Beauty and the beast

Lots of interesting things going on... It's only a week and a half until North Somerset Arts Week and I'm feeling twitchy. How do you know when you've made an exhibition rather than just a few pictures? I think I'm getting there but until it all goes up on the wall it's just guesswork. I've framed everything I've made so far. I gave in to the critics and did some more stitching on my daisy, so now nobody can say it's not finished...

And actually I have grown rather fond of my daisy, especially now that it's in a lovely understated ash frame; I will be a little bit sad if it goes.

Then I made a little something else. I'm hoping that for lots of people it will be a happy memory of somewhere or other... 

And then I made another one. I was thinking about this beautiful batik by a lovely lady I know called Conny Ridge who will be exhibiting in Arts Week too....

I got an urge. Let's hope she thinks "inspired by" rather than "ripped off", as I really love her work...

So it's starting to come together. A mixture of flowery scenes and the sea. Some photos mounted and put into cellophane bags, plenty of greetings cards and postcards, of both my textiles and my photography (scary, never sold any photos before, I wonder endlessly how it will go). A play room full of things in frames all wrapped up in bubble wrap. The problem now is not really being able to relax until every last empty frame hidden around the house is filled with something beautiful to sell. I should stop writing this rubbish and get cracking now. 

I rather wish the thing I photographed today had appeared earlier - for one thing I might have been able to sort out a print or two of it, but also if I had known it existed earlier, I might have been able to spare the five little lives inside by stopping the hedge from being cut down... Sometimes at the children's bedtime we talk about the three happiest things that happened in our day, and tonight I had to include this just for the joy of seeing such beauty, even though it was also the saddest thing today.