Breezy Birchington-On-Sea

 On  Friday 15 March after a very busy week at work for Ian   he took the day off and we went to Birchington-on Sea  for the day  with fishy lunch at  the 'Minnis Bay' .   It was very windy and wondered  whether we'd be able to walk  along the 'Viking Coastal Trail'  but as the tide was out ,  we were safe . 

 Evidence of  effects of high winds -  stones  and shells from the beach  thrown onto the raised pathway

 None of the usual banks of seaweed  but bare white chalk  revealed. 

Not many people around, a few dog walkers and  someone digging for bait

A Turneresqe sky

Selfie! 

After lunch a walk  towards Reculver  with   views of my beloved breakwaters, source of so much inspiration (  and my prize winning quilt!) 

This lady  was  doing a photo shoot  of 3 very well behaved dogs - anything for treats! 

 A collection of items  provided inspiration for drawings.

Winner of Fine Art Quilt Masters 2017

 I'm recovering from nearly a week up in Birmingham at the Festival of Quilts. I had a fabulous time   and  will write posts on the  ecoprint/natural dyeing course I did ( again!) with Brunhilde Scheidmeir and some wonderful quilts  I liked.  But after being rung on Wednesday evening to say I'd won Fine Art Quilt Masters ( and having to keep it quiet until the awards ceremony), I've been in a state of joyful disbelief ever since.

The various painting and drawing classes I've been doing at City Lit  have made  a big difference to my approach  to working and you can see some of my preliminary design work  in this blog post from February.  My statement for this piece ' Birchington Breakwaters' :
" The fragility of disintegrating sea defences rendered using the reverse and reassembled bindings of a threadbare antique log cabin coverlet , holes and tears revealing glimpses of underlying structures"

I was still stunned when this photo was taken ( don't look too closely at the  dark blue fingernails from  dyeing with logwood)  but was more relaxed by Saturday ( photo at the top) . The contents of the envelope: this certificate and a bank transfer form to fill in ( the prize is  £5000, thanks to generous sponsorship by Vlieseline). The icing on the cake for me was being chosen by Pauline Burbidge  and Diana Harrison, both artists whose work I've admired for a long, long time.

Thank you so much to everyone who congratulated me in person  with whoops of joy , generosity of spirit and lots of hugs  and to those of you who contacted me by email  and Facebook  with your good wishes, I'm overwhelmed.
What a way to celebrate 10 years of blogging, you can still leave a comment, I'll be drawing a name randomly next weekend.   and then I should probably be updating my website....
I was going to collect my quilt entry  tomorrow from Upper Street Events  but  the  winning quilts from the show, including mine, will be at the Knit and Stitch shows  in London , Harrogate and Dublin.  I might have recovered by then !

Back to Birchington

We revisited Birchington on -Sea  on Sunday and had a lovely walk and delicious Sunday roast at the Minnis Bay. We haven't been since last year and I wanted to gather further photos and sketches of the breakwaters which have provided a rich source of inspiration for my recent series of artworks.

Also  an appropriate place to celebrate   my quilt being selected for Fine Art Quilt Masters at the Festival of Quilts. Being one of only 20 shortlisted from entries all over the world is a real honour! I'm not sure of the etiquette in showing you the quilt yet as is still has to be judged so I'm erring on the side of caution.

 As a change from breakwaters, I've also been studying the layers of the cliffs, I'm thinking of a tryptich.

Running away to sea : Minnis Bay

Yesterday I ran away to sea! I haven't been to the  seaside since we moved in  December  despite  being almost on the Kent coast ( we're only 5 miles from Whitstable). I did a bit of research on  where  the train station was nearest the coast   and decided on Birchington -on Sea which turned out to be an excellent choice. The train journey was just over 20 minutes and cost  only £4.30  buying online, bargain!  I'd packed  sketching gear but I spent  most of my time walking. I was lured by 'Beach avenue' which did indeed lead down to the coast in 5 minutes but  taking the long way round on the esplanade beneath  splendid grass-topped cliffs    meant it was   about half an hour before I ended up at  Minnis Bay  , the main sandy beach. There were  families outside their beach huts, small children   building sandcastles and exploring  the rock pools , a lovely feel to the place. I continued walking along the esplanade as I'd spotted the disintegrating sea defences from a distance (  great inspiration for  quilts) .  Having reached the end I had to climb up onto the cliff top path with lovely banks of coastal plants . The sky looked threatening and I was hungry ( I'd been walking nearly 2 hours by this point)  so headed to the Minnis Bay brasserie for a  beer and spot of lunch.  A bit of bad  but enjoyable sketching from a bench and then I headed back to the station by the most direct  route , about 20 minutes . A lovely day out - planning to go back with Ian next week as part of his recuperation.

While walking along the cliff top path there were loads of cyclists and   families who'd hired ' Surrey' bikes which looked like a lot of fun if hard work.   Reculver was visible on the horizon and is a place I've long wanted to visit , for both it's history and wildlife but it was a further 3 miles walk.  I thought about bringing my bike on the train but it's large and unwieldy. So today I visited the bike shop in Faversham looking at folding bikes  and  they're putting comfortable saddles on a  couple of them so I can test ride them on Monday! It opens up all kinds of possibilities for  explorations.