Summer exhibition.

Recently the weather in the UK has been very hot. I'm not complaining about the weather and in fact it works to my advantage. Lucy and I will be flying to India on Thursday and the temperatures are hotter than we normally have here. So our recent high temperatures have been excellent for preparing us for the weather in India. We are both very excited but as always before a flight I am beginning to get a little nervous. Having planned the stitching I'm taking with me I really need to get on with the serious business of deciding what clothes to pack. Have you ever found that when you need to get on with organising something there are a lot of other things that demand your attention or at that point, interest you more?

On Saturday I had planned to do some sewing but Kathryn wanted to go to the Summer Exhibition at The Royal Academy of Arts and since I have always enjoyed it I quickly agreed to the outing. As bad luck would have it I had injured my knee so I had my left knee strapped up and was walking with a stick. Not the perfect way to visit a busy exhibition but it made for a tiring but amusing experience. Every so often I would yelp with pain as my knee locked and consequently I was unable to move for a few minutes. I took several photos of the exhibits but at this exhibition there are over 1500 items on display. Some are high up on the walls and so difficult to photograph, but from the rest I tried to chose some items that to represent them all.

As many of us enjoy the friendship of our fur babies I thought you might like Blue Pipe Smoking Cat by Laura Ford. I think he's trying to play at being Sherlock Holmes,

and for the dog lovers.

The next one was one of my favourites. This Fabric shop on Ridley Road by Lucinda Rogers. It was made using ink, crayon and watercolour.

I rather liked this bear on a wheel. This version was large sized 

but there was also a small version in the entrance area. I think I like the small version better.

I also liked this bear's head but he definitely looks worse for wear, maybe he'd been in the bar for too long.

This picture by Anselm Kiefer received a lot of attention. People were standing in front of it for ages and it was certainly very powerful.

This one made me feel cooler. 

There was this piece of tapestry. Unfortunately it was high up and so difficult to photograph but I liked the colours..

Sometimes I don't know why things attract my attention but this one did. Maybe it's the orange colouring...I love orange.

There was a lot of detail in this piece. 

This year's exhibition had many pieces of animals and birds.

This one is called Seagulls.

Here is another piece with embroidery on it.

This bear was very cute.

The eagle is made using quilling.

The last two I nick-named home and garden. First is the home. I'm not sure if it's a cat or a dog on the man's lap.

I loved this final picture. It had a real outdoor feel

I'm sorry I didn't keep a record of the artists names. It's actually a miracle I had photos to show you as I forgot to take my camera but John, bless him, had put it in his bag. He knew I wanted to post some pictures on my blog. I enjoyed the exhibition but I didn't find it as enthralling as last year but that could have been because of the pain in my knee.

I did get a little stitching done on my tuffet.  When last I wrote I showed you the four pieces I'd already pieced.

.
I'd started on the next two sections but didn't finish them. This is how far I got.

I think that more work on the tuffet is going to have to wait until after our holiday.

I must try writing earlier in the morning. Currently I always do it at night and by the time I've finished I feel really tired. This means that I'm too tired to read a page or two of my book. At this rate I'll still be reading this book at Christmas.

I'll try and post again tomorrow but now I'm going to write my packing list. That way I should manage to remember everything I need to take.

Lyndsey