Category Archives: teaching

100 Steps

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It’s cold, very cold, and more snow is forecast. I need cheering up, so I’m looking back at a lovely day last year when I taught in Worthing in W Sussex. We all poured out onto the streets to do our ’100′, this part of my collection.

Shingle foreground and light sparkling on the water. Strong horizontal lines, you will see several variations on this.
Most of these pictures were taken from one spot! It’s surprising what you can see when you turn full circle.
The groynes always add extra interest. I would like to have gone nearer, but they were outside 100 steps
Lots of colours in the sea when you study this picture
The clouds create extra interest
A closeup of the shingle. Just one little plant, and I found it!
The pole isn’t straight! I wasn’t drunk……
A glimpse of the pier via the zoom
Turn 180 deg and this is what you see
Another cloud formation
On the opposite side of the road this wall took my eye, colours, texture, patterning.
The 100th step ended beside this beautiful flower head. It reminded me of a plant in my mother’s garden

The captions are on the photographs. If you click above you will see a slideshow with the comments displayed.

Thanks for taking 100 steps with me. If you would like to join in full details are here, leave a comment below and I’ll come and visit.

Special Photo Challenge – Inspiration

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Unpredictibly, WordPress threw in an extra photo challenge. What inspires you to blog? Well, if you know my blog you probably know that I have more than one, so this post is really to explain why I have so many, and to hopefully give you just a little insight into what makes me ‘tick’. I don’t often post pictures of myself here, so make the most of these! The next might be a long while coming!!!

Many of my blogs relate to my teaching. I teach adults a variety of textile subjects ranging from the embellisher (a needlefelting machine) to dyeing

with not so swift passes through journalling, and various stitching techniques. These have resulted in a constant hunt for inspiration, and as I find it I photograph it!

Somehow I find myself in all sorts of strange and unexpected places when I do all this

I’ve met some wonderful people, each one an inspiration in themselves.

Home and family are very important too, from the oldest family member to the youngest

I enjoy my time with them, and whether at home or away there is always something to blog about somewhere.

Similarly, meeting up with friends and colleagues brings back memories, and I’ve shared many of them on this blog and on others.

Blogging inspiration can be found anywhere if you look, if it seems mundane, just try to add a touch of humour to the post. Even something like a meal with friends or family can result in an unexpected post.

I believe that surroundings should be your main source of inspiration, so to this end I recently began to investigate an area in close detail. The first few results can be found here. Maybe you would like to join me? To paraphrase Piccasso: ‘Inspiration comes, but it has to find you working.’

That’s why I have so many working blogs!

Check out this link too to find out more about some of the other hundreds (thousands?) of WordPress bloggers: and the following to find some related articles

Did I give you this before?

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If I didn’t give you these links before now it was a serious omission.

First of all go ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html .  It’s a TED Talk from 2006

Once you have seen that take a look at the sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

There were 4 years in between.  Had anything changed?  I keep going back to them and wishing I could start a mini revolution.  Any teachers out there?  It could start with you ;)

Crumbs!

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Yes, they do look like crumbs, don’t they, but they are in fact the contents of a teabag!

Just one of the things I’m happily playing with while I’m teaching at Urchfont.  I’m there for the last time, so my camera will be as hot as the dyeing water.  Back soon with more pictures here and on Just Snaps.

What’s cooking?

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So, what did you do at 2am this morning?

Well, I couldn’t sleep.  I didn’t go to bed until after midnight, but I had a recipe going round and round in my head, and I knew that it would carry on like that unless I did something about it.  All was still and quiet, so I could concentrate, and that’s what I did.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that – and quite a lot of the other, you know the sort of thing I mean.  By 3.15 it was all bottled, and now we just have to wait.

Now you didn’t expect it to be edible, did you?  It’s a wait and see recipe, so that’s the cooking part.  It won’t be opened until my dyeing course which happens in just 10 days. It will be quite exciting to see what has happened.

That’s all I have time for now, you see the milk is just about to boil over…….

……… and I need that for my calico!

 

Weekly Photo Challenge – Hands

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Today’s post from Just Snaps
Today’s Weekly Photo Challenge from Just Snaps
Lots more entries to the challenge, and full information too.

The day that the rains came down

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Let’s just say that April was a little damp!  Fortunately I haven’t needed to travel much, but last weekend was different, it was the Needlework Fiesta at Brockenhurst.  The motorway journey was accompanied by lots of spray from vehicles, but the landscape was the biggest surprise.  Instead of trees and grass with the occasional New Forest pony, much of the area was transformed into a lake and the camp sites we passed were decidedly empty.  Ironically, the annual Boat Jumble at Beaulieu (just around the corner) was cancelled as the venue was too wet!  I didn’t take any photographs this year as I was moving around as little as possible (shouldn’t have been there, to be honest), but I wrote a little about the event last year.  Our journey home was broken by a delicious meal with our friends Val and Dave, you can see what I had for my starter here, others chose this!

I’ve really missed blogging over the last few weeks, but haven’t been comfortable sitting at the computer.  In fact, I’ve spent more time in bed than I would have thought possible, but after a good rest yesterday I’m feeling much more like my usual self.  Hopefully I’m beginning to get back to normal after the op’, but still no driving.  Thanks for all the good wishes you have emailed.  I apologise if I owe you a reply, or a reply to a comment on the blog.  Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!

(By the way, if anyone fancies joining me in Stockport later this month there is a little more information linked from here)

Just Snaps

365 Days of Colour

Chapter One – A Cautionary Tale

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There will be several posts today.  It is catch up time, and I’ll link each one back to this first one.  You may have thought that THE THINGS had already left, but far from it – they have continued to cause madness and mayhem as we travelled from place to place.  The time will soon come for them to move on, so this cautionary tale (and the ones that follow) are indications of what to expect for the next host or hostess.  I had hoped that a visit to our cultural and historical country would have given them a chance to mature, however, this first post will probably convince you that that is just NOT going to happen…..

So, it is a while since we travelled to South Wales.  It was a teaching trip at Busy Bees in Newport, and the last place I would have wanted them to come as I knew there would be too many opportunities for The Things to get lost.  Sadly, they have obviously learnt a thing or two on their travels, and I had not sooner removed my coat that to find…..

….. Two little Things trying to get out of my pocket!

What a shock for 14 lovely ladies!  It was meant to be a workshop on the embellisher, but as you will see, once they saw the colour there was no keeping the Things under control, and most of the time was spent chasing them around the room.

What a squeal went up when they saw these colours, they thought it matched their hair, and wanted a coat.  I can see they need some colour lessons!

Frankly, I think this went well with their hair, but they were more interested in hiding underneath it.  Thing One disappeared really quickly

It wasn’t long before they found this one.  Thing Two thought it made them invisible.  Thank goodness for turquoise hair!

At coffee time they found this flower!  They wanted it for a buttonhole……..       We had to drag them away.

They were only left alone for a minute.  Off they went again – this time find some pretty fibres.  It took us ages to untangle them,

and, undaunted, they just went off to find some more mischief.

We had hoped that they would take an afternoon nap, but no such luck.  They were desperate for a ‘go’, however I feel that they are too young to play with needles

So, another tangling seemed to be the order of the day!

They soon found more

More squeals announced that they had found another ‘buttonhole’

Then, just for a moment, they went quiet, and we thought they had gone to sleep!

We were wrong!  Off they went to play roly poly on another partly made cushion

but this was once again changed for some more quick tangling.

Finally, though, something took their eye, and all was peace until they saw something really unexpected out of the corner of the eyes

FRIENDS!

At last, we had some peace and quiet was negotiated!

Chapter Two is here

The joys of teaching!

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Yes, I’ve been away teaching.  I’ll tell you more over the next few days, but I couldn’t resist a post tonight, even though we are just back, as it is 29th February.  The above view was that from our window, glorious in the setting sun.