"I've looked at life from both sides now" *

or more accurately - not life, a piece of paper.

It is the ink and bleach effort from yesterday. I was putting a sample in my little sample book, turned the piece over to put glue on the back - and realised that the back was much better than the front. It has a watery look which goes well with the pebbles. So an extra learning experience - always turn your pieces over and look at the back. I should have known, because when we painted prints and photocopies with Koh-i-Noor for 'Creative Sketchbooks'. the back often came out better than the front.

Here are my scans. [I have tried repeatedly to improve the layout of this section but blogger has its own ideas and won't let me. Of course now I've written this it might and you will wonder what I am wittering about ...]

So today you get two pieces of design work for the price of one.

This little lot started off as the blue lump below - an unfortunate extension of the layered look I started with. Scanning it as grey scale improved it. Then I saw the hearts design in the new 'Stitch' magazine and decided to try to adapt it to a pebble. And that led on to playing around with some ideas from one of my collection of old needlework books - 'Discovering Embroidery' by Winsome Douglass. [Isn't that a

wonderful name?] You can get an idea of her style from this.

I have a feeling she contributed to the

Needlework Development Scheme so if you have seen their publications you will have a good idea of the look. 'Dorset Feather Stitchery' is similar, but more linear.

The style seems to be in for a revival as some of our Christmas prezzies were wrapped in paper that looked like one of Douglass' designs.

I had another challenge to my preconceptions today when we went to the Jerwood Drawing Prize exhibition at the Discovery Centre. Before we went I thought it would be an exhibition of beautiful, painstaking drawings in pencil or ink - exquisite, but probably not as exciting as some of the other exhibitions we've seen there. I couldn't have been more wrong ...

The first prize winner, 'Study for Portrait V' by Warren Baldwin, is more or less what I expected - but it is also a wonderful piece of work, beautifully observed. However, if you click through the other images on the link you will see that 'drawing' is fairly loosely defined - and the catalogue does say that 'the judges are sole arbiters of what is or is not a drawing'!

A lot of the work was inspirational for textile artists, even those who can't draw! I found 'Lost in Translation - Departure ' by Chya Ikeda, very interesting - perhaps it was all the pins! This may be it, it is difficult to tell from the photo, but it gives you an idea of the work. Lots of other stuff but I can't find images to link to, so if you want more you'll have to visit. The exhibition is free and I can recommend the rock cakes in the cafe.

I can also recommend the toys in the shop - look what came home with us! Safe for babies, washable, only a fiver, and with a distinct look around the ears of Babybel's 'Ish' [formerly known as 'Adda' but she now calls him 'Ish' which is closer to his real name.]

Sorry, Mrs Cheese, they didn't have a Border Collie.

* Joni Mitchell, for those unfortunate enough not to have been young during the 60's. Of course that means you probably won't have heard of Joni Mitchell either ...