibre art jewellery and I know that she is an accomplished seamstress who has made her own clothes as well as theatre costumes. If you visit her shop you will see in her profile that she has 3 shops altogether, writes 2 blogs and is a creativity coach.

Do have a peek at her statement hat.

Purple Orchid and Lagoon beaded cuff

Denise from TeardropHankys

Denise is new to the team and her shop is fairly newly opened. She works with her collection of vintage hankies and inspiration both inherited from her crafty grandmother. The vintage print reminds me of the summer dresses my mother wore in the 50s. The colours in the print have been creatively echoed in the ribbon, buttons and border to make this beautiful pillow. I never knew that hankies could be so large!

Tammis Keefe Hanky Pillow

Judy from jnoriginals

Judy makes crocheted and felted accessories. She says that creative dreams are realised when we ask 'what if?' and 'why not?'

I think this is so true of creative use of colour and I like her colour combinations.

The felted needle book that I have chosen combines a lovely sky blue and muted orange. The effect is cheerful and reminds me of a sunny Autumn day on the coasts of Devon and Cornwall when the bracken has turned to burnt orange and the colour sings with the blue of the sky and sea.

Judy has 4 shops on etsy and is also a blogger.

Skywood Felted Needle Book

Paintings at Pashley Manor

This year I have some paintings on show at Pashley Manor Gardens. (Click on the link for more information. Ou si vous êtes francais cliquer ici) The Garden room and shop show floral or botanical works by different artists as well as their cards and prints. There is also sculpture.

( to fast forward to July's post click here)

Pashley Manor is a Tudor timbered house set in beautiful gardens with views over the landscape of the Weald in West Sussex. It is near to the A 21 and the border with Kent. The gardens are open to the public from April to September and there are several special events during the season.

The tulip festival is outstanding. The gardens are planted with 22,000 tulip bulbs made up of 100 varieties and around 2,000 cut flowers on display.

My visits to the tulip festival inspired me to paint tulips on silk. I don't think I had seen such quailty and variety before, the bulbs come from Bloms who have won 60 RHS Chelsea gold medals. I also started to grow more tulips in my garden for painting.

The photos above show some glimpses of the garden on the sunny March day when I took my paintings to Pashley. The garden was waking from winter and in the woods there was the promise of bluebells. The rear of the house is a later Georgian addition.

Europe for Charity

I have selected some of my favourite things from europeforcharity a shop on etsy. The items for sale have been donated by artists and crafters from around Europe and all proceeds are donated to chosen charities for relief whenever a humanitarian crisis emerges and to support causes such as child care and education.
Items include greetings cards, jewellery, clothes and accessories and prices range from £1.59- £83.71 so there is something to suit all budgets. To have a look click here

At the moment the money from sales will go to Japan for relief work via Architecture for Humanity to support the building of transitional shelters, health centres etc.


This shop was started on behalf of the european street team on etsy by Baa of baahar in August 2010

New Cards

I have just got these cards from the printers. I had them done to take to some exhibitions that I will have paintings in this year. I am really pleased with the way they have turned out.

Flowers on Silk

Pink Lilies

Pink Peonies

Both of these have been painted on silk by working in many layers of colour and using gutta as an outliner to act as a resist and to define edges.

Pink Lilies was featured in Peinture sur Soie, a French silk painting magazine.

Both have been recently listed in my etsy shop and if you click on the titles of the paintings you can read more about them.

Silk Painting with Dyscover

The photos below show the work done by members of Dyscover.

Today was my second visit to a Dyscover group. Dyscover is a charity aiming to help people with dysphasia through various courses and activities to help with communication. Dysphasia is a problem with communication, caused by damage by stroke injury or other illness, to the language centres in the brain.

I don't think anyone had tried silk painting before so it was all new. There were several volunteers there to help each person.

Last week I showed some silk painting techniques and everyone tried them out on small pieces of silk. Some of these were made into cards.

Today each person had either a white silk tie or scarf to work on. The items were dampened first then colours painted or flicked on. The ties were done like this. Some added salt to make star or flower like patterns in the colour. The scarf above shows this technique.

The group was lovely and got stuck in quickly. I was really pleased with the results.

At the end I got 2 kisses and a thumbs up.