There and back again

 I've just spend a couple of days with my father on the Isle of Wight and then I visited an old school friend and stayed with my my sister in Basingstoke on the way home.  I took no photographs and only made this one sketch whilst waiting for the ferry in Southampton.  Despite one the worse drives round the M25 in the storm on Monday I made good time and the sun was shining by the time I got there.  If you arrive early and there is space,  they will let you take an earlier ferry, but I was surprised that the ferry was full so I had to wait over an hour for the one I'd booked. It is not a very inspiring spot and I have photographed there before, being a regular visitor. Sitting in the car I only had other vehicles or the terminus buildings to look at, but I managed these four little doodle patterns for the Sketchbook Challenge on pattern.

Before going away I made a visit to The Stockwood Discovery Centre in Stockwood Park in Luton, our second and rather attractive museum. Armed with my with my camera and sketchbook I was on a pattern quest, but I ended up uninspired however I will share these pictures with you.  

The museum houses the Mossman Collection mainly of old modes of transport - many of which I have dusted when I voluteered at the museum just before it re-opened.

Plenty of different types of wheels to choose from.

A painted 'gypsy caravan' called a Burton Living Wagon

A horse-drawn Hearse

A grand carriage door-handle.

I was also taken by these two examples of embroidery...

a baby's linen cap and a pair of lady's riding gloves,

both 17th century I think, (the gloves definitely are)

However none of these things have inspired any sketchbook work.

My latest piece of patchwork for my C&G is a couple of attic window blocks.

I have added a padlock and key drawn and painted onto hand-dyed cotton and ironed on with Bondaweb.  Further work will be done to this at a later date.

Meanwhile I am building up to actually making a finished quilt to be assessed.  My first step is to review the work I have done so far, and what I have really enjoyed and/or felt I want to explore more. This is the crunch time for me, as I have hit my blind spot (rather mixed metaphors there).  I could easily flap about thinking "What shall I do? what shall I do?" and part of me is, but I am determined to follow the course step by step and hope I am led to a design I can make - my head is full of too many ideas, and none of them fully formed or practical. The brief is to make a quilt that demonstrates skill at 'piecing' and apart for some very open themes I can go in any direction I choose.

In reviewing my work, I realised that I had been strongly attracted by working with patterns (coinciding with the Sketchbook Challenge this month) and I enjoyed creating what I call broken pattern - a formal design which disintegrates is some way.

My drawings are often quite tight and detailed so this is a departure and hopefully a stepping stone in my creative journey.

Below is another page in my journal inspired by Gustav Klimt - all those triangles are rather attractive...

Before I go I would like to share these with you.  Shortly after I arrived home yesterday, Mr T called me to the window to see this magnificent full double rainbow. I rushed to get my camera, but as it was starting to rain I had to quickly snap off some shots.   Today I downloaded them and I thought I would enhance the saturation levels to really show off the colours that seemed so vivid yesterday.  I love the difference in colour above and below the rainbow.

I had tried to zoom in on the colours and when I was playing with this on the computer, just there, on on the right I could swear....

if I didn't know better...

I have photographed a flying saucer!

I do hope you have a dry weekend - I may be off again, if my new friends call in!!!

Jill