It's been a busy week...

and it's not over yet. I helped set up the College exhibition, (which closes at lunchtime tomorrow if you want to see it), stewarded it this afternoon and will dismantle my bit tomorrow. 

In between that and our usual child minding, we squeezed in a visit to Walford Mill and Kingston Lacy - two favourite destinations which are conveniently close to each other. At the Mill we enjoyed the exhibition by silversmith Chien-Wei Chang, especially his silver/annealed copper waterpipes/bamboos/vessels - and a delicious smoked salmon salad in the cafe. At Kingston Lacy we had a walk in the gardens and a cream tea. Greedy, or what? 

These are the two latest 'Repetition' pieces - one deliberate, one an embellishing experiment which morphed into a finished piece. The answer to 'can you embellish skeleton leaves?' is 'yes, provided you don't mind them breaking up a bit, and it works best from the back'. 

The other one is all worked with the same space-dyed thread - three skeins of it!

I had intended to start another one, but Babybel decided otherwise. She is a girl whose idea of suitable after-school activity includes running, jumping, climbing and swimming. Having her arm in a cast, even if it is a red one, and a strict ban on all such activities, is very boring. TV and games on the iPad pall after a while, so on Thursday, when, in the absence of her little brother (who would not mix with sharp pointy things), I pulled out my embroidery, she asked me about my 'knitting'. Then she asked to have a go.

Just compare granny's prissy little cross stitches with Babybel's lovely big ones. She made me rethink what I was going to do with this bit of left-over aida. 

It's a good match with one of the pages in my Repetition book, so I can't let her have this piece, but I have promised to give her her own  on Monday, together with pink, orange and purple thread, as requested. I shall be fascinated to see what she does with it.

She would have done more with this piece, but 'Peter Rabbit' started...

On Sunday, cast or no cast, she is participating in the 'Race for Life' with her mummy, and we will be there to cheer her on. I wish I had half her courage and energy!

The forecast was for sunshine...

Wensleydale fancied a trip to Stourhead, so off we set on another Tuesday trip, passing the Stones on the way. No, not the Rolling Stones, these Stones.

(I have to confess that there has been a certain amount of editing of this photo.) 

As we got nearer to Stourhead the weather got gloomier.

(There has been a certain amount of editing of this one too.)

D

As we got nearer, I began to wonder if the place was on fire (no editing apart from a crop).

The good news was that the house is, as far as I know, still standing.

The bad news is that we never got near enough to find out. Half the population of southern England seemed to have decided to go to Stourhead too. Wensleydale and I are impatient souls, and when we realised that we were in a traffic queue to get onto the road that leads to the road that leads to the car park - and the queue wasn't moving - we decided to go to Kingston Lacy instead.

This involved a scenic drive along the back roads of Cranborne Chase - and very scenic they were. (A touch of tilt-shifting.)

We stopped off for a very good smoked salmon sandwich at Cranborne Manor Garden Centre, and found no queues and no trouble parking at Kingston Lacy.  Perhaps the autumn colour wasn't quite as spectacular as ar Stourhead, but there was some - and we had probably left it too late anyway.

There were also roses

mysterious doorways

pumpkins

and lost wellies.

Bet you don't get all those in World Heritage Sites.

And on the way home I got to take more of my signature photos of the car wing mirror - which only needed cropping.

(All photo fiddling with Snapseed and Color [sic] Accent.)

A question, an outing, a mistake and an embroidery.

First – are there any fungi experts out there who know what this is?  It is growing in our front garden under my beloved cherry tree and I would like to know what it is. And whether I should worry abut it, as well as seeing it as ruffled calico…

Second – we had a grand day out. In the morning we went to Walford Mill, to see the exhibition, ‘A Banquet at Walford Mill’. Which could have been naff, but wasn’t. It was amusing, stimulating, and enjoyable. And the coffee and biccies weren’t bad either.

Then we went on  to Kingston Lacy, which is fast becoming one of my favourite places. Last time we went round the house but today we hit the gardens, starting with the Sculpture Trail, which is a smaller, wilder version of ‘Art in the Garden’.

Three artists have works on display, evocative bronzes by Clare Trenchard,

 

 

 

 

 

powerful abstracts by Phil French, 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and my favourites, wonderful animals by Jo  Burchell. Would you believe that fox is made out of barbed wire?

 

 

 

 

 

Third - I have realised that when I said I had finished with the ‘one [or a few more] trick wonders’ of the photo imaging world – I hadn’t. There’s another one – Pixisnap. Which has two tricks.

This one, ‘Polaroid’

and this one, ‘Mosaic’.

Both effects allow you to do a certain amount of tuning, and I can see possibilities in the mosaic.

 

 

 

And finally – an embroidery. Graffiti meets Kantha. I did it on a Colour Catcher – which didn't like repeated unpicking. In future I think I will bond the CCs to fine Vilene to make them stronger, as they are soft and pleasant to work on, and some of mine are very interesting colours. Well - all of them are good if you like shades of grey mud …