I've been Shopping!!!!!

I haven't been able to help myself - I had to buy these wonderful books, dvd and material. I'll have to do a review of the books when I get a chance. I watched the DVD yesterday and really enjoyed it. I'll have to make a soulful door when I get the chance.

I got these materials from Joggles.com. There were so many others I could have ordered but had to control myself. I love green. The brown one on the left reminds me of the Basic Grey papers which I love. That one and the paisley one make me want to make some exotic Indian inspired piece.

Running behind with TIF but will post my initial thoughts for September soon.

Books and Cooking Class

Today I did a wonderful cooking Class called Elegant Vegetarian with Nadine Abensur . Nadine is the author of some cookbooks, two of these are - Enjoy and The Cranks Bible. We made Mediterranean Garlic Soup with Red Onion and Cumin Jam, Cauliflower Fritters in Chickpea batter with Zhoug, Dolmades of Haloumi in olive oil with pine nut, tomato and Chickpea couscous. Artichoke and Parsley Salad, Fried Eggplant with pistashio, coriander, orange blossom pesto and finally for dessert - Churros with Chocolate sauce. The food was absolutely beautiful and Nadine is such a great chef and teacher. I'll have to keep my eye out for more of her classes as it was alot of fun.

This is one book I have been interested in getting but I ended up getting it out from my local library. It starts off with the basics and then has a gallery of lots of designs, explaining how they are done. Then the last section has various projects. The designs in the book are all very modern, interesting and are great inspiration to explore your own ideas. I haven't tried Crewel before so I'll have to have a go. But this one is also good for exploring ideas for other types of embroidery as well.

I also found this book "Stitches for Embroidery" at my local library and it turned out to be abit of a surprise. I'd like to buy this book to have as a reference book. The first part has a stitch sampler of the 20 stitches that are used in the book followed by the directions for doing each stitch. The next sections explore Lines, Texture, Filling Shapes, Leaves and Foliage, Round Flowers, Flower Spikes, Flower Impressions, Stems Trunks and Branches, Trees, Sky, Water, Buildings, Stitch patterns, Patterns from Nature, Getting it all together and Designs. I haven't had time to sit down and have a really good read of this yet but it explores many ideas for expressing these various ideas with stitch. It looks like a book I'll be able to learn alot from.

August TIF - Finished

August TIF Challenge - Balance

So here is my finished August TIF piece. I was thinking of adding more to the background but I think I like it the way it is. I like how the Shisha embroidery turned out, but I think I should have totally filled the paisley shapes in with embroidery and then did the Shisha embroidery over the top of that. I don't think the blue background behind the Shisha's works very well. Anyway, we live and learn. The gold thread that I used in this looks really dull in the scan but its actually a sparkly gold thread. I really enjoyed doing this so it might lead me onto doing some more at some stage.

Spring has Sprung!!

I'm excited that spring is here. This is a photo from the table we ate lunch at yesterday at one of my favourite cafes. It's where my husband and I got married and had our reception 7 1/2 years ago. My husband took the photo on his phone so the quality isn't the best. Also it was a little bit windy so we chose a table in abit of a sheltered spot. My lunch was absolutely beautiful - Linguine pasta with roasted pumpkin, feta, pine nuts, rocket, spanish onions with a pesto sauce through it. I'm not supposed to be eating pasta on my diet but sometimes you just have to bend the rules. I was so full afterwards anyway that I didn't eat any dinner. So it all balances out in the end.

Yesterday, the new Joggles online classes were announced. It's always exciting going in and checking them all out. I think I will be doing Jane LaFazio's new class - Mixed Media with paper and cloth, starting at the end of October. I've done 2 other online classes with Jane and I really enjoyed them, I'm sure this is going to be just as wonderful. I can also highly recommend any of Susan Sorrell's and Sharon Boggon's classes too.

I've made some progress with my August TIF - Balance piece. I want to do some more before posting another photo, maybe I'll post a photo this afternoon.

Also the September TIF challenge was posted by Sharon yesterday. The topic this time around is "Lists". I have absolutely no idea what I will do, this is going to take abit of thinking.