Good things come to those who wait.

And for once I'm not talking about the snow here! We haven't had any snow today which is rather remarkable as the rest of the U.K. has turned into a country in lock-down due to prolific snowfalls. No planes, massively delayed trains and cars going nowhere! And it's not even Christmas. Instead of severe weather warnings we have graduated to extreme weather warnings and are told that you should only travel if it is essential! So far, no-one has specified what exactly is meant by this? Does needing mincepies qualify?? Don't answer that!

The day here was dark and very, very cold. Even the sun peeping through the clouds couldn't warm things up but it made for a good blip as you can see above.

But back to the title of this blog. It does refer to the fact that my mixed media collage: Life is not always black & white, has been published in the recent issue (Winter 2011) of the Somerset Studio Gallery magazine. You can find the link to order this issue by clicking on the image below:

My contribution can be found on page 111 and Lenna's art is also featured on page 95. Amazingly my piece was made back in 2008 so I was rather taken by surprise to suddenly find it published in 2010! All good fun ! It was one of the first pieces of art I made using an image of the Edwardian music hall artist Marie Studholme to which all my Journal Quilts in 2009 were also dedicated.

Here is the piece as it appears in Somerset Studio Gallery and they have published my instructions in full too! By some miracle my issue was in the mail which John collected from our postie in the village. Mail from within the UK seems to take forever due to the weather conditions but mail from abroad makes it through regardless. I don't know how to explain it but I'm grateful for any post making it to us at the moment.

Tea in Somerset Studio Gallery

Until I see it with my own eyes I somehow seem to doubt that my work has actually appeared in publications. However my copy of the most recent issue of Somerset Studio Gallery (Summer 2010) is now in my hands and I can show you the picture of the I want my Tea fabric postcard as it appears in the magazine, page 180. You can order a copy by clicking on the button to the right of this blog which takes you straight to the Stampington website. They are the publishers of this and other delectable magazines.

I made it ages ago (July 2008!) as part of my commitment to Alpha Stamps and if you want to find out how it was made you can read all about it on a previous blogpost here.

Somerset Studio Gallery

And the living got even better when I read all my incoming e-mails just now and learned that I will feature in the latest issue of the Somerset Studio Gallery!
Better go and order an extra copy now! What fun.

Vincents' Country

I just discovered today via my fellow Alphastamps Design Team Member Sarah Whitmire that my piece Vincents' Country has been published in the latest (Winter 09) issue of Somerset Gallery magazine. I've got the mag on order (even before I heard this wonderful news) but it will take some time to get here. You can see my piece on page 58 which is shown above thanks to Sarah's scan which she mailed me just now.

Anyway here is a detailed picture and the instructions which are as follows:

Vincents Country size:8.5 x 8.25”

Create a fabric collage background by putting vintage text and images, plus a variety of torn napkins, featuring French landscape scenes, on calico ( muslin), using thinned down PVA glue. Add additional color with Dye-na-Flow paints and Art Glitter.

Make a background by layering a green velvet fabric with batting and quilt this using one of the decorative stitches on the sewing machine and green metallic thread.

Cut a 7.5” wide by 6.75” long piece from the fabric/paper collage, and mount it on the background, by machine satin stitching with the same green metallic thread around the edges.
Select a suitable sunflower fabric and find a partial sunflower image. Using Bondaweb (WonderUnder in US) , iron this onto the back of the fabric, following the manufacturers’ instruction, and cut out the sunflower. Fuse it to the bottom right corner as shown. Hand stitch the petals and embroider the centre with brown French knots and decorate further with beads.

Machine and handstitch the major lines in your design as shown.

Add a Vincent van Gogh postage stamp at the top right corner with machine stitching. Stamp the birds (2 ravens facing in one direction, and one facing the other way) as shown. Raven stamps from Alphastamps

Fuse a sunflower fabric to the back of the piece using Mistyfuse and following the manufacturers’ instructions.

Add yellow size 11 seed beads around the edge of the collage.
Finally machine satin stitch around the outside edges of the entire piece.

© Frieda Oxenham, January 2008

You can see how long ago I actually made this piece and shipped it to Stampington, the producers of Somerset Gallery but it just goes to show that the wait was worth while!

Green is not a Color. it's peace of mind

Finally my new edition of Sew Somerset has arrived in Scotland. I believe it has been out in the US for a little while as I had already heard from several people that my piece was most definitely in it. I don't tend to believe this till I see it with my own eyes and so wait to put the information in my blog till I have the issue in my hands. This is the second issue of Sew Somerset, published by Stampington, and you can obtain it here.

Coincidentally it was the Chelsea Flower Show last week and we were told that the latest trend for gardens is green. Most flowers in the gardens were white and for the rest it was a feast of different greens and of course also different shapes and textures. So I'm right up to date with my Green piece, in fact I beat the trend as this piece was actually made last June!

This was my thinking behind it:

As soon as I saw that Green would be the theme for a Somerset Studio future issue I started brainstorming green. This is what I came up with:

green man, green forest lovers, life in the country, green trees, green lily of the valley leaves, green gardens, green shade, the village green, green winter makes a fat churchyard, green life shoots, green fields, green and pleasant land, green as an emerald, green in judgement, green isle, a green hill far away, green lane, celtic green, green scrolls.

Quite a few of these were combined to form this piece which was also given a romantic theme with green forest lovers.

And here are the instructions:

Create a fabric collage background by putting torn images, (both vintage and from magazines) and a variety of mainly green napkins on muslin, using thinned down PVA glue. Add additional color with green Dye-na-Flow paints.
Cut an 8” wide by 9” long piece from this collage, and mount it on craft felt, by machine stitching around the edges.
Add the fabric lady image (from the Alphastamps Pre-Raphaelite Women sheet) by stitching around it in a decorative stitch and with metallic green thread on your sewing machine.
Add the transparency of the forest lovers (from Altered Papers) and paper text in the bottom right hand corner, and also the paper flower fairy image (also from Altered Pages) on the bottom left, both by machine stitching.
Stamp small leave shapes in green randomly over the remaining background.
Add the large tree postage stamp as well as the 3 smaller stamps (featuring men) using machine stitching to attach them.
Add decorative machine stitching around the word Green (part of the background collage).
Add rest of the title text with Dymo label maker, stick down and also surround with stitching.
Hand stitch seed stitches randomly on the piece using a silk green variegated thread (from 21st Century Yarns). Add 3 green shell buttons as shown.
Layer the piece with watercolour paper the same size and finish the edges by sewing on a transparent green ribbon (ThreadArt) to cover the edges.
Finally add a green shell button to each corner.

LAC piece Dans mon coeur in Sew Somerset

I haven't actually seen it myself yet as my complimentary copy of the magazine is probably still winging its way across the Atlantic but my Lost Art Creations piece Dans mon coeur has been published in Stampington's latest publication Sew Somerset. A lovely surprise and specially nice as they choose my favourite among the pieces I made using Lost Art Creations images. Here it is again, just in case you missed it the first time I posted it to the blog.

Somerset Studio Gallery Summer 2007

I pre-ordered this issue months ago and today not one but two copies actually arrived. This could only mean one thing: they had used one of my pieces! And yes, indeed on page no. 13, there was my La Bella Vita 10.5" square piece!

I originally made it back in November 2006 on the theme of blue and here is my description:

I’ve always associated blue with Italy, its immense blue skies, azure seas and Renaissance paintings of the Madonna, usually dressed in blue. I’ve tried to convey some of this in La Bella Vita. There is also symbolism in the piece which alludes to the transience of life as can be found in many of these paintings, such as the clock, butterflies and birds.

The instructions for the piece are:

Make a collage on a background of muslin using watered down PVA glue to hold it all together. Use torn magazine images to suit the theme such as Italian words, large Madonna image and other blue pictures suitable to the theme, as well as torn blue tissue paper. Let it dry, trim to 10 ½” square size, layer with cotton batting and sew around the edge with blue thread to hold layers together. Cut out gypsy girl scrap (Mamelok Press Ltd.) and glue into position. Attach turquoise rose (Artchix) with a bead. Stamp gentleman image (Hero Arts) on a piece of torn blue fabric with Fabrico black ink, layer on torn piece of green/blue fabric and stitch into position on the collaged background. Stitch magazine cutting of renaissance faces into position to cover his head. . Sew fabric blue flower on the corner as shown. Add flower sequins and yellow beads on gentleman’s coat as shown. Stitch Absinthine transparency (Altered Pages) in position. Glue down 3 blue bird postage stamps and sew around the edges. Glue down clock charm (Collage Stuff). Sewn on with beads the 3 bird and 3 butterfly sequins (source unknown). Layer the piece with 10.1/2” square of watercolour paper and zigzag machine stitch around the edges to attach. Add the white and blue flower trim around the edges with straight stitching and finally add a blue size 11 seed bead to the flower centres of the trim.

I definitely did a happy dance as it's still so lovely to be published in a non-fabric magazine as I feel it means my mixed media pieces are worthy of standing by themselves, without being associated with me as a quilter.