Ineke Berlyn

Valentines weekend was spent in Ireland – teaching first in Kerry, then we Nikki drove us all the way through Ireland just north of Dublin, Drogheda.

After the long drive I couldn’t wait to stretch my legs and walk to the beach, just in time to see the sun set and to find some gorgeous shells.  I took the beautiful sahped cockle shell home, the rest of my finds I arranged onto the sand for this picture.

The reflection of the sunset over the Irish Sea was stunning. No matter how often you see a sunset – each one is special.

I had a busy weekend teaching the ladies at An Grianan to make a sheer landscape.  We were lucky to have almost two days,  this enabled everyone in the class to complete their project. With some ladies even finishing two pieces.   This picture just shows a selection of the  little jewels they made.

Ireland was ‘grand’ and I made some lovely friends – Nikki, Jan, Romi, Jillian, Sarah and Maura (only two Irish amongst them).  If any of you read this – thanks a million!  Also thank you to all the ladies from the Irish Patchwork Society and the wonderful hospitality at An Grianan.

THURSDAY 28 JANUARY  at  Bromsgrove Rugby Club

A DAY OF SCREENPRINTING  or half a day for half the price!!

If you’re free why not come to Bromsgrove and have a great day printing  your own fabrics. Start with plain and go back with lots of interesting textiles . The picture shows what I’ve done with Elvis!

Or have a go at discharge printing black fabric with a special discharge paste that takes the colour out, then print over with metallic dyes! Brilliant effects.

Cost is £30 for the day or £15 for a morning or afternoon. Use of screens and inks, refreshments and cakes included, just bring fabrics and lunch.

Black and natural calico available to buy at £3 per metre – please order in advance.

Phone me on 0121 445 3011 or text on 0787 537 2589 or email me ine@inekeberlyn.com

It’s still very snowy here and an ice cold wind.  Still have to walk the dog everyday and I remembered to take my camera.  This is the picture I will use for my January journal quilt.

As I’ve been snowbound for a while I’ve had time to make it as well.  First of course is a sketchbook page with some designs.

The size for the journal quilts are 10″ x 8″  a good size, as they will fit into poly pockets.  For Christmas I had a Pogo mini picture printer and printed the first photograph off and used it as part of my design page.  The landscape formed around it and the mini picture almost dissappeared into the background.  For a bit of interest I added a weather map of a very snowy Britain.

And this is the finished piece of textile art……

These are a few pictures of the sheer pieces that have gone on show at the Cowslip Gallery in Launceston, Cornwall.  This is inspired by St. Ives

One of my favourites – a VW sunset

As always, tulips have to put in an appearance.

Sunflowers in a vase to make you happy! and a landscape from my favourite calendar.

I’m off to Cornwall to celebrate the New Year and also will be dropping off 20 new pieces for an exhibition at the Cowslip in Launceton. It’s on from the 9th of January.

Wishing you all a very Happy 2010.

My new book is finally here – I’m very excited as you can imagine.
I’m having a booklaunch here at home next week Thursday 13th August from 11 am – 9 pm, so if you’re in the area please call in for a coffee, tea, cake or drink etc. Hopefully the weather is nice and we can be outside.

I will have a selection of my quilts on show and also have a few copies left over of the catalogue that accompanied the exhbition at the Rugby Club in June: Sketchbooks and Journal Quilts.

We’re still in France, weather has been glorious, but last three days a bit off. That means a bit of time to catch up with internet matters and plenty of time to do some stitching, painting and preparing for things at home.

Also been catching up with my journal quilts and July here is inspired by the lovely harbour here. Also still working hard on getting my LBD done for the Festival.

We’re in france – another month, another country. Lots of butterflies and bees and dragonflies. As you can see life is hard, having to sit by the pool and on the beach. I did do some teaching last week, with just one very happy student – we did some dyeing, printing and lots of sketchbooking.

We visited a dragonfly farm on a very hot day – this is me doing the sketchbook thing too.

This week I finally got round to finishing a few projects. One of them is a quilt for an exhibition in Ledbury at the Weavers Gallery next week. All quilts have the theme ‘Sea Fever’, a poem by John Masefield. I put some pleats in giving the quilt some movement. I also made a quick baby quilt for a friend – I used my new screen with Dutch houses to print some rows on it with white ink. Again the sheep couldn’t keep away – anything to get in the picture!

I also did a workshop for the hexagon quilters near Reading. We made bookcovers or wallhangings and the results were very colourful and inventive. The blue seemed to be the favourite choice of colour for many, which made the pink and greens stand out a bit more.

All the quilts started with a backing fabric with fusible 80/20 Hobbs Heirloom on top and then ripped pieces of fabric in mainly one colour way were ‘composed’ on the top – then ironed to fix most of it. Then we screenprinted using thermofax screens. After lunch the sewing machines came out and a grid was stitched to keep it all in place, before stitching nice threads, bits of dyed scrim, bondawebbing pieces of velvet, gold and silver etc. They are going to be fabulous book covers or a wallhanging. I particularly loved the flying geese – a screen design that has hardly been used, but looks stunning combined with the bull rushes printed around them.

Another reminder for those readers around the Midlands area; we’ve got our exhibition this weekend at Bromsgrove Rugby Club – both Edwina’s Textile Inspirations and my Landscape Explored groups are showing off our work on Friday from 2 – 5 and Saturday from 10 – 4. There are traders, a textile book tombola and Laura Kemshall is demonstrating machine quilting. And if that isn’t enough – the cakes are delicious and all home made! See you there!

Whilst teaching at the group Tegendraads in Leiden, one of the ladies had made this jacket, cutting up a navy sweatshirt and stitching raw edged shapes onto it, as shown right.

One of the nicest ones I’ve seen.

I’ve been back a week but only just found time to catch upand have a look at my last few pictures taken in Apeldoorn, the town were I was born, grew up and

where my mum still lives. The markets in Holland are always very colourful, last Friday there was an annual geranium market with sunshine to match. Just look at all the plants and their colour, so many everywhere.

All the shops show off their best arrangements, I always come back with the best of intentions to do something like this at home and never seem to get round of it, perhaps this time.

Just before getting on the train I just had to take this picture so Dutch. Where in the world would you find so many bikes, perhaps China I suppose.

I’m in Holland now, teaching tomorrow in Friesland, but today I took my mum for a drive round this beautiful place to see where her family came from. I came across this perfect picture – an old windmill going full flow and surrounded by the new wind mills.Its a country of contrasts, beautiful old places

surrounded by modern concepts and art. This is the village of Hindeloopen – narrow cobbled streets and beautifully restored houses on the edge of a lake. In the 18th century it enjoyed fame and wealth – their costumes were an interesting combination of chints and checks in wonderful colours. The museum is well worth a visit with rooms set out as they were 300 years ago. As you can see the weather is glorious.

We went on to find some of my mums long deceased relatives, their headstones were still there. You might think this a bit morbid, but they tell such stories and my mum remembered each one as a relation and the kind of person they were.

We also found a small furniture maker, he was in the middle of painting this gorgeous glass cabinet as a commission, in the patterns and colours that are specific and traditional to Hindeloopen.

We’re back home again. Kids fine, dog fine, chucks fine – house in need of a good clean, football on the tele and its cold outside.

Going through my pictures I find some that I still like to share with you. After seeing the stone piles on the westcoast of New Zealand, together with some of my sailing mates we build our own on the uninhabited strip of sand from the ‘where the hell are you?’ ad, we build our own and with some clever photography you can just about see our boat on the top.

Back in Airlie Beach I sit on our little balcony overlooking the bay, and spend some time updating my diary when all of a sudden this nosy white cockatoo with its bright yellow quiff comes and sits on the railing with a loud screech. I get the chance to do a quick sketch and when it returns a bit later he or she even lets me take a picture.

Later on its joined by a few other feathered friends, the very pretty and colourful rosella. Looking back through all the pictures I notice birds figure quite prominently in many of them. They get more exotic as well – starting with simple seagulls on a jetty and finishing with these rosella beauties on the balcony. We also see and hear the cookaburra perform its song, but it wont pose like the others.

I’ve been too busy to update my blog. And not always within reach of a wi fi hotspot. We’ve done Sydney in a day – such iconic buildings – we stayed in a hotel just by the bridge. The opera house at night was quite a sight – almost better than the day. We spent a couple of days with friends in the hills north of the city and were taken to some beautiful places – even Summerbay of Home and Away fame – although it decided to tip it down there. Melbourne was different again – also stayed with friends, we visited a lot of galleries there and got a fair share of aboriginal art.

A couple of days at their beach house in Torquay and a trip on part of the Great Ocean Road finished that visit. We did a quick stop in Brisbane and walked the city – again very cultural and a lovely green area by the river with more Aboriginal art and some good sculptures set in fountains etc. They do art well here in Australia. We’re now in Airlie beach and done a cruise on a catamaran round the Whitsunday Islands – amazing again. The most beautiful beach in the world is here at Whitehaven. Pictures will follow. Weather here has been dubious although clouds are breaking up – as we leave.

At the end of this journey of following in our kids footsteps some of the way, we really felt like the flashpackers we aimed to be. Airllie beach is full of young backpackers – doing what we’ve done, having fun and taking in those awesome sights. After 5 weeks I look forward to going back home to see my kids, home, dog and chucks and get back into normal life again. That might not be easy……

Got to the last stop on our NZ tour and are in Kaikoura.

We were hoping to go whalewatching but the whales were too far out and the sea too rough. We could go tomorrow 7.15 but that means 3 hours on a boat, 3 hours in the car and then 3 more in the plane to Sydney. Instead we went for a tramp as they say, along the beach, first we came across a fresh crayfish stand – where they were so nice explaining what crayfish was and so we just had to taste the lobsterlike fritters then on to bump into some seals hiding in the seaweed – frightened John to death. It’s a colony and they we took some pix and did some sketching. Just as good as whales really – and some good exercise with it. Took us 4 hours. Now John’s doing the ironing – its doesnt take a lot to keep him happy!!