Tuesday 16 June 2009

Blast from the Past I


I had quite a few inquiries about my blank sketch books.
I have one or two left and have just listed this one on etsy. I am only listing them one at a time as I have another craft fair imminent and don't want to have them sitting there doing nothing.
(SOLD, new one listed now;


OOOPS! SOLD NEW ONE ..will list a third now.
Only three left after this.!)



The weekend at Art and garden was, as ever, delightful.



My stall was a bit different to last years. Maybe I didn't have quite as much stuff but I still did quite well. I have one or two little sketch books left and might list them one at a time on etsy. an you see the taller red one peeping out on the bottom row? That will be first.
Even if I didn't sell anything I would probably still go, just to be able to sit in such a gorgeous place, chatting to such wonderful people, catching up with old friends and meeting new.
If you live near and didn't come then shame on you!
You missed a lovely time and place.


The weather was absolutely perfect.
I did meet a fellow blogger but I am reluctant to link to her because she has a picture of me on her blog.
Go on then its only fair. Its Lyn at Everyday Life.
She is a friend of Shan who is very beautiful but refused to be photographed! Come on Shan, click that blogger button!
I am wearing a voluminous cotton shirt and wish I had patted it flat before the picture.
But lets face it, it wouldn't have made that much difference.
Some, but not a lot.

I thought I would show a some of my past triumphs in the next few posts.
I am a great fan of hand stitch and used it for my very first City and Guilds piece in 1993.
You can click the pictures for details.

This piece is my interpretation of a little hollow in a rock wall on st Martins Isles of Scilly.

We went in June the first time and the walls were covered with Hottentot figs and Rock Pennywort.

I was cleaning today in preparation for our visitors in two weeks and I took this off the wall to dust it and was quite delighted with it.
I hadn't really looked at it for years.

I used Picasa to blog these pictures on advice from Julie and because I'm panicking about my 'using 34%' of my space. I don't think I did it right because I still notched up another few MBs.
I usually go to the blogger compose box, upload pictures in 5s(and thats when the numbers appear at the bottom) and then do the writing.
How do you blog?


Update: Gretel from The middle of Nowhere has explained all to me. My pictures are too big so for a try out I have added a new one that has been re sized. Its the top one.
Thank you! thank you! thank you!
xxxxxxx

33 comments:

maggik1 said...

Hey, I'm first to comment! Never done that before. I just love that piece - why haven't I seen it before? You're hiding your light under a bushel - it's really lovely. I love hand stitch too and don't do enough of it. I've just blogged again - and got all the photos in the right order! But why is my text all different sizes? It's good to know that you can't always understand Blogger. Makes me feel better ...

Mermaid's Purse said...

I love the handstitching - it's delightful and such pretty colours too! Many thanks for the explanation on the migraine issue. Sorry can't help with the blog issue - far beyond me at the present!

shan said...

Oh Jackie, you do make me laugh! Your work is beautiful, yours was a stand -out stall at Art and Garden and you deserved to do well. Glad I could introduce you to Lyn from everyday life blog- did you notice that I crept away when you both went into blog-speak ? She is my best friend, so be gentle with her! x

Anonymous said...

Lovely hand embroidery. I particulalry like the range of stitches used to depict different things - i dont do enough of that.
as for blogging - i didnt know you could 'use up' your space. i dont even know how to find out. but as to how i blog - i write everything in word, and add photos and then upload it all to my blog. easy and quick, and all my blog posts are also saved in word.

Michala Gyetvai (Kayla coo) said...

Your stand looks brilliant!
I didn't know you had limited space on blogs eek!
How do you know what you have left?
I load pictures and then type the text although I make mistakes all the time like spacing!

Nellie's Needles said...

A big WOW on your embroidered piece! It looks as though the space/place and exhibition were wonderful.

As for the space limitation on your blog, I believe it is just for the photos, not the type. I ran out of my allotted space and had to purchase more. I wish I had known about resizing the number of pixels in a picture. I now resize them them in a program for Mac's called Element. The only other way I know to resize them is through my mail program. I drag them out of mail to my "desktop" and import them to blogger from there.

Julie said...

Hello Jackie, it's lovely to see you :o) Your embroidery is so beautiful, it must have taken you a lot of time. You have made some beautiful textures with the different stitches and threads.

I think Paula has the right idea, writing the post in Word firstIt certainly sounds a better way. I have been trying to save my blogposts in case Blogger ever went down. My DH blogs huge numbers of photos via Blogger but he still has plenty of allowance left so I think it lasts longer than you would think but I don't know what happens when it's used up. :o( When you uploaded thro Picasa did you open Picasa, select photos (I think they have to come from the same file) and then click "Blog This"?

lilylovekin said...

Jackie, you make me laugh. Of course as soon as I heard there was a picture of you I had to go look. I wanted to put a face with the beautiful work and funny words that I read and see on this blog. Thanks for letting me do that. Glad to hear you had a good day at the fair.

CAROLYN SAXBY said...

Hi Jackie, your pictures are great, so much wonderful detail

Yes, I blog like you in the compose box and upload the pictures. It can take forever so I upload and go and make a cuppa tea etc

I will send you my email address so you can keep it up your sleeve. I do reply eventually but I am crap at emails and hate spam which I why I am no reply, not because I'm anti-social!! promise!! Julie and Viv will tell you, I do get round to it eventually by which time I've usually forgotten the question!

I've just joined a yahoo group for the Textured Surfaces workshop and it's doing my head in, I had 70 messages yesterday ... argh ...

sorry for the ramblings ...

Have a great week, Carolyn

Cat said...

You looked beautiful! What's all the fuss about? We need more photos!

'fancypicnic' said...

Beautiful stitchery, Jackie...quite, quite lovely xx

Love the sound of the Art and Garden - you clearly enjoy it!!

'fancypicnic' said...

Oops...I've been admiring your stand on flickr, by the way. Looks amazing - everyone must've loved you xx

Chris Daly said...

Lovely to see you dear Jackie! I'm so glad you had good weather again this year!

hens teeth said...

Hello J,
So pleased you had a good day. It is such a tonic.
Love the texture in your hand stitchery, it is a beautiful piece. x

Maggi said...

Your stand looks very inviting - important in these days when people do not have as much to spend. Your stitched piece is beautiful.

As for blogging, I have seen the notification of how much you are using but never thought too much about it. I upload pics as i am typing.

Gretel said...

Dear Jackie - am going to get a bit teccie about your photos, which I think is the issue here.
When you take a photo, the actual image size is Very Big, about 2-3 MB. And that is what uses up your memory. To get an idea of this, go to my blog, and double click on one of the images, (to make it appear on its own) and it will fit nicely into the screen. If I double click on on of yours, the image is huge, it is so big I cannot see it in its entirety on the screen, I have to scroll up and down to see the 'hidden' bits. And this is using up your memory. What you need to do is alter your image size (the pixels) Which is not the same as just cropping it. I edit all my pictures in Photoshop. If you don't have this, then the Picnic editing software which you can use in Flickr is much better than the Picasa, just click on 'edit' at the top of the photo menu.
Once you've opened your photo in the programme, go to the top of the menu and click on 'image' and then change the image size to something like 600 wide (if that is the widest point, or 600 tall if it is a tall picture) and make sure the constrain proportions box is ticked. (to stop your pic going wonky) It may sound complicated, but once you have the programme open it should become clear.

I usually have mine at 800 or 900, but I am using Photoshop, and that has a handy function called 'save for web' which I use once I have altered the image size like this, and that brings the file size down to anything between 130 kb to 250 kb, and saves the detail. I don't know how big one of your photo files is, but I would imagine they are at least 1 MB...
The other thing is that a big photo file, although it looks small on your blog, (though not if you view it alone) makes it terribly slow for people looking who don't have decent broadband or who are on dialup. Hope this is of some help, if you have any more questions, do email me.

Wabbit said...

I love to do handstitching. It's so addictive that I'm always sorry when a bit is finished.

I know I should upload all the photos I want first and then write around them because that's how Blogger is set up to work. But I love the writing part and nearly always at least start that bit first and then have to fix everything when I put the pics in.

Wabbit said...

Oh I forgot to say that I host my blog on my own webhost space and since I have simply tons of space, don't have to worry about it, though I resize my photos with Photoshop Elements first to make sure they are no more than 72 PPI. That makes your blog load faster for your readers. If you run out of space, let me know and I'll fix you up! Oh, and you can back up your blog if you host it on your own webhost account, which is another plus.

Heather said...

Lovely post and excellent photos. I would love to have seen your stand 'in the flesh' - it looks full of irresistable things. The piece inspired by the rock niche is absolutely beautiful - I hope you got a distinction for it. I don't do 'computer speak' so wouldn't dare try to tell you how I blog. I just do what my daughter tells me to!! It's all a mystery to me.

menopausalmusing said...

I bet hundreds of people clicked the link to see what you looked like :O) . . . you look lovely. Now me, I'm going to bury my head re all this techie stuff.... especially having double clicked some of my pictures.... the size of them!!!! :O) x

Victoria said...

So happy that it was a good, successful and fun time, and I think, (yes I had to go peek!) that you look radiant!

Purple Missus said...

I always use Photoshop to resize my images to 10cm width before uploading them. Makes them smaller and a lot quicker to load.

But I want you to ignore that advice because when you click on mine they come up as diddy pictures, whereas yours come up really big and you can see the detail of your beautiful work in all its glory :))

Lyn said...

Jackie,
It was such a lovely day and I am pleased we had a chat though your stall was busy all afternoon so not much time to chat!
I love your hand stitched work, great detail, you should do more, but I guss they are very time consuming?
So thanks for the link and kind comments on my blog and 'see' you again soon I hope.
Love
Lyn
xxx

Carol said...

Hi Jackie, You have to go to my blog to see this new painting I am just about finished with... http://santorafineart.blogspot.com/2009/06/willow.html. The picture isn't very good - it looks darker than it is in reality!

Aussie Jo said...

Your handstitching is fantastic, I love handstitching too, it's very therapeutic.
And your stall in the garden is sensational, you look good too.
Maybe PG can help me with my photo loading problems, I reduce mine to 800 but when I click on them on the blog they come up the same size in the new window (i.e. little like on the blog)

Micki said...

Wow, that is a beautiful embroidered piece.

I compose in Word and then cut and paste and insert photos where needed. Saves me time usually as I am still on dialup.

Corinna Nitschmann said...

This woman makes wonders... :o).

I'd like to invite you to my latest blog posting. Maybe you would fancy to join in...

Felty regards from Hungary

Grangry said...

Jackie, your stall looked brilliant. Nice to meet you in your photograph! I liked that handstitched piece too - masterly!

Heather said...

It's me again, just to say how much I am enjoying your 5 page spread in Quilting Arts - my copy only reached me today but it was worth waiting for. I have never really liked the 50's style of pattern and decoration but love what you have made of it. It was all a bit hard and spiky, and the colours were harsh, but you have softened everything and enriched the colours. Definitely an improvement.

LOVE STITCHING RED said...

Lucky me to get one! I just happened to look at the right time I think otherwise it would have got snapped up by someone else. I had to have it because your red piece is stunning! I shall fill it with treasures and try to do you proud!

Love, Carolyn x

julie king said...

you are adorable at your show over the weekend. thanks for being a good sport and letting us see you. it's so nice to connect a sweet face with your beautiful blog and art. loving your handstitching!

Digitalgran said...

Jackie. Your hand stitching is as beautiful as everything else you do.
I wonder how much space I've used? This made me think I might be nearly full by now :(

ArtPropelled said...

Glad you enjoyed Art and Garden, Jackie. The sketch books look very special and as for your exquisite
stitchery....out of this world!



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