Help!

As part of module 13 [!?!] of my course, ‘Professional Practice’, I have to set up a website – although we have been strongly encouraged to use Wordpress in lieu of a ‘proper’ website host.

So I have.

http://celiadarbyshire.wordpress.com/

If you go over there you will find that it is pretty empty – and it’s taken me a couple of hours to get that far. I did briefly have a Wordpress blog – because I use Windows Live, I got  a Live blog, which I used for private rantings. When Live decided not to offer blogs any more I ended up with a Wordpress one, which I found so complicated I closed it.

But like elephants, Wordpress never forgets, and persuading it that I wanted a brand-new, squeaky clean blog, untainted by its predecessor, choosing a theme in line with my rants in college about legibility, and working out how to get images into the side bar, has taxed my befuddled brain.

Now I have decided to carry out a little market research. When you visit an artist’s website, what do you like to see/read? What sort of information do you like? Any suggestions for ‘must includes’ any criticisms of what I’ve done so far? [Be gentle with me, please!] i will be adding some photos of work – I may even have done so by the time you get over there.

Thanks in advance.

No help needed with the second part of this post. Last night W. and I went out [Cheeses go out at night, shock horror!] to the Cathedral Open Evening. Busy, but interesting.

In January all the chairs are removed from the Nave, and you can get an impression of how it might have looked before such modern concessions to comfort were introduced. Rather wonderful – and probably even better by candlelight .

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the Cathedral craftsmen were showing their skills.

 

And there were textiles – I bet the whole of Winchester could hear W’s groan…

 

This is a 19th C altar frontal I had the pleasure of seeing under repair some years ago. I lost the multitude of photos I took then, in a Picasa crash, so it was lovely to see it again, albeit rather unsympathetically displayed. I did know who made it – a vicar’s wife in Hampshire – and if anyone is interested in her name I can have a look in my magnum opus, where the information is recorded. I think.

This is not a 19th C altarpiece: I'd be happy to take a fairly large bet that it is by Jane Lemon and the Sarum group, but of course the labels were few and uninformative.

These are the vestments on display – the red one was designed  by Ninian Comper and made by the Sisters of Bethany, and the multicoloured one was made by Lucy Goffin, but memory fails me on the others.

Then we lit a candle – we always light a candle -

 

 

 

 

 

and came home.

I've got to admit it's getting better ...

For a change. I've had a fairly successful day.



This is a piece of the transfer dyed satin I produced in the Creative Textiles Workshop. I knew I wanted to make book covers with the samples, which aren't very big, but I wasn't sure how to embroider them. In bed last night I browsed through Pamela Watts' book on machine embroidery, and read her suggestion for couching en masse by laying threads over the backing, covering them with chiffon and stitching over the top.


Good chance to get rid of some of those orange threads I don't like.


I didn't have any suitable chiffon but I have lots of net. I started by sewing a grid using Brenda Weekes' suggestion of triple stitch zig-zag at maximum length and width - it gives a nice wavy line and boy is it fast.


But then the thing said 'flames' to me - so I FME'd a few flames and some hot coals. That took a bit longer, but it got me over my thing about FME, though, as flames need to be wobbly. I actually found myself enjoying it!


I also finished a pair of socks - started during the snow when I felt I needed some thicker ones. So it will probably get warmer now.
And I even found time for two stamps - not that they are elaborate ones.

When I made the stamp from this, above, I decided too late that I would like to include that twisted cord running across the bottom - but there was no room for it on the eraser.

So this morning I drew 2 parallel lines on a small rectangular eraser, put in some slightly curved diagonals and carved the stamp. It looks like a ladder, which suggests open chain stitch - not my favourite as it is so easy to get uneven.

While I was making the first stamp I decided it would be even easier just to cut out the diagonals. So I turned the eraser over and carved the other side. For some reason it reminds me of bamboo, but could be couching over a lovely chunky thread.

There is no yellow on the original, the camera decided to add it.

In lieu of a proper daily photo for the stamp - here are some more of Salisbury Cathedral. Here is the exterior - you can see what a grey day it was. Although I have to confess I prefer the interior of Salisbury to the interior of Winchester - I like the plainer exterior of Winchester more than this. Bit of a Puritan really.

Wensleydale insisted on me photographing the thing below, despite the gloom and the camera shake. Modern art?

No - a stack of chairs.


These are the Mompesons - lots of lovely pattern there. Unfortunately by this stage our car park time was running out so I couldn't take as many photos as I would have liked.

A pillar from the Mompesons' tomb.

And finally - an upside down blurry picture of a window - which looks like stitch.

Actually it is a reflection in this. Which has to be the most amazing font I have ever seen. [That is 'font' as in baptism, not 'font' as in lettering!]

If you have an hour or so to spare, try the sculptor, William Pye's website. What that man can do with water!