Raggy Rugs and Raggy Thoughts

I'm having one of those weeks where nothing is going quite according to plan.. The good ideas are there but I'm not managing to execute them them in quite the way I envisage in my head!

It started with some very sumptuous looking cushions I found in a posh magazine which I thought "oh yes I can emulate them - in fact I can IMPROVE them" ha ha ... In my defense I want to say I am writing a report about being confident so I am being extremely enthusiastic and practicing confidence in large quantities... what I really need is patience and a steady hand or at least some one else with a restraining order!!

So back to the cushion... basically it had fancy sides and I thought yes I can do fancy sides!! I decided to see if I could follow through my concept idea and incorporate traditional and fancy - a bit rough and ready and with that thought, started a sample for raggy rug type sides for my own version of a posh cushion - how to refine raggy rugging? still not sure - still working on it!! The problem with raggy rugs is exactly that they are raggy and they fray - I've made a fun colourful sample - battled to pipe round the edge to tidy it up and everything we have been near is covered in bits of frayed cotton not exactly sumptuous!!

I'm not giving up - I shall investigate non fraying fabric and continue to have a little play - the texture is really nice both on the front and the back.. its not a wasted effort as I think I might scan the back in and use it somewhere.

The raggy rug remains a project in the working out period... meanwhile back at the Hartlepool ranch better known as The Northern School of Art we had a very inspiring (if a little intimidating) session on how to do hand rendered repeats - and my week continued to go slightly awry.... the tutor made it look so easy - I even rolled my eyes a couple of times -more fool me - after a skillful demonstration with clear instructions I put my very best patient mode on and set to - in the first instance really excited and enthusiastic - that lasted about an hour...... I had a little moan and then a wander and was inspired by another students work which being a bit further down the project looked tidier and made my current feeble effort look like it might improve on the next stage.... ha ha hah!!!

Basically I don't have the patience, precision, or currently the skill to make this work- doesn't mean I wont keep trying but I spent many frustrating hours placing and tracing and making endless corrections to my every grubbier tracing - finally covered in graphite and silently weeping I tried to convert the tracing to a final drawing.

I knew what I wanted it to look like and it came nowhere near! and I realise I need to PRACTICE!! but... its sooooooo time consuming and the end result was fairly dreadful - no really dreadful!!! somehow I had misplaced everything - time to start again but first several gins and an break doing something I feel confident in.

This, surprisingly, was repeat designs on Photoshop - minor panic when somehow I managed to loose all the tools down the side but staying calm I eventually recovered them... more silent weeping ... and I have made a reasonable start to some digital repeats - using my line drawings I have copied them and then cut them up and rearranged them to make some very abstract patterns I have managed to make some nice repeat backgrounds - more to follow - watch this space... So in the end the week is not lost - just part of a frustrated creative experience!!

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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