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I was in Stornoway Wednesday morning and thought I’d take some photos, the tide was in and I like the reflections of the fishing boats,


the sparkle of sunlight on water

and small boats dancing on the gentle waves,

Earlier this week when the sunset the sky over the moor at the back turned pink, what is interesting is it is south east and the sun was setting in the west so it is a reflection, I can only think there must have been a mist rising over the moor,

And this was the sunset from my home last night,

I did get a couple of textile pieces finished this week, two Harris tweed cushions, the design is loosely based on views over Harris,


have a nice weekend everyone, I am going to spend some of my time catching up with some of your blogs,

about a month ago there came from outside the sound of whoops and yells and laughter, later I saw a white van parked on the grass at the side of my garden near the peat track, I thought it was probably holidaymakers who had gone for a walk along the peat track (this happens sometimes in the season), when it was still there the following morning I thought maybe someone was camping overnight on the moor, when it was still there a week later I suspected the worst….it’s been dumped,

well just after I got back from art club this lunchtime a lorry came and now it is gone….yippeeeee…..

I am still going to the art group and figure drawing, last week at art group we were told to bring veggies to paint but I had this beautiful rhubarb leaf in my garden so I took that as I love the colours when leaves change, I didn’t do it justice but I tried and had fun trying,

This week we did our own thing and I took a photo of Harris which I like very much and I have made a start but have not done any more at home yet, the photo was taken from the bus and that's why the horizon is tilted (and that's my story and I am sticking to it)

The figure drawing ~ well 2 weeks ago the tutor had pinned up some fabric and I drew the fabric instead of the figure,

Then last week and this week we had the same model in the same pose so we could spend more time on our drawing, I finished the figure about as well as I could so for the last half hour I put some tone in the background instead of the white paper ~ bad move, one of the other students paints out mistakes with white paint so I thought I’d do that with the background but I still think I should have left well alone,

2 more Harris tweed cushions, the first is the view of the Clisham mountain from my old home on Scalpay

and the second is another view towards Tarbert from Scalpay, (does anyone else see a whale instead of an island in the centre? :o)

my friends beautiful Orchid,

sorry no sunsets this week,

as usual have a great weekend,

well the garden has got the soaking it needed, the weeds will grow like fury now so must get out there and do some weeding next week,
a blogging friend encouraged me to join and I see many friendly names there, I now have to sort out which groups to join and participate in and do a proper profile, more next week,

took some alternative fishing boat photos in Stornoway this morning here’s a couple and there is another on ,


last night (Thursday) just before sunset the clouds went yellow/orange behind the houses opposite here’s a photo, amazingly within about 10 -15 mins they had cleared and there was a bright blue sky with just a line of yellow along the roof tops,

have a great weekend

this is my first stitch for (tast), first a little bit about tast for people who have not heard of it, those that do bare with me and correct me if I am wrong, ran tast through out 2007, she posted a new embroidery stitch with details of how to do it on her blog every Tuesday and everyone who joined tried the stitch out in their own personal style, it is a very good stitch library so if you are interested take the time to have a look, I didn’t join that one I was doing other things and I had done a lot of embroidery stitches on my City and Guilds course way back in the eighties,
I joined stitchin fingers (sf) because I now feel like doing some hand embroidery and just playing around with it and some members of sf have started a rerun of tast but they are having every fourth week off or to catch up, I have joined three weeks after it began so I am spending the fourth week catching up on the first three weeks,

Now to the work, for a change I am doing these first stitches on some handmade paper I made over a decade ago, I have used lots of it but still have some left,


The first stitch was herringbone, I have used a paper that has lavender buds in it (amazingly it still smells a little) threads are, embroidery silk, stranded embroidery cotton and a variegated fine tube knitting yarn, just random stitching,

the second stitch is buttonhole stitch, when I was looking at other peoples samples I noticed they were what we here in britain call blanket stitch and some of the people in britian had commented on this difference, so I thought I would take a look at Sharon’s example and yes what the aussies call buttonhole stitch we here in britian call blanket stitch, so I have done both blanket and buttonhole stitch on my sample,

the difference is a loop at the top which gives a small knot on the british buttonhole stitch, this knot is because where as the edge of a blanket does not get a great deal of wear the edge of a buttonhole gets lots of wear with the button passing through it and the extra knot of thread makes it stronger, I am not giving stitch directions but for those who know how to do blanket stitch, to make the knot in buttonhole stitch you wrap the thread all the way around the needle before pulling through instead of just passing it around the back of the needle, clear as mud no doubt,

the first thing I learnt with this sample is I have used too light a colour thread as the dark spots in the paper dominate I really wish now I had used a dark thread….are well…., on the right around the little gold mesh squares is blanket stitch and all the rest is buttonhole stitch, I felt I couldn’t do a sample of buttonhole stitch without putting some buttons on it somewhere,



rain or sun have a good weekend wherever you are and whatever you are doing,