An Gailearai Beag

I am very pleased to be displaying some of my work in the window of An Gailearai Beag in Dingle for the last few days.  It was a bit of a rush - in more ways than one - to bring everything together to show off, but I made it.... just about. 

So far, I've had a great response with lots of kind words and the odd sale.  Thank you to everyone for that.



Meanwhile, I'm working on a summer theme at the moment and I'm spoilt for choice.  The hedgerows are simply full of colour and beautiful wild flowers, so there's plenty of subject matter for a fledgling artist to build on . . . .if only it would stop raining.

The weather has been anything but summery in the last couple of days and nights with wild winds whistling in off the Atlantic.  My poor spud plants are flattened.  But on the bright side, confined indoors, I finished another sewing project.
 

Gym membership and other posts!!

How many of us have signed up for gym membership, paid a few visits, got the hang of the equipment and never darkened the door after that? Well, swap gym for blog and you get the idea.  With the best of intentions of blogging about my craft progress, I have failed to develop the regular habit of blogging.. . so far.

The embroidery workshop previewed in previous blog entries, has come and gone. A lovely sunny morning and great company made it a very enjoyable occasion.  It was really satisfying to see a complete begginer or two take to the traditional stitches and create their own mark on cloth in very different ways.  All went home with a new skill, a framed sampler of their work and hopefully a sense of achievement.  I hope to run another workshop soon. 

Since then I've been consumed with my new garden.  Nature has a way of dictating when things need to be done in a garden. . .seeds to sow, plants to feed, compost to heap, and spuds to reap.  With the help of my friend Roisin and Mickey's sledge hammer, I've fixed the boundary fence posts and planted whitethorn and blackthorn along its length.  More recently, with unbridled joy, I harvested my very first ever crop of  early potatoes.  Called Swift, they're perfect pearly globes, even though the leaves have been shredded by a combination of wind and some mysterious leaf munching insects.  If they flowered, I missed it and now I'm digging out a few for every dinner.  Cabbage seedlings, donated by my neighbour as babies are massive now and looking good.  Peas are in flower and soon they'll be podding.  Following close behind are seedling beetroots, carrots, broccoli, shallots and a further maincrop potato. 

Excavations worthy of a Time Team programme, have been required to cut Robinsonian style grass paths through the wildflower meadow - once lawn.  And that will be the final hard labour initiative in the garden for 2011. It's time to enjoy the fruits of our labour.

So with the ground work complete and a veg garden now producing food, I should have more time for Cairde Ceirde posts. Back soon.

Panceltic Workshop details

A big thank you to Aoife McCormick for her beautiful design on the workshop poster. Thanks Aoife. x

April 28th workshop bookings

Here's an image from another piece of my work under construction and this will be for sale at the Panceltic Craft in Kerry Craft Fair in An Diseart, Dingle, on 29th April 2011.  Any offers?

Meanwhile. . .only 4 weeks to go to my Panceltic embroidery workshop on Thursday 28th April in Dingle.  Should be a lot of fun.  I'm hoping that a local baker will provide some goodies for us all to enjoy mid-morning.   Might be a hangover from my old HR job, but I'm putting together a slide show of ideas and some fantastic work by other textile artists to kick off the workshop.  Saves me having to talk too much!! And I hope it will inspire some new textile artists to create something special to take home. 

Only 6 places left now.  Booking through ann.moore.ie@gmail.com

Spring preparations

Busy putting together samples for my April workshop.  Today it's a nest of french knots, beads and a few simple straight stitches that I'm sure anyone can learn with a bit of practice.

Life on the sea bed

These pictures are a couple of details of a big embroidery piece I made that was inspired by life on the sea bed.

The white "sea anemone" is made by sewing rows and rows of running stitches on cream silk and drawing them tight as if smocking. Then I formed the silk into a tube before attaching it to the background with hidden couching stitches. It sits on a bed of french and bullion knots and tufted stitches.

 

This is another image of the same piece.  Little cushions are covered in knots and crochet stitches and then attached to the background which is tufted with stranded embroidery threads, slivers of silk and raffia string.

Click here to create your blog

Let's see where this goes.  I'd got as far as clicking the "go ahead and create a blog" button several times, but chickened out and pressed cancel. . . .until  now!  This could be a solitary post or the start of something interesting.  Back soon!!