Late Autumn

Even tho the leaves are almost gone from the trees, especially after last night's hoolie, I have fond memories still of my 3 day break on Mull.

 Tobermory

 coffee at a pavement cafe

 pier walk (great fish & chips!)

 Eas Falls, just near my B&B

 quite high above the Highland cows on the road

I've wanted to visit Lip na Cloich Garden & B&B for years,

 no point in going out of season so I took advantage of a long booking at our B&B so I wouldn't leave the DH in the lurch while I went off gallivanting !

 I had one wet day & 2 sunny, not bad at all

 very comfy, friendly, visually stunning in the garden & surroundings. So peaceful....for me. (visitors always say that at our B&B, it's great when I can get a turn!)

 secret spaces to think by the burn

delicious color combinations, I've forgotten the name of the unusual pink plant

my second favorite place on Mull......  Calgary Art in the Garden

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a wonderful tea room, gallery of local work (no textiles, sadly) & a beautiful thoughtful woodland walk down to Calgary bay. Sweet little birds, oyster catchers, I think.

 the sand of the bay itself

 a sketch of the shapes (must press harder!)

 a sketch from my peaceful seat

6 months ago the Skye Quilters were offered a workshop in Beauly, near Inverness, by Alysn Midgelow Marsden & I jumped at the chance having followed her for years & I saw on fb that she had managed to raise most of the funding for an exhibition of work of New Zealand artists at the Knitting & Stitching Shows - a lot of organizing, so glad she fitted some workshops in, too. We didn't do 'show & tell' at ours but there are write ups of other really interesting looking workshops on her blog (see link).

 Our workshop was based on the beautiful book 'This Lustr'ed Cloth' (see link 'in print') applying metals to fabric (I've fallen in love again with the inside of tomato paste tubes, remember those? Tin cans? No, too hard, only broke one needle tho) gradually making the hard line disappear to integrate & look what happens if you used metal mesh & stitch on velvet (bottom right) Being a recycler, I wasn't sure about buying mesh but then I saw across the room the  'pile' thing happening & then I folded & crumpled it, oh, joy! Bottom left above is a reverse applique leaf , lovely technique, with a bit of embossing.

 Above, Alysn's samples, I mean you could just eat them!

Silky fabrics that I brought with me & the ladies in Beauly kindly had a 'help yourself' box. Peeking out at the bottom of the pic above is the book for one of Alysn's exhibitions 'the continuous thread of revelation' probably the best 'handout' I've ever been given, so generous. Alysn has a very accessible method of teaching but also brings to it a depth of knowledge & pure excitement about the possibilities of combining metal & cloth with flames (!) & paint. Looking at work from her other workshops, too, (on her blog, see link) what a wonderful varierty of them! I would happily do them all.....

My piece started the next day - reverse  applique in the middle - velvet, silk & metals with embossing & I'd love the top & bottom bits to one day resemble, if even slightly, the beautiful pink piece, full of deliciousness, in her pic of samples, above!

 the snippets from the cutting 

 a swatch for my sketchbook & a flower shape ;), a really fabulous couple of days.

 I had a mixed media & mono printing day with Jenny at my studio (in return for that wonderful dyeing day we had together (see here) but we were so excitied we only managed a couple of pics!

Finally, I'm doing just one craft fair this Christmas, 1 mile away ( my shoulders can cope with the strain of that I think!) & the baking table proceeds always go to a good cause, a community effort, really. The 28th November at Talla Dearg,  Hotel Eilean Iarmain in Isle Ornsay. Hearts & birds, oh & some cards to be added to the work below!

Well, I think I've gone on long enoug! My knitting samples croched together below (that was a learning curve, I don't make it easy for myslf!) any ideas what they will be?