Flower Fotos

The garden at the moment is a riot of colour! My Dad has outdone himself with the range of plants we have on our patio, and I am rapidly filling up the memory space on the laptop with photos of them all. Here are a few of my latest photos!

 

Our second phase of lilies are starting to come out. Whereas the previous ones were orange, the new ones are white and pink which is a lovely contrast!

 

Straw flowers have a really strange texture as the petals are crispy- almost like they have been dried out. The layers are lovely though and when they are finished, the colour changes and lots of little fluffy seeds appear!

 

I really loved the delicate crispness of this flower. The petals look like they are floating underwater like tentacles or seaweed, and though they have dried out, the vivid colour is still just about there although slightly diluted.

Even my Grandad is enjoying his garden at the moment, being especially excited about a plant which has just flowered for the first time in 40 years!!!

Love the little spikes on the sides of the petals, and the way there appear to be different kinds of flower inside the one, some are spiky and triangular, others are circular buds.

My Birthday!

Yesterday was my 19th birthday and the sun shone for most of the day despite the dire weather beforehand and gloomy forecasts. I had a really good time and sold a piece of my artwork into the bargain!

 

You may remember the bowl I made for the Lewes exhibition a few weeks ago. The exhibition itself was mostly made up of paintings, although there were some very sweet abstract giraffes made out of scaffolding pipes that I quite liked. My piece was definitely on its own in the sculptured textiles department though and didn't sell in the show.

 

However, when some of my friends came over for a party yesterday they loved the bowl and bought it for £15! Maybe I really should start up a business...might need some more water soluble fabric though- and threads are so expensive at the moment!!

One of my favourite presents was handmade by my Mum and was made up of 4 ATCs (I know I said this blog wasn't going to be about ATCs but never mind. If you want to see them in more detail, along with 6 other cards I got yesterday, then make your way to my second blog... Beth's ATCs).

Hats Galore!!

When I left 6th form last year, I also had to leave some very precious creations behind---my textile hats!! Only now have I got some of them back, but unfortunately about half of them have been stolen or lost during the year :( Still, I thought you might like to see some photos of them:
Here are the ones which I have received back...

 My veiled peacock feather hat with a sinamay base and green silk roses. Also my V & A hat, called so because I (surprisingly) made it at the V & A museum during a school trip at a hat workshop they were running alongside the Stephen Jones hat exhibition. It was a really great day out and we got to work alongside a professional milliner which was fab! It's made out of pink silk, netting and a variety of feathers.

 

My sinamay lily hat. Made predominantly out of sinamay with a padded faux silk base, crinoline veil, peacock feathers and pre-manufactured beaded bits.

Unfortunately, these are the ones I haven't had back...

My bubble wrap hat (although to be honest, I wasn't really bothered about getting this one back!) which is made from sandwiched images in bubble wrap. It is sort of a costume type piece with the embroidered flowers and almost elf-like appearance.

 

My two knitted hats made using circular knitting needles. The one on the right was made first and was a complete mistake turned fabulous idea! I was aiming to make the one on the left but didn't realise that the knitting was twisted when I joined it up at the other end of the circle so it had a permanent twist in. It does make a lovely snood however so I changed it into a design idea instead. The left hat was also made using circular knitting needles (this time I made sure it wasn't twisted when joining up the circle!!), knitting a sleeve shape which was gathered at one end to form a top knot affair. 

 

Finally, my silk cocoon hat. Inspired by a mixture of the V & A hat and some techniques I had just learnt taking silk cocoons (hence the name) and turning them into gorgeous flowers. Incidentally, all I got back from this hat was one of the flowers....