Skye

Back in September, DH and I were off gallivanting again, this time to Scotland for two weeks.  We started off by joining our local coach company for a coach holiday based in Fort William.  The point of that trip was to ride on The Jacobite steam train from Fort William to Mallaig, a famously picturesque journey that I had been hoping to travel on for a long time.  The trip did not disappoint despite some typically Scottish weather (well, typically western side of UK weather really).

This is the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct of Harry Potter fame.  DH had to hang the camera out of a tiny space between the windows and hope that when he pressed the button he would have a photo.  His luck was in!  Sadly it was raining so much that it was impossible to take any photos through the windows so I can't show you the beautiful countryside we passed through.  Sterling work was done with tissues to clear the condensation from the windows so that we could see but photos weren't happening.

The end of the line at Mallaig did allow for some photography and as ever we were alert for creative potential.  

The beautiful Isle of Skye was tantalisingly close but just out of reach for the time being.

The sculpture on the pier was made by Mark Rogers of Airor in Knoydart.  (You need to scroll down to read about the sculpture if you follow the link.  Information is sparse on the 'net).

On our return from Mallaig we visited the Commando Memorial which proved to be very poignant with its recent Area of Remembrance where people have left tributes to friends and family members affected by and lost to conflict.

We had a day to explore Fort William and explored the museum as a way of dodging the showers.  If you are ever in Fort William the museum is free and is well worth a visit.  We had a fascinating time and were glad we'd taken shelter.

This beautiful stained glass door panel is a recent addition to the building which was originally a bank.  We received a very warm welcome the minute we walked through the door and were invited to photograph anything we wished.

On the fourth day of the coach tour we said goodbye to everyone and left at Kyle of Lochalsh to continue our holiday.  I had the madcap idea of using the coach trip as a way of getting to Scotland without having to make the long drive myself and it turned out to be the ideal thing to do as we picked up our hire car and headed for Skye.

First port of call was the Bed & Breakfast run by Emma and Dave of Heaven's Ocean.  You probably knoe Emma better as the author of A Little Bit of Everything blog.  I have been following Emma's blog for such a long time and as with so many blogging friends felt as if I already knew her.  We arrived as Emma was busy with her exhibition which was happening in the beautiful village of Plockton.

Emma had worked very hard for this exhibition and it was wonderful to see her work close too rather than on a digital screen.

Emma's B&B is in the most wonderful, peaceful location and she and Dave made us so welcome.

We had fun negotiating the large puddles on the lane to the cottage but they soon dried up as the rain abated.

How would you fancy waking up to this view every day?  This was the view from our bedroom and from the breakfast room. 

No sooner had we arrived on Skye than the weather fined up.  We counted ourselves very lucky.

Emma is now my bestest friend (not that she wasn't before!) and I can't wait to get back to Skye to visit with her again :-)  It might take a year or two though, god willing. 

This is Emma's very beautiful cat whose name escapes me but who was very affectionate and kept a watchful eye on us at breakfast from her comfy chair.  Tam also made us very welcome in his doggy way but I don't seem to have a picture of him.  Talking of pictures I need to do some resizing so I'll be back soon with more of our wonderful skye holiday, such a beautiful place.

News Flash!!!!  Grantham is finally on the map!  The world's longest embroidery is coming to Grantham tomorrow!  In fact it's already here.  I'm sure I've seen this work in progress at the Sewing For Pleasure show early this year so I am above excited that it will be on show from tomorrow and I will get the chance to add a few stitches (I was too shy to do it at the exhibition).  If you live within reach of Grantham come and see it and all the postcards that were made for the Olympics.   If they let me take photos I'll share it with you.  I've just noticed, I'm going to miss the associated Craft Fayre on 26 October as I will be on a secret mission in Cornwall - and DH isn't coming!  

PS  I must apologise to everyone who commented on my last post and who I didn't reply to.  I do value every comment I receive and normally reply but Yahoo have been messing with their email service and it has got very confusing and frustrating with the comments all arriving in one email which then has to be dissected to enable replies to be sent.  I have manged to delete replies instead of sending them.  Grrrrr!

Iceland and Horizons

I am slowly working my way through all the holiday pics and in between have actually managed to finish the Horizons piece which missed the deadline for Festival of Quilts.  More of that in a bit.

Our cruise in July took us via Dublin Bay to Reykjavik, Isafjordur,and Akureyri in Iceland and on to Alesund, Olden and Satavanger in Norway.  The whole cruise was full of new experiences ansd scens only perviously glimpsed in wildlife programmes on the telly.  We left the Uk in boiling hot weather and travelled through two days of fog after leaving Ireland to arrive in another world in Reykjavik.

We saw little of Reykjavik other then the drive through the city to begin our tour of volcanic landscapes, waterfall, geysirs and techtonic plates!

Steam pouring out of the earth in the distance.

Strokkur Geysir spouting forth with much noise and spraying of water.  It gathers force and erupts every few minutes when it's advisable not to be standing down wind.

The people are all waiting for the next eruption.  It was amazing to be standing in this steaming landscape with water erupting from the earth.  The rock underfoot was an amazing colour.

From the geysir we were driven to Gulfoss waterfall which was a deafening cataract, 31 metres high.  Its name means The Golden Waterfall so-called because of its appearance when the sun shines on it.

 We walked down the long path to reach this rock platform in front of the main fall and needless to say we got a good soaking.

The sun did come out briefly and there is a hint of a rainbow in the photo above.

From waterfalls and geysirs we drove further to enter a strange and fascinating landscape.  Thingvellir which lies in a beautiful valley and was the venue of Iceland's open-air Parliament long before 1066.  This is where Iceland is literally being torn in two as the North American and the Eurasian techtonic plates pull themselves apart.  The rate of split is about the same as the rate that your fingernails grow.  Here you can walk through a rift valley.

That cliff in the distance is where the plates are pulling apart.

Here the group were walking down to the valley floor and on the right there had been a recent fall of rock.   You can see the cliff disappearing into the distance.

There is evidence of continuous volcanic activity over long periods of the past all around here. 

Iceland gets much of its energy from the land it sits on and we visited a power station close to Reykjavik.  

The power plants harness the steam that comes out of the earth to provide power and the station we visited had a very futuristic feel about it.  Icelanders do not need to clear snow from their paths in winter as heat is run under the paths to keep them free of snow and ice!

I made several short videos on my camera but I am not sure if they will work here so I'll try and post one and if it doesn't work I'll take it off and have a go at Youtube.

More of Iceland next time but I have my finished Horizons 'quilt' to show you.  

Not quite the complete quilt as I couldn't photograph it properly but this is how it would look hung against a wall as it would have if it had made it to Festival of Quilts next week.

And this is a section of it against a window.  When I can get a proper hanger for it and decent light I'll post it again in its entirety.

Through The Window

This post is almost a word for word copy of the post that will have been revealed this morning over at the International Quilt Challenge blog and I have reproduced it here to save me re-writing a separate post for this blog (lazy mare!).  I think the photos should open if not please pop across to the Challenge blog for a better view.  I am trying to save time as I have a busy week coming up and am writing this post in advance.

As I said in my earlier post I was becoming fascinated with the quality of light that comes through a stained glass window and I particularly became fascinated with the cut through process that I had been playing with.  After I had made a piece 10" square for my Journal Quilt I have gone on to make an A3 sized piece for this challenge.  It is not the only piece I have made, more of that in a minute.

As you can see I didn't actually take this particular technique any further, mostly because I didn't have the time but I may well play with it some more when time allows.  You may notice that the quilt I made for the Olympics had a grey binding whereas I used black for this.  I wasn't sure whether the black would be too dark but I think it works.

I said in my previous post that I wanted to experiment with sheers and I have had a great time doing just that.  I took a selection of neutral organzas, silks and nylon sheers and used fabric paints tostamp and make monoprints on their surfaces.  I kept the monoprints neutral in tones of grey and was a bit worried at first that they might be too light to show up.  Sadly I was so busy working I didn't take any photos of the process.

The next step was to use silk paints to add colour to the pieces of fabric.  I decided on silk paint as I didn't have a lot of time, again.  Once the fabrics were all prepared I started to cut and piece them using a pojagi style of seam.  This is the result:

The photograph above was taken indoors with the piece laying on the top of my sewing table.  It is very slightly smaller than A3 size.  I then took further photographs outside.

After photographing the piece hanging from our driftwood I couldn't resist hanging the 'window' in the lilac tree where the sun was shining through this morning.

I have made a lot of mistakes with the stitching in this technique and a certain amount of drifting has occurred but I am so delighted with the way this has turned out.  The surface marks are really exciting me and I am really happy with my interpretation of 'Through The Window'.  I am quite tempted though to leave it out in the garden to let the sun shine through and see how it ages.