So now it's all over

at least until New Years Eve. Hope you all had a good Christmas, as we did.

We were expecting Babybel tonight but unfortunately her mummy isn't very well [get well soon, L], so we have to wait until New Year's Eve for our next cuddles. However we had lots yesterday when we all congregated at Babybel's house for Boxing Day lunch. We all went out for a walk before lunch - and Little Red Riding Hood wanted to walk too, although she can't quite manage it on her own yet.

As we had a quiet time over Christmas I have been working on the blue book. I started with collage using magazine photos, which isn't my favourite medium but filled in a few of those 190+ pages! However I was quite pleased with this minimal effort, which wasn't meant to be a design for 'Around the World in 20 Quilts' new theme 'Brave New World', although it might become one...

I also started some blue embroidery, inspired by this photo of lichen.

I saturated the colour of the image and printed it on some holey hand made paper, as suggested by Maggie Grey in 'From Image to Stitch'.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the paper - but this is the carrier sheet on which it went through the printer, so you can see where the holes were ... The thread is for the next layer of stitch.

I layered pieces of the hand made paper on a remnant of denim from the book cover, glueing it down with a bit of painted Bondaweb I had lying around - as you do. On the left is an unstitched piece, on the right a partly stitched one - some couching and some Sorbello stitch, which reminds me of the patterns in the lichen in the original image. More Sorbello and some beads to follow, I think

And finally - I was delighted to find this in a cracker on Christmas Day. The out-of-focus paper clip is there to give an idea of its size. I think it would make a lovely alphabet book for Babybel when she is old enough to not to try to eat it.