The New York Sisterhood WI

I am a member of the New York Sisterhood WI, and I led February's meeting! It was really fun although at the time I felt like I was talking nonsense, however my mum said everyone she spoke to thought I was making perfect sense. Which was nice to here. 

I was running the session on altering clothes and when I arrived there was a woman there called Suzi Tibbetts. 

Before we had even started she pulled out this dark blue heavy cotton dress with a fitted top and ruched skirt telling me and Laura (my lovely boss and president of the New York Sisterhood) she had had thrown it together in a couple of hours! Made my alterations look a little poor. 

The next day she added me on facebook where I found a link to her website. She had the most amazing photograph on her home page of her work space and the things she makes are just beautiful. Here is the link to her website, take a Look!

http://www.suzitibbetts.com

Alice in Wonderland

Last weekend I went to visit my grandparents. It was my grandfather's 70th Birthday meal. Whilst I was there I read the arts section of the Times which had an article on Lewis Carroll's (Charles Dodgson's) book: 'Alice in Wonderland'  and his life around the time he wrote it. Along with the article there were a few examples of the illustrations that accompanied the story. The article really inspired me and when, the next day, I stumbled across an old copy of the book in a charity shop for 50p I practically snapped off the shop keepers arm. 

I have been reading the book and it is fantastic! I haven't enjoyed reading this much in a long time. I think the reason for this is that the book is aimed at children and allows to reader to image all their own details where other books do not. One example being when Alice meets the Duchess, her Cook and baby they are not visually described. It does mention the mood of the characters but not their appearance. This has allowed my imagination to start working again giving me a plethora of ideas. 

Along with the inspiration I have taken from 'Alice in Wonderland' and Rob Ryan's 'This Is For You'* I have overcome my creative block and am now painting away like there is no tomorrow. 

It is the most exhilarating feeling. Yay! 

* 'This Is For You' is a beautiful story created by cutting out the pictures and the text from coloured paper. Well worth a read.