Bookbinding in Malvern (1)

Had a fantastic day on Saturday at the local college having enrolled for a Summer School class on orthodox style bookbinding with a lady called Anna Yevtukh.  She was Russian from the Ukraine.  I eventually ended up with a beautiful leather bound book.  Pictures of the finished article will follow, but here are some of it as work in progress.

Worcester EG Exhibition

Chapel Memorial Room, Kings School, Worcester

Having felt like I was living in a goldfish bowl whilst the roofing work is going on I managed to escape for a couple of hours on Wednesday and went to Worcester to see the local branch exhibition.  It was very good - once I found it.  I continually get lost in Worcester and because I took the wrong entrance, I did not see the very clear signs to the exhibition.  Got there in the end.

The branch started a separate small group a few years ago which set themselves challenges.  There was a lovely display of what they had achieved.

This piece was a textured album cover.  My photograph does not really do it justice.  A lot of the work on display was framed behind glass and it was impossible to take any pictures without getting reflections which was a shame.  There were several examples of items made as a result of the workshops undertaken throughout the year.  The most interesting aspect of the exhibition was some very old pieces created by the lady who started the branch in the 50's.  An excellent idea was the small canvases for sale at £10 each.  The theme was the 'Elements' which had been interpretted in various ways by members of the branch.

Finally, this lovel mask.  It was an embellished piece, fairly small but very nice.  Well done everyone.  Perhaps next year I will have time to contribute something to the exhibition.

Toilet Humour

I found a couple of pictures of our shower room toilet the other day.  It shows the lovely Euthymol pink walls before and after stripping, plus the lovely rose motifs which had been stuck on at some point to decorate the walls.  Of course, as usual, I have got the photos in the wrong order.  The one on the left is later than the one on the right. Also in evidence is the side wall of the shower made from glass bricks!! Hopefully after the roof and the central heating the shower room will be transformed into a lovely family bathroom.

UP, UP AND AWAY

The weekend saw a frenzy of activity with the scaffolders arriving and getting all of the scaffold up ready for a start by the roofers yesterday.  There were three nice young men each day.  They worked really hard and their banter was very entertaining.  This photo is the rear of the house with the scaffolding only up one level.  DH managed to finish stripping the wallpaper in bedroom 4 and I got a lot of gardening done, having had to move all my pots from around the outside of the house to somewhere a bit safer.

Rear of house

Monday saw the arrival of a pair of Roofing Birds!!  They managed to find plenty of birds (sparrows) and wasps nests under the eaves, some still had active wasps in them.  There was also evidence of where squirrels had tried to gnaw their way in through some protective metal mesh that had been erected in the past.  Goodness knows what else they are going to find.  Poor Sox spent most of the day hiding outside terrified.

Side of house from the rear garden

We can't get up the drive now so are having to park Nobby and the Whale (aka the hire car) along the road close to a neighbour's house.  I have been using a short cut across the stream to get to them rather than walking all the way round on the public footpath.

Poem

Think I have found the poem that was the basis for the lovely doll with the pea buttons ....  It was by Robin Frost one of the Dymock Poets from the period 1908-17.

PEA BRUSH

I walked down alone Sunday after church
To the place where John had been cutting trees
To see for myself about the birch
He said I could have to bush my peas.

The sun in the new-cut gap
Was hot enough for the first of May,
And stifling hot with the odour of sap
From stumps still bleeding their life away.

The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill
Wherever the ground was low and wet,
The minute they heard my step went still
To watch me and see what I came to get.

Birch boughs enough piled everywhere! --
All fresh and sound from the recent axe
Time someone came with cart and pair
And got them off the wild flowers' backs.

They might be good for garden things
To curl a little finger round,
The same as you seize cat's-cradle strings
And lift themselves up off the ground.

Small good to anything growing wild,
They were crooking many a trillium
That had budded before the boughs were piled
And since it was coming up had to come.

Lathe & Plaster Piece

Decided my photos were not very good so scanned the piece instead, which meant putting it in the scanner both ways as it was too long so the first picture is actually upside down..  At least it shows more of the detail.  This has now been bleached and waxed (pic below) but again the colours are not true to the original.

Landscape Workshop - Newent

Afraid one is missing as the lady had to leave early

 Had a lovely day at Newent on Tuesday at The Patchwork Basket.  Helen Keenan was running a landscape workshop and there were 8 of us altogether.  Can't say my effort was very good and hardly any of us got as far as adding quilting and surface statiching to the work.  The average size was around 15"-18".

Once I get my sewing machine back from being serviced I will make another attempt at this technique, probably on a smaller scale and shall make it less complicated.  I can then progress to joining pieces into the strips.

This was my favourite piece