I can’t believe how much I miss her and it was so sudden and unexpected. There were no symptoms, other than her slowing down in the last few months (which I put down to her turning 5 and just a normal middle aged slow down) and the day before becoming ill she was happy, eating, wagging her tail as normal. Then all of a sudden, she had heamorrhagic gastroenteritis, shaking, dehydration, not wanting to be with us and so we took her to the emergency vet who put her on a drip and gave her antibiotics. We had a week of good news and bad news, suspected foreign body from something she had swallowed, strange shapes appearing on her x-rays and no improvement to symptoms. She spent a few days at the vets and then came home where we cared for her. After some more blood tests, it was obvious that she was fighting a losing battle. Her white blood cell count had multiplied 7 times during the week and the vet told us it was cancer of the intestines, that there was a tumor and swollen lymph nodes. So we had to let her go – it was too late for any treatment and she was struggling on that Tuesday. I have lost my arty companion. Min came with me on all my walks, sat next to me patiently while I sketched (she would even try and sit on my sketchbook to be part of what I was doing!), lay on my feet whilst I stitched, ran off with my new wool to entice me into playing and was always there for me. We walked miles. In every photo that I have taken in the past few years – if it wasn’t of Min, she would have been just below the camera, enjoying the view and the smells. So, a very sad start to the year and so unexpected. I will always miss her.

So sorry for the delay – I haven’t been able to make the video yet as I have been unwell with a chest infection. I think now it will have to wait until after Christmas.

Will be back soon!

Ray x

Dear Slipper Tutorial Fans,

Thank you for ALL of your emails and comments – I had no idea that this video would be missed so much! :-)

Unfortunately I had to take the video off Vimeo (who I adore and don’t wish to complain about) as they were going to delete it unless I paid them $199 for a year’s subscription because my video advertises my work. It had not been put up for those purposes, it was purely an educational addition but never mind. The problem was that it linked to my website which is my business. That’s fair enough but I am having problems getting the video back up and I am finding it very frustrating! I have decided that I would like to make a new slipper making video and am going to getting going on it tomorrow. I have been thinking about doing more tutorial videos anyway so this can be the first – followed by a bag making video, a piece of art, maybe gloves, nuno scarf …anything else?

Many thanks for all your kind emails, sorry I couldn’t reply to them and hope the new videos make up for the missed slipper making opportunities.

Ray x

Here is a sneak preview mosaic of my new work that will be displayed at The First Gallery, Bitterne in Southampton. The show starts on November 11th. Further details coming soon!

You can see the full photos by going to my flickr stream. I am also on Twitter now and you can follow me here!

Not sure where to start now – washing up? hoovering? ironing? Cup of tea…

The second exhibition will be at The First Gallery in Bitterne where I will be displaying my most recent work as part of the Christmas Exhibition. I have been exhibiting with The First Gallery for a few years now and next year I have a show there which will display my two projects – ‘Walking Stitch’ and ‘The Stitch on Sunday’. I am very excited and have lots of work to do between now and Spring when I will be going back to college to work full time again for a few months.

Busy days ahead…best get going!

I have no excuses for not writing on my blog over the summer other than it was summer and summer can be distracting even without the sun. So it is now officially Autumn as the heating came on today and on my walk this morning I even felt the chill on my fingers that made me think ‘gloves!’

Work wise, things are developing…I have been working on two projects and despite neglecting my writing, I have not neglected my sewing. A couple of weeks ago I went to Portland, Oregon where I found lots of beautiful wools or yarns, filled a suitcase with really bright organza, and visited some excellent exhibitions. I came across an artist called ‘Wolf Kahn’ whose book I found in a bookshop. He is described as a ‘colourist’ which weirdly I hadn’t heard of before (you’d think that would have come up at some point in my art career! Must have missed that lesson…) Anyway the definition of a colourist is “Colourist painting is characterised by the use of intense colour, which becomes the dominant feature of the resultant work of art, more important than its other qualities.” (from here). I quite like that description.

Wolf Kahn.

One of my projects is my ongoing ‘Walking Stitch’ project. I am walking The Solent Way (in stages) and making pieces based on my walk. Here are a few pieces I have been working on. They are not finished just yet.

I think I am changing direction and going slightly bolder with the colours and composition. Layering the felt is interesting and using organza to create quite lush and interesting shapes along the edges is fascinating me at the moment. The other project I am working on is related to the news but this will have to wait as I need to take more photos and I’ll be setting up a separate blog for it. I will try not to leave it so long next time.

I was unable to spend the day on my art yesterday so this morning I am raring to go…but thought I would post a couple of pictures of up of what I have done so far this morning…back later…

Hello again! I have been quite the busy little artist today and have come to conclusion that I am: impatient to complete work; easily distracted by other colours and ideas; and have lots of pictures in my head that I want to create (and all today if possible!).

I have recently started making and using design boards instead of putting all of bits and pieces into a sketchbook. I love sketchbooks but find that I don’t like to close my ideas away in them so the design boards work well as I pin them up on the studio wall and move them around if I need to.

This is a design board that I have been working on today, but as usual it is not related to the particular area of The Solent Way that I was supposed to be looking at, but instead lends itself to the Hythe and Fawley area of the walk. The Solent Way is a 60 mile walk that I am doing (gradually at my leisure!) and basing my current work on. The fact that I got distracted is fine – I think all the images in my head are mixed into one at the moment so all I am doing is letting them out in the order they want to!

I have also been working on the large blue and yellow piece that I made a couple of weeks ago. I decided to cut it up in the end as the smaller sections have simpler compositions and more space in them. Here is what I have been working on so far. I realised that I haven’t machine stitched onto felt for ages as I have been hand stitching instead. I was a little bit hesitant getting started and have been quite minimal with the stitch but didn’t want to overdo it.

I’ve had fun blending colours today and because it’s been such a lovely day, the prefelts that I made this morning dried very quickly and so I have even managed to make a piece of felt too! My hands are lovely and soft and smell like Olivia soap and all in all it’s been a productive day. Although I was supposed to be looking at my other piece and working from that, I got a bit distracted and ended up using a completely different colour scheme. Tomorrow, I will take a look again at the felt I made a couple of weeks ago and decide what to do with it. This one though, I am pleased with and already have an idea of what will be stitched into it. I still need to work at creating space within the composition and think I will make this a target for the coming weeks work. I also need to concentrate on my subject this week which is the stretch of land between Milford-on-Sea and Lymington.

Thinking of space within painting / textile work I always refer back to Rothko and another of my favourite painters, Barbara Rae. Rothko has been a favourite painter of mine since I was at art college – it’s the colour and the scale of the pieces that I love, and also the detail between the colours – the line where the two colours meet.

I find that felt can be just as luscious where the edge of one colour slightly bleeds into the edge of another, or if there is a darker or lighter colour on the underside of the felt – it can seep through to the surface.  This piece might benefit from a horizontal chop straight through the middle to simplify it, so that the eye is drawn more to the red, rather than the dominating dark blue marks. Part of my fascination with the sea is the horizon line. I could look at it all day!  I think that is another reason I like Rothko’s work - there are lots of horizontal lines. Barbara Rae, however is much more detailed and busy than Rothko.

In the piece above which is titled ‘Ceide’, which is a screen print, Rae uses a beautiful bright cerise with horizontal green and yellow lines to stand out from the darker blues. The horizontal lines of the green and yellows are the focal point of the piece but because they run in the same direction as the dark blue, your eye follows the shapes into the distance which in itself gives the image a sense of depth. Looking forward to tomorrow…

The statue is a monument to Sir George Prevost, by Francis Chantry. I love it’s elegance and emotion and the way the fabric falls so smoothly within the stone.

Also, as I was in Winchester I popped into C&H Fabrics and bought a few remnants to make some summer skirts and head scarves with! I’m not brilliant at making clothes but willing to try! Will post some pictures of what I make once I have made them – knowing me, this will be in a few years time. Will be getting back to work tomorrow – I need to mix colours for the next piece of felt.

I am quite pleased with the fluidity of this piece although still need to practice painting depth. Yellow is a favourite colour in my work at the moment and mixing it with grey is helpful to get the different tones. From this painting I made a piece of felt, using the colours but without trying to replicate it. Looking at them both together now I see that I need more shades of green in the felt and less of the blue. I also think that I have added too much into the felt and my next piece will be simpler.

I find that by taking photos of compositions within the piece gives me further ideas. I like the simplicity in this composition.

I have been thinking about creativity and playfulness whilst I have been felting this morning. Do you remember as a child that feeling of being completely wrapped up in play? The scratchy feeling of the (pink) carpet on your skin, Barbie clothes and tiny shoes everywhere as Ken swiftly comes to rescue Barbie from impending doom…? Nothing else mattered apart from the story; teatime, bath time, bed time were all just interruptions to playtime. I get this feeling in the garden at the moment – food can wait, the hours feel like minutes and I am a very happy bunny when in the garden! However I do actually have to do some work as well and can just as easily get absorbed in making felt and stitching but I find that I have to give myself permission to play and allow myself to take risks and make mistakes. It’s ok – I tell myself as I cut up my felt again and piece it back together!