Tui in the garden

Here is my latest mosaic - a tui paver for the garden.

Working with glass

For my next project, I decided to work with glass tiles and do something with this old table that has been hanging around in the garage. It has a nice shape and is still in reasonable condition, but it would be nice to do something interesting with the top which is a rather boring beige formica. The legs are wrought iron and just need a bit of new paint.


And here is the first stage done. I've gone for shades of green and something that looks like a leaf - I think it works well. I found the glass tiles quite easy to work with. Have a great glass cutter that works well - managed to cut and shape the tiles quite quickly.


The next step is grouting - after the glue has dried sufficiently. This is the grouting in progress - I decided to go for a dark grey this time.


And here is the finished table - I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I think it's a big improvement on the formica!

and a close up view


Now I just need to paint the legs and we'll be enjoying using the table on the deck this summer :)

The finished paver

I've been having a 'smashing' time working on my paver - smashing and cutting light and dark brown tiles for the background. The light brown tiles have a very interesting mottled look, but the glaze cracks easily, so I'm not sure how well they'll last in the garden. Still, I think the combination is nice.


And here is the finished paver (well, nearly done - just have to seal the grout so the paver can go outside). Overall, I'm really pleased with the result.

The next stage...

Thought you might like to see the next stage in making the paver - this time I've filled in the koru shape with dark and light green. The colour of the light green tiles is called 'kiwifruit' so I thought that was quite appropriate :) Now I'm starting work on the background and hope to finish that at my next class. The last class in the course I'll be learning how to do the grouting - watch this space!

My new project

I'm taking a mosaics course and this is my first project - a decorated paving stone. I've decided to use a koru design in earth shades as it's going in the garden. As the koru is based on the shape of an unfurling fern frond I think it'll fit in well. Here is the paving stone with the main design sketched in



And here it is with the border. All I can say is it takes a lot longer than you think - I spent one whole class just cutting out the various squares for the border and didn't even get around to gluing them! The next stage is to cut (or rather smash) pieces for the koru which will be a lot more complicated with all those curves.

My new quilt

For the last few months, I've been working on a new quilt. Here are some photos so you can see what it looks like. The quilt is made from from Amy Butler's 'Charm' prints which are now sadly out of production. Definitely some of my favourite fabrics!

Here you can see some of the fabrics in more detail and below is a photo showing the backing fabric and binding. isn't it interesting how totally different patterns and colours can look good on a quilt, even though at first glance they don't seem to go together at all?