The Sardinha de Paiva, Jardine and Sousa families

The Tribal Woman seen to the right is a Tapestry with wool and took about three months to finish.
With Tapestry the canvas is printed with the colours when bought and when it comes in a kit the wool is also included. Tapestry is stitched with the stitches running from bottom left to top right, all stitches must go in one direction so as to give an even, perfect picture. For me wool is easy to work with, it gives the picture a padded finished look. This kit was a gift to me and is so striking with its vibrant colours.
To have this framed the finished canvas was taken to a specialist that stretch it back into shape before mounting it and framing. I buy projects that are different and the bigger the better. The size of this worked canvas is 14 by 20 inches.
I have, since finishing the Tribal Woman, turned my attention to Crosstitch, which I have been doing for the past ten years. These pictures were crosstitched in silks as are all my crosstitch pictures.

African Tribal Woman from Lanarte.

The picture of my Dad on the front page of this site and the black and white picture of John Sardine will be replaced with the crosstitched images, the latter having been worked one in sepia (different shades of brown). My Dads picture project took six months to complete due to the busy background and each family photo took 89 thousand stitches to produce one whole picture. I have since worked my Great Grandmother Mathilda Sardine, my Grandfather and Grandmother, both in black and white, of course, it has all the shades of grey. This has turned out surprisingly very beautiful, considering that the picture was so faded to start with. These have all been framed and they will be displayed on the album. These family photos are 22 X 16 inches with the exception of my grandfathers which is the largest.
The picture of my Dad is the only one of it's kind no one else has this, for two reasons, known only to me. My daughters picture was the first one that I did, it was a very difficult time of my life and I needed something positive to focus on and I sometimes spent 3 to 4 hours a day doing her picture which should have taken me 6 months, but in fact, I did it in four. Crosstitch is very demanding on the eyes and every stitch has to be counted as the stitches are put in place. There are 48 shades of colours in this picture. The chart for this one was 17 large sheets of paper in total. However, I have three more family pictures to make, then I could turn to the many kits I have bought and which are waiting in the wings.

This picture is by L.S.Lowry the famous painter, and he painted many similar pictures which are just as lovely, this also came in kit form so I did not have to go out and buy the different colours of wool to stitch it.
This is also tapestry and was stitched for some time now being one of my first. This one I did very quickly, in about two months, it all depends how often I take up a project to work on it. This one was hung on my lounge wall for some six years but has now been put in store for when needed.

The L.S. Lowry tapestry.

The Orchids

I stitched this one for my daughters room, lavender and pink. This was my first project and there were many others, mostly cushion covers and small items.
This took me a little over two months and the canvas is 24 by 10 inches.

The Orchids worked in wool.

These are different angles of my Rhododendron
Garden.

Rhododendron Garden

This is my cactus in flower.

Snake Lilly (Arisaema speciosum)

Dracula Lilly

Another section of my Garden

Main garden

Main Garden

The picture of the far left has an assortment of ferns, the fern in the right for ground is the stag horn fern.
These ferns cannot be kept out side because of the winter so they are always in this conservatory all year round.

Various Ferns

Ferns in Conservatory

My pride, Delphiniums.

Water fountain.

Chrissy's Poi link.

My daughter at a party performing with fire poi. She has been demonstrating poi and also staff skills for some years now but still manages to get the odd burn.
This was put on You Tube by a freind without her knowledge..

This lily smells revolting for the first day,
with blue bottle flies sitting on the main black
stem,these disappear after the second day quickly followed by the smell..
It is none the less spectacular.