St Ives again and Erosion Bundles

You don't need to panic, I'm not going to post yet more pictures to turn you green with Cornish envy ;-)  At the last minute before Christmas I decided that I should make my good friend a St Ives based wall hanging, partly because she is a very special friend and partly because she is about to move away from just around the corner to the other side of the Pennines.  Why is it we always have these good ideas at the very last minute when we have had weeks or months to think of it?  Must be the creative mind (that's my excuse anyway).

Despite the pressures of working at full tilt and fighting with my machine I managed to complete my self imposed challenge.

You have probably seen a smaller version of this before in a workshop I did with Gina Ferrari down at Art & Stitch some time ago but this piece is about A3 size.  I used many of the processes we used with Gina to make the various textures in this piece and I'm happy to say my friend was delighted with it.  She has it hanging above her bed.  You can read more about the process from the original workshop here.

While we were down in St Ives we met up with the very lovely and talented Carolyn Saxby for a lunch of toasted cheese crumpets (my DH's speciality when in St Ives) and cream cakes supplied very naughtily by Carolyn.  Carolyn and I always like to have a beach ramble when we get together but this time our ramble was cut very short by a great deal of liquid sunshine, otherwise known as pouring rain.  As a result we decided to meet up another day and have a look round some galleries and try for another beachcomb.  In the event it was too cold for a beachcomb and the light was fading by the time we left the Millenium Gallery (sadly their website seems to be down at the moment) but we did agree to start a joint project with the items we had collected previously.

A couple of years ago we both took part in the Erosion Bundle project run by Seth Apter and Carolyn made another Erosion Bundle last year which she opened when we were in St Ives in April.  This year as there is no longer an official Erosion Bundle Project (last year's was run from this blog) Carolyn and I are making our own bundles and opening them on 1 April.  I prepared part of the bundle while I was in St Ives using seaweed and various papers and since I've been home I'veadded to it and made 3 more.

I've used an assortment of papers including failed computer printouts,

fabrics of all types and paper marked with watersoluble wax crayons,

photographs, rusty nails, cutoffs including hand made papers from old projects and various painted papers and fabrics.

All 4 bundles are now sitting in various positions in the garden with great hopes for their disintegration over the coming months but hopefully not for too many creepy crawlies!  Since I've made the bundles I've thought of lots more things I could have put in them so there could well be another one going out there soon.  At least they won't need weeding!  Or maybe they will!

Beach Treasures

It will come as no surprise that I enjoyed a spot of beachcombing on our trip to Cornwall. My DH has several photos of me, head down, studying the beach. It is a wonderful way of whiling away an hour or two trawling the beach in the sunshine with the sounds of seagulls crying, waves breaking and children playing ringing in your ears.

I pick up all sorts of things during my rambles and I don't always know what I will do with them when I get home but they all have potential.

This lovely assortment of shells, pottery shards and beach glass will make a few cuffs, don't you think? I may try coating the glass with something (clear nail varnish maybe?) to restore its shine as it shines beautifully when wet. I don't have a glass tumbler or I would tumble it to polish it up.

Sennen Cove

Every year that we have been to St Ives we have intended to go on the open-top bus that runs around the coast during the main summer months. We were lucky that this bus was on its final week when we arrived in St Ives so we decided that this time we would definitely do it! We were very brave and sat on the top deck but I was really pleased that I had ignored the weather forecast and taken a warm jacket, woolly hat and gloves. Even so I was frozen through by the time we arrived in Sennen Cove, our ultimate destination. I snapped the view above of Sennen Cove from the bus as we were leaving by which time we had retreated to the lower deck away from the wind!

Not long after we arrived at Sennen the sun decided to come out and it turned into a glorious day as you can see from the photo above. I don't know why but the signpost in the foreground really appealled to me. The sign must be working as the gulls were not being a nuisance.

Needless to say I couldn't resist doing some beachcombing and I was delighted to find this piece of plastic sticking out of the sand. It must have been in the water for a long time as both sides are coated in these skeletons of sea creatures. I haven't decided how I will use it yet, I may just keep it in my journal as a reminder but I love its wonderful texture. (it's had a good soak so it's not smelly!)

What do you think of this shot? This is part of the structure of the new lifeboat launch ramp and my DH had great fun playing with the shapes with his camera but he missed this one! Just now and again I like to get a snap that he doesn't! Bad girl!! ;o)

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If you are interested in painting Vivian Blackburn has blogged extensivelly about this part of Cornwall and her seascapes of Sennen Cove.

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JP was asking about the cottage we stayed in and you can see photos of it here. We booked it through St Ives Holidays who rent cottages in the area. (No affiliation but they are a good company in our experience).

Collage

Even though we have been going to St Ives for several years and already have hundreds of photographs I still managed to take over 450 more! I still haven't loaded all of them onto the computer yet! Rather than bore you with loads of individual photos I've made up some collages of images that I hope will interest you and provide me with some inspiration for future projects.

Most of the images above were taken on beaches or pathways but the one in the bottom left corner is the wood on the side of the Round House Gallery in Sennen Cove. (More of Sennen in a later post).

I'm sure the patterns in the sand above will come in handy. I just need to find the time to play about with them in Photoshop.

I drew the heart myself but all the other textures and patterns were there for the taking. The Tall Ship in the top left hand corner is the Stavros S Niarchos owned by the Tall Ships Youth Trust. It arrived early in the morning and stayed all day to provide some great photo opportunities while the youngsters got some practice in.

Cooeee!

It's me! I'm over here! Did you wonder where I'd gone? The header's a big hint. We headed off to St Ives for our annual fix of cornish air and cream teas and have had a fantastic fortnight chilling out by the sea. Needless to say, since we got back I've been catching up with shopping, washing (where does it all come from!!!!!!), emails and blogs (where do they all come from?!!!!!!!). Not to mention trying to comb through the 450+ photos I took and load them onto the laptop. I've done about a third so far.



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One of the highlights of our trip was meeting up with a blogging friend, the very, very lovely and friendly Carolyn who lives locally. We had arranged to meet at the Lifeboat station and Carolyn had no trouble in recognising me and greeting me like a long lost friend. We set off chattering in a random direction and eventually settled on tea and musffins and a very l-o-n-g chat at the Porthgwidden Beach cafe. (I have to give them a link as they generously let us sit and natter for over 2 hours!) We sat on the terrace overlooking the sea till it got a bit chilly and we had to move.



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Carolyn had very generously brought me a gift wrapped in some very pretty purple and pink sparkly paper which I can use in a project.



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The parcel held a funky skinny scarf that Carolyn had knitted and which I enjoyed wearing over the course of the holiday when the wind got a bit cool, and a beautiful dichroic necklace in a beautiful sea colour. On top of that I came back from a day out later in the week to find a bag of yarns and beady goodies that Carolyn had popped through the letterbox to keep me going. Thank you Carolyn :o)

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I had been wanting to try my hand at cuff-making so I made the cuff above for Carolyn before we went to St Ives. It's made of felt with velvet squares, scrim, net, shells, beds, buttons and stitch. I hope Carolyn liked it, she said she did, and I'm pleased to say it fitted!



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It was really lovely to meet Carolyn, she is a very warm bubbly person and we had lots of laughs while we were chatting. Roll on next year when we will definitley meet up again.


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On the subject of cuffs I made 2 more while we were away. some time ago in blogland I saw some beautiful cuffs that had been made using gifts. I know they are on a blog that I know really well but I cannot up to now find the original source so please leave me a comment if it's you. (Found it it's here)

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This cuff is made on a felt base with a zip used to suggest a wave. I then added yarns, velvet and some beads, beach glass, shells from St Ives beach and stitch. I gave this cuff to another friend who we met up with who I used to take art classes with at home and who now lives near St Just.

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Finally I made myself a cuff but I had to improvise with this one as I hadn't intended to make 3. This one has a 'colour catcher' base stiffened with a piece of canvas and backed with dupion silk. Fortunately I had enough velvet etc with me to pretty it up and I used some special buttons I had bought at The Hub in Sleaford. These cuffs are all the rage at the minute and I've been asked to make another one for my friend's mum and they're such fun to make!

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Once i've sorted all my photos I'll be back with a few pics of St Ives. Meanwhile I am trying to force my brain back to swap projects and next year's Festival of Quilts where I am supposed to be entering a quilt. I made some notes on the train coming home but my brain and body have gone on strike today and I'm still in my Pjs so it may be a day or three before I get blogging again. Hope you're all well and creating hard and thank you all for your lovely good wishes for our trip away. It worked! We had a great time!


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(Excuse the big spacing on this post but I'm having problems with Blogger).

Holiday!

The picture above says it all. This is the window of a lovely bright gift shop on Fore Street in St Ives. I hope they don't mind me posting its pic here but it looked so lovely and fresh on a drizzly day. We had a mixture of average and lovely weather in true British fashion but nothing that stopped us enjoying our time in beautiful Cornwall.

This is the view from one of the windows in the bathroom! There's something about the atmosphere that reminds me of something but I can't put my finger on what . The view looks out towards Godrevy Lighthouse which my poor compact camera can't pick up.

I didn't get chance to get acquainted with these guys but they looked very happy in a cottage window watching the world go by.

Every time we go to Cornwall I can't wait to get onto the beach for some beachcombing. This is my hoard this year. I collected quite a few shells with holes in for stitching onto works in the future and tried to only take small pieces of pot with attractive marks on. Funnily enough we went over to the Scilly Isles on a day trip, a distance of 28 miles from Cornwall, and found identical pieces of pot on the beach there. So where had they come from? I have collected quite a lot of beach glass and I am getting tempted to get a tumbler or polisher to restore the shine they have when they're wet.