Made by Hand Cheltenham.

 Remember the puffins from Skomer? They are framed and with the little concertina book will go to Made By Hand at Cheltenham Town Hall next weekend (8-10th March.) They will be on Stand 12, the Gloucestershire Guild of Craftsman. Cards are available at the Guild at 51 and the pieces will go there after the show unless they sell. If you are wondering how much? £450 for the framed picture £150 for the book with its own traveling bag and £2.50 for cards. Phone The Guild at 51 for sales- they will post things out to you but extra cost of course. 01242 245215. A huge amount of work in the picture -all hand stitched and months of work so hence the price. No-one ever puts the prices of things being so discreet, but why not? I am always curious with other peoples work. This frame cost £75 being bespoke and museum quality glass. Worth it for the glass, you can see right through to the stitching with no reflection. My tip to all new craftspeople - take huge care how you present it, spend the money to show it to its best advantage!

Embroidered Skomer sketchbook page finished!

 At last the whole piece is finished. I have been working on the left side this week.

I put in some more sea chamomile and the puffin head,top left, that balances the bottom right work. The piece measures 40x30cms. Whew! Summer is definitely over then. Bring on the Autumn colour! Now I can start work on my next project.

Skomer- puffins- continued.

 The little book cover finished! So now I am working on the picture that I left half done last year. There were other dead lines to keep and I like this so much it takes courage to work on it further. Still I am determined to finish it. This is the right hand side.

 Details of the puffin in the grasses. Working on the left hand side today.

And the Autumn colours developing in the garden. This is my studio view. ( well yesterday in the sunshine!) I am so lucky.

Concertina book on Skomer.

 The front cover puffin is stitched and the pages finished on one side.

I am reliving this holiday and it is very sunny at the moment which helps because we had a really lovely day when we went to Skomer.

Back to the puffins!

 It was a whole year ago that I started work on a concertina sketchbook and a piece of work about our trip to Skomer. So I am determined to finish it! Below are the covers of the little book.

This was the initial sketchbook page. I have been revisiting our lovely photos of the day. Started stitching the puffin head. You have to be happy with a puffin on your worktable! Follow the labels if you want to see the work I did last year. Still quite a bit to finish.

More work on the puffin page.

I am working in the bottom right hand corner of the puffin page.

 This is the whole thing, getting there now but still work on the left hand side to finish. It is slow work, I am finding it hard to hold, don't want to use an embroidery hoop for fear of damaging stitching and marking cloth.It is 2 layers of calico so firm enough for the embroidery but it has wrinkled a bit. Nothing is ever perfect.

 Started work on the pages of the summer book, banded wedge shells,

 limpet with barnacles,

puffin and tower shell.

Summer concertina sketchbook.

Now there is a gannet flying past on the Skomer page. The gannetry is on Grassholm another little island in the group off south west Wales, you can see it from Skomer. Stokholm is the third and if you like islands there are lovely books about Stokholm by Richard Lockley. I love gannets, the masked riders of the sky. Their dives are spectacular as they fold up like a fan and plummet into the sea.

This is an older piece from a few years back. We have seen them in Scotland and in the Scilly Isles. We saw them at a distance in Wales, easy to spot once you know their characteristic shape and black wing tips.

I have started a summer concertina book. The aim is to have one for each season and a box for each one. The summer one will have shells and sea birds on.

puffin page- sea chamomile?

 I am working to finish the puffin page. The birds were nesting amongst a carpet of white daisies,

 that smelt like mayweed or chamomile but was larger than chamomile. I don't know what it is and couldn't find it in my plant books or on the Skomer website.

Anyone know?

Sea shells for the puffin page.

I have been adding some sea shells to the puffin embroidery. These were found at Broadhaven where we were staying. You can't get to a beach on Skomer- it's all high cliffs, but I thought I would add some of my beach findings to the puffin page. I was pleased with the barnacles on the limpet shell white french knot with a smaller, dark, thinner thread knot in the middle of the white one.

Puffins in progress.

Guillemots and razorbills added to the puffin page.

In the summer garden.

 A little look around our garden in very welcome sunshine. All, well most gardens in the Cotswolds are on slopes, ours slopes upwards. The miniature garden

 on the steps.

A new pot for this one it has transplanted beautifully, the old pot was frost damaged last winter.

 The new patio

 and pond in progress.

Yesterday it was the big butterfly count- red admiral on hemp agrimony at the top of the garden. All these things, the colours, textures and sights are inspirational for my stitching work.

That is outside! In the studio, more work on the Skomer page.

Back to the puffins.

A few more spots completed on this applique piece that I haven't named yet. Also getting on with the embroidered puffin page, I am going to put in some razorbills and guillemots. It won't be a direct copy of the sketchbook page, just adjusting the composition at the moment.

Puffin in progress.

 I decided to start again on my puffin embroidery as the first try was not working out. Not enough thought at the outset and I didn't want the padding. So after more drawing in my sketchbook

I decided to embroider the page on fabric. That is really what I want to record- our marvelous day on Skomer. So I cut out 2 rectangles of calico the size of my double page, painted the top layer with white acrylic paint to stiffen it and make it easier to draw on and tacked the 2 layers together. I have begun with the face side view to get to know the exact markings and colouring.