Tomorrow's work - welldressing, a derbyshire tradition

.....or should I say a bit later on today I will load the bigger frame into my car and drive over to my colleague"s house where we will fill the frame with clay - after we have "puddled" it. This makes it an easier consistency to work with. After filling the frame we smooth the surface of the clay and draw the design onto it. On Wednesday we will take it to a primary school where 2 classes are going to learn about welldressing and help us to decorate the design using, flower petals, leves, seeds, berries. small cones, gravel etc. You can find more out about welldressing on this site and see the Derby welldressing from last year
http://www.welldressing.com/photo.php?year=2008&id=37
ready for puddling clay

taken last year - one of the Tissington welldressings
A close up- if you click on this photo you can see how the individual petals are placed on the clay overlapping each other like roof tiles, a labour of love I can tell you.
Traditionally pictures depicted religious themes, but modern ones often celebrate some anniversary or theme. The one we are doing with the school is celebrating the Nottingham tram system - Tram travellers.

Early morning post

What else would I be doing at this unearthly time of the morning ( 5.30am ) but surfing the net. The joy of owning a laptop is that you can use it in the comfort of your bed. Your feet don't have to touch the ground and you do not need to sit upright on an uncomfortable chair
Anyway this is what I've been doing - http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/701331/milly_and_me"
Check it out, you can do one too!!!!! Now I better get some sleep.

Saturday finds

I was only going to the building society at my local shopping centre.... convenient but not exciting. Except for the charity shops four of them in a small area close together. I can honestly say that I never go there without going to the charity shops

My "weekend"

Mondays and Tuesdays are my "weekend" they are the days when Mr D doesn't work so I try and not take on any workshops then so we can go out and about on various trips and adventures. Since the beginning of the year we have been trying to do a walk a week, weather permitting. Yesterday we did an epic walk over quite rough terrain which meant too much time was spent concentrating on trying not to trip up and thus not much scenery was looked at. Part of the walk skirted around a huge quarry - it is surprising that there is anything left of the peak district.

Puppet workshop

I noticed by coincidence that the newspaper I used to do glue gunning of button "eyes" on was an article about creative recycling.
I made pop up puppets and sock puppets with an after school club .They really enjoyed it and I photograped a line up of their puppets.

A cup of tea and a good read

Collection of teacups
Originally uploaded by millyme

Which cup shall I have?

Collection of teas and tisanes
Originally uploaded by millyme

A good read
Originally uploaded by millyme

I
dropped my laptop on the floor the other day and had to buy a new power adaptor. So i went and bought these 2 books to cheer myself up.Hope your having a good weekend.

A good read
Originally uploaded by millyme

Day trip

We had a drive out through lovely countryside to the small town of Ashbourne where we browsed in some antique shops and had afternoon coffee and cake

Saturday workshop

Lots of paper was made Ruth's was the prettiest I think. After lunch I demonstrated how to make simple "scrapbooks" out of recycled paper. Using some Ikea cards as templates I gave the option of using the card design as a cover or turning it inside out and collaging their own. Everyone worked industriously, totallly absorbed in choosing beads, threads, ribbons, images, words and papers. It was pure blisssss!!!!

Starting... four weeks of fun and creativity.

A busy weekend......

Have to do some prep for a workshop tomorrow, will be out all day. We are making paper, and also some little books, but I have to make a sample first. Sunday I am going to a preview - an exhibition of work created by an after school club I've been involved with.

Forty nine and a half skirts

Forty nine and a half skirts
Originally uploaded by milliyme

I've got the sewing bug back since making my daughter's wedding dress ( sorry I keep mentioning the w...... word ).I've had this book for a while now and am considering which skirt to make.

No 49 and the half

No 49 and the half
Originally uploaded by milliyme

No. 42 - Piece of cake

No. 42 - Piece of cake
Originally uploaded by milliyme

Screen printed skirt

Screen printed skirt
Originally uploaded by milliyme

Running stitched circles

Running stitched circles
Originally uploaded by milliyme

In and out of the garden

Sunday walk, past the church where the wedding took place and on to the Park, round the lake to the sheep field

More time now!

Now I have more time I can catch up with some reading. Some of the books are mine and some are borrowed from the library. i love looking through craft books for inspiration. I will post some photos later which I think are interesting and ideas I might use for decorating my living room. Right now though I am going to make the most of the sunny weather outside and go for a walk and maybe tidy up the garden. This evening I have to collect the honeymoon couple from the airport. I hope they are going to have time to open the presents which have been stored in my dining room ( I've been dying to see the contents ) before they go dashing off home down South

Time to read .....