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!!

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors! The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay. The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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