A quiet week, well, creatively I mean!

I haven't been desperately creative recently, other than to fill a couple of small card orders. I ran out of envelopes so made the cards but the poor customer had to wait. A silly thing to do as I'm always making cards - note to self; check stocks more regularly & make more stock in the winter so that when an order comes in during the height of the summer when you spend most of the time chasing your tail there will be less panic. A long note, but necessary.

I did make some bookmarks as part of the art group Aos (meaning 'a collective') for the book festival held in Portree. It was to be an edition of 5, one to be kept in Aos archives & 4 to give away if you put some money towards a local charity. I've never made an edition before! As you can see I had a 'card' background ready to go, added some gold paintstick ( I could wipe that over everything, it's delicious!) cut them into 5, laminated them, cut them & tied on bits of raffia & smokey blue wool . The laminating altho 'plastic' on an organic paper looked great, like a lovely shiny coat of acrylic wax. Quite sweet I thought.

I got them in to the post by the skin of my teeth to an extended deadline, with the DH helping me with labels, holding the floppy piece of laminate & forgetting to call the 'dil to be' on her birthday as all this was done 5 mins before going to work. Luckily the Eldest had the foresight to ring me (so I could speak to her). That's the problem with starting work at 1pm on one of my shifts, you can fit in so much before you go to work, (as long as you rope in the world & his wife to help).....why do I do this to myself? I was hoping to hear whether she'd got them, the chair of the group  who was taking them to the festival but I just found the email saying they were on their way hiding in drafts....!

Can't get any links going - google won't open them, sorry ;(

Last week & the week before I decided to be inspired by & support, of course, a jeweler Jilly Langton, from Plockton & a photograper friend Ken Bryan who set up in Broadford , down the road, years ago, both showing at 'my' gallery in Plockton. I went with my textile buddy who makes jewellery  to see Gilly, beautiful chunky silver pieces with her trademark fisherman's elastic & silver pieces.

She makes cards, above & sometimes collage & always adds a 'lump' of silver & I got this as it was that anniversary ;) I'll hopefully get to do a w/s with her in the late Autumn.

With my potter buddy Patricia Shone (the kind one who lent me the calico backdrops for my show) I saw Ken's lovely work, pale, ethereal & so gentle.

 
Do try & go to these peeps sites as they all make wonderful work. In fact Gilly & Patricia were both invited to a huge show in Philadelphia & New York last year.

I might take my first official blogging break next week. I've found all the extras this summer a little exhausting to say the least but I do want to make some more work for my exhibition, possibly my last so I want to make it a good one.  I've just decided to be realistic & to try to retain a modicum of  dignity by not being too desperate, that is, desperate to 'make a living' from my work.  I'll always be an artist/maker, no question, I just won't kill myself doing it, by having to get a show together. I will just ride it out along with everyone else.

See you soon!

Part 2 of the trip

Thanks for all the lovely wishes. I don't know where the week has gone & I haven't got back to everybody yet, but get back I will!

 So here are the rest of the pics from our trip out to Inverie for our celebration lunch. I'm warning you, it's picture heavy - I used the alphabet to 'number' this weeks pics & had to use z twice ;)

 From Mallaig on the mainland we took the lifeline ferry - above is heading into Loch Nevis

 a gannet, they just won't come closer!

 people think I'm remote - this is remote!

 A statue of Our Lady

Inverie

 Looking back one we'd arrived - you can just see the ferry i the gap

 local kids work

 the 'assemblage' outside the resteraunt

 First we went for a walk - didn't expect to see a peacock!

 Inverie at Knoydart is only accessible by boat - if you were to walk in from Mallaig to the right or Corran (I think from the left it would take at least 2 days (if you were fit!) coz of the length of the lochs. So all the cars here have been landcrafted in. 75 % of them are landrovers we I mean he counted at least 23 ;) We felt right at home.

 We walked along the road to the Kilchoan Estate - you were allowed to walk along the river & admire the fabulous selection of deer.

 saying hello ;)

 Here's the distance we were away from the deer

What a stunning place

 sweet highland cattle

 getting a little close to me!

 an ancient cross in an enclosed graveyard. I've no links for these lovely things, this & the mother & child statue, how it got there etc,  I'd be here all night, sorry!

 boisterous horses behind a fence ;)

 walking a little bit above Inverie - i was ready for my lunch!

 Leaving, you go all the way down the lock & back again, not just for  jolly but to deliver people to walk away & collect people who've walked in. Also to deliver or collect packages.

 Heading further left we've got to get thru the Kyles, a
narrow space at the end of that sandbar.

glancing right to Cameron MacIntosh's rebuilt pile - it had been burnt down, he's the play write

 nearly at the end of the lock looking at Sgurr na Key (phonetic spelling, sorry)

 Heading back with the Cuillin range  on Skye just visible.

 Back at the port - how could I resist these gulls bottoms?!

A fabulous day, thanks for watching!

25 years married

We don't normally celebrate wedding anniversaries, for various reasons, mainly that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this man & didn't need a piece of paper to proove it (isn't that what the guy usually says?!) But married we got & just to say having repeated my vows after a priest in a beautiful church on a truly lovely day I believe & have kept every one of them....well, maybe I've gotten a little cross & impatient now & then ;)

25 years is pretty impressive, no? Not forgetting the 5 yrs, 1 month & 23 days that came before....of course - there wouldn't have been a knot to tie without them.

I've no idea why my 'and' words aren't coming out right...oh well ;)

We planned lunch in the UK's most remote pub The Old Forge Inn

 

We could have got a trip on a RIB & gone screaming across the Sound but I fancied the ordinary CalMac ferry followed by a trip on the Knoydart Ferry.

A Tern above - can you see it? by Armadale, where you get the ferry. Birds just never fly right in front of me!

Busking at Mallaig 1/2 hr from Armadale - not a desperately salubrious spot, but at least he's trying ;) No I haven't altered the sky, just used 'auto correct' ! Couldn't have been better weather.

Organised graffitti showing repairing fishing nets

Real net  repair

A clete?

lots of old rope - ooh, I just want to dive right in!

On the way to the next ferry we saw these 2 guys struggling to get this bulls head back in the truck, well one guy hardly even moves - he's really holding onto the nose ring there!

 

 

reflections on a hull

the little ferry in the middle of pic with the huge ferry from Armadale in the middle back of pic

Clinbing down to the ferry you look under the new pier to part of the old pier - out of focus but stunning down there. I could have explored for ages if I'd brought my tripod.

 quite ethereal

knobs on the boat

the anchor at the front - got a bit vertiginous here!

another fabulous part of the boat, not sure what it is tho, I'm just being arty farty ;)

Well,  that's 15 plus pics & we haven't left yet, I'll show you more next week if you're still with me!

Diversification

I love trying to earn my living from using flowers from my garden in textile pieces but I'd been asked to make a floral  'spray' using real flowers from my garden. I usually make my neighbor an evergreen & berries bunch around Christmas time but her daughter was getting married this week & she wanted something for the fireplace, using  flowers.... that last a few days. Heavens! So i got some conditoner from the local florist (is that oganic?????) I'd finally watched the last of the Chelsea flower show while catching up with my ironing & a lovely man told me to put them in a bucket over nght with said conditioner...so I did.

Here they are in situ

She loved it, thank goodness!

I was also asked to mak the brides bouquet....something that lasts not just a few days but hopefully forever in the wedding photos! Stress levels growing here!

Scuse the helpful model's arm but coldn't work out how to photograph the bouquet to show it off best....the wedding was that afternoon.

A closer view - a lovely breeze is blowing things around a bit ;)

To cap it all off I made a bridesmaid's posy,  bit more relaxed. Some of the flowers were from the bride's friend's mother's (!) garden & we chose a few bits & pieces from mine to add to the mix. We had wedding guests staying here & they said the flowers were much admired....which is so good to hear ;)

To relax the pace a bit I made some honesty seedhead cards using the background from a couple of weeks ago. I've collected the seedheads over time which was lucky as I have not one in the garden now. They've all disappeared - someone asked had i weeded them out by mistake but I've only really just started on end of last summer's weeds so that's not likely! I shall sew some more.