More views

Another beautiful day today so we went for a walk this afternoon.  This time we went up the hill rather than down to the shoreline.  The gorse is all in bloom and the scent is quite overpowering - am I the only one that thinks it smells just like coconut oil suntan lotion?  Even in Spring it really reminds me of summer holidays.

Happy Easter to all my readers - I hope you're enjoying the break, and the weather!

Late afternoon walk

I don't really think that I live 'by the seaside'.  But people do flock here as soon as the sun comes out, so I guess they think it's the seaside!  It was such a lovely day today we braved the crowds and went for a late afternoon walk around the marine lake.  The low sun meant that I couldn't see what I was taking pictures of, but I think they came out pretty well!

ffflowers update

I've been away for a few days looking after my mum (new hip, doing very well thank you!).  So it was a lovely surprise when I got back to find that I am a featured seller on Folksy this fortnight - thank you very much Folksy people!

I've also been working on a couple of new colours of flowers - one in a soft apricot ribbon with a pale yellow button centre

and one in a pretty lilac ribbon with a natural shell button centre.

I do think they look rather good together!  Coming soon to both my Folksy and Etsy ffflowers shops.

A decision?

As you probably know, the degree course I am on requires you to choose a specialism - the choice is Ceramics, Jewellery/Metalwork or Glass.  Very very difficult!  When I started I was fairly sure that I would choose metalwork and go on to combine it with my textile work.

But then I discovered that working in glass can give you all the elements of texture and layering that I love to play with in my textile work, and I was hooked!

This week we have been doing low-relief casting in the kiln, creating moulds by cutting up pieces of fibre blanket to give form and texture.  We layered cut pieces of fibre blanket and sheets of float (window) glass - if the pieces of blanket go right to the edge you can put them between the sheets of glass  to create gaps too.

My design all layered up and nearly ready to go - the edges just need to be trimmed.

In the kiln, surrounded by pieces of kiln shelf to keep it in place.

And this is how it came out!

Now, I didn't have this in mind when I designed the piece, but isn't it perfect?