A last post for February

 I have mostly been quilting Red Manor House so no sewing to show today. And it has also taken me, mostly, away from my sketchbooks. However a couple of things to show. I added the watercolour of a (it seems we have at least three) wagtail to one of my sketchbooks.

and I finished the pencil drawing of same wagtail.

You may remember that last year we visited Taunton Minster to see The Moon.

Last week we visited Exeter Cathedral to see Gaia - The Earth.

Gaia rotates and is much bigger than The Moon. Both spectacular and well worth viewing. The blue lighting in Exeter Cathedral was also stunning.

Have a good week and I will see you again in March!

Friday Night Sew In - February

 Many thanks to Wendy who has been out and about having a great time! for getting us all together again. You can pop over to Wendy's blog here to see who else took part and what they were up to.

I had a fairly lazy afternoon looking at a couple of DMTV videos to get some sketching/painting ideas. I then worked on this little sketch of Waggy the pied wagtail who has been visiting our feeder recently. Now he may not be the most exciting bird - and it turns out there are three although they only come to feed one at a time - but despite all the tasty treats I have been putting out these are the first birds who have stopped to feed. So we are really excited. There are plenty of birds around especially in the trees in the park at the front of the house, but not having any trees in the back garden there is no where for them to perch and check that the coast is clear before feeding. We shall be planting a tree this spring!

Anyway, back to my pencil sketch - it is not finished but I am happy so far.

I must admit to 'cheating' and tracing the outline but then I am doing a series of these and don't want to spend too much time fiddling around getting the basic shape right when I want to concentrate on the technique. Here are a couple of pictures from earlier in the week.

This was my first water colour attempt - not enough water I felt.

I was much happier with this one.

I also had a go at an oyster catcher on an previously painted sketchbook page. He is pecking around in some seaweed in case you wondered!

I spent the evening working on my Red Manor House. The quilting is coming along nicely - and quickly too.

That red sashing will need quilting when I have finished the flying geese. I looked high and low a couple of weeks ago for the stencils I use before starting the flying geese and had given up. Yesterday afternoon while looking for the fabric I want to use for the #sipteaandepp Winter Mystery SAL, which I am way behind on, lo and behold, there were my stencils! No sign of the fabric though haha. Oh well, it will turn up sometime.

Have a great week everyone.

Friday Night with Friends

February already! Where did that month go. We have had a variety of weather over the last month, most of it grey and damp with the odd sunny day tucked in. And so here we are again linking up with Cheryll for a stitchy evening with friends - you can see who else took part and what they were up to here .

I spent an hour Fiday afternoon with my watercolours. A couple of years ago I bought a delightful little leaf printed sketchbook (which so far is too precious to work into haha) and it came wrapped in a small piece of leaf printed paper. I immediately stuck it into one of my sketchbooks and have finally felt inspired to work into it. The result is this little short eared owl. And before you ask, you can only see the ears evidently when the owl is on it's guard!

Those black feathers around the eye look a bit too eyelashy to me but they are pretty true to the photograph that I was working from so I suppose they will be OK.

I am not sure yet if I will paint that white paper above it's head or just cut it away. A decision that could take a while!

On to Friday evening and I stitched down this months RSC hearts onto their background. Pink this month and I think these are looking pretty.

So that's it for now. Linking up with Angela for Scraphappy Saturday