Home!!

Well last week was fantastic!! Had a ball! From set up day right until the end.

Maggie Grey and Fiona Edwards

We were so busy the  whole time we didn't take too many photos.  This was just before the doors opened on the first day. 

Maggie and I were demonstrating at each end of the booth and Fiona was busy in the middle with subscriptions and book sales.  

I had some lovely visitors and comments and my friend Jan Daly, who is local to Exeter, popped by with much needed refreshments!! I also had one of those surreal moments when a face appeared in front of me and I knew I knew it but it wasn't supposed to be there.  The very lovely Shirley from Stitcherydo also came down to say hello. After being blogging friends for must be at least 6 or so years, we finally met face to face!

All back home and unpacked now.  It took a couple of days to get over the withdrawal.  I was honestly fed up with the sound of my voice by the end of it all but miss being surrounded by so many creative people of all levels and disciplines.  Food for the soul.

I did have a massive lightbulb moment 2am Saturday morning.  Caroline and Karren had asked if I wanted to put a piece in the window for our CAKE show next month.  After watching DMTV recently and Linda's porthole technique I realised I could use that with a slight twist and some glorious hand dyed fabrics from Farne who had a stall just around the corner from us, I could make a piece for the awkward position of the window.  

It's virtually made itself so far.  Just a few more seams to hand stitch and then some added stitch to the surface.  Should keep me quiet for a while!

Have a great weekend. 

In All the Chaos

I've only been absent as things don't seem to be getting done.  I'm having one of those times where I am actually creating but not many end results are appearing.  I did do a whole week after Easter of just coursework so that's nothing to show really.  

Another bag finished.

This started out as a sample piece of beaded on quilting I made in a Lisa Walton class a few years ago.  Why let it go to waste?

I drew out and constructed another house, partially stitched and ready for attaching below.

 And a base for the house to sit with.  All will be revealed sometime soon I hope.  It's with the Dorset Art Weeks in mind, one of the larger pieces I want to show.

Another bag has been started this time trying out the Michele Carragher dragonscale technique.  I'm quite enjoying this mostly because the house is freezing cold and I can take this outside into the sunshine to warm up! 

Evening stitching has been a waistcoat for me, sorry no photo, and this little cardie with hearts for Olivia.  The felt it's sitting on is light grey so I will let you try and adjust the colour balance in your imagination!

Finally the partial rebuild has actually started on the rebuild part!! We have the fireplace again, which will come through the floor-to-be on the very right of the photo out of shot, and all the new floor joists are now being bolted in to replace the what were ceiling joists.

On the delivery we were one length of wood short which arrived a few days later with John's name on it.  You can see it in the photo above resting in the middle of the picture.  It is now in the fabric of the building and John has been immortalised with it!

This week has both the Shepton Mallet Creative Craft Show and the Brockenhurst Needlework Fiesta.  I think I will maybe skip the Shepton Mallet as I'm not really after anything in particular but will enjoy the Fiesta one instead as I've picked up some nice bits I didn't know I needed there before.  It's also a nice excuse to say hello to Myfanwy Hart and Maggie Grey too.

The First West Country Quilt Show

The show was from 29th November to 1st December 2012.  Unbelievably it was only three months from the start up to the actual show!  Perhaps a little soon but I guess they all have to start somewhere.

I saw the advert in the last edition of Workbox magazine and thought why not.  So I entered the appliqué quilt 'Sunset' I made for my City & Guilds.

'Sunset' 20" x 33"

 As you can see it won first in the Small Wall Hanging section and then went on to win Overall Runner-up!  Really over the moon.

I wasn't called to say I had a first but I did see a small photo of it on Facebook where it had ribbons.  I couldn't make out what the ribbons were though so it was a lovely surprise when we arrived yesterday to pick it up.  Even lovelier was when the lady who was taking them down asked if I had picked up my goodie bag!!

How nice is this little lot!

I have a terrible throat and have lost my voice several times and I'm struggling to find things to take for it but what a lovely way to start December!!! So glad I made the effort now.

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Alexandra Palace 2012

After the events of the past week or so I wasn't even sure if I was going to make the Knitting and Stitching Show and, unfortunately, I didn't have the backup of Elsa with me this year. But I survived!! I listened to my body and when I felt the wobbles coming on I found a nice place to sit and recharge for a few minutes.  Mind you finding anywhere to sit around Ally Pally is a challenge in itself!  I had been sensible and bought my own food and drink so the queues weren't a problem. 

I had a plan of attack worked out and first port of call was Dale and Ian Rollerson from the Thread Studio.  They are busy very quickly and I only wanted some flimsies and a quick hello again.  Just to show how small this world is I have a couple of pieces made by Nicole Burton in California.  She buys her wool slushies for felting from Dale and Ian who are based in Perth, Australia.  So there I was in the UK wearing a US made scarf in front of the Australians who had provided the materials. *Big grin*.

I then made a bee line into the main hall for an appointment with Liz of the Cotton Patch as I am going to be selling on my Avante 18 Long Arm machine.  I love it to bits and have had a great time using it but I just can't do the standing at the frame for ages thing.  So if you know of anyone who may be looking at a longarm for Christmas I will be putting it on eBay in the not to distant future!! 

Some of the other pieces I bought were a couple of bags of Goldwork ends from Benson & Johnson at a bargain price, two balls of baby wool for knitting into bonnets for the local premature baby unit and 68000 metres of smoke invisible thread.  (I'm sure Elsa's eyes have now lit up reading that!)  I will have to put some Hugo's magic tape around it to try and control it though.  I can find absolutely everything in my studio, some things need an hour or two to surface though.

Also some light modelling paste, some extra pins after all a girl can never have too many the new DVD from Jan Beany and Jean Littlejohn and a couple of lovely shawl pins that caught my eye.  This seems to be the next thing as there were quite a few stands selling them.  I was going to make my own but sometimes it's nice to treat yourself!

I was totally shattered by 1pm and made my way out of the halls by 2pm with a nice mug of tea and found somewhere quiet out in the grounds to admire the view and report in to home.  I think I was asleep in the coach before we'd even hit the north circular!

Thank you for all the well wishes.  It was a duodenal ulcer bleed which, in itself, has been healing nicely with the right pills and causing no other problems.  The anaemia the bleeding caused however was a real side-swipe   Blood iron is now at 90, should be 130, but everyday with more pills and John's wonderful care my strength is returning.  Today is a good day!

Have a wonderful weekend.


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End of the Month

We had a coffee morning craft sale with my Ladies on Wednesday where we made the wonderful sum of £1420 for our local Macmillan unit.  Fantastic!  Of course we had pot holders and were being asked for oven gloves.  We had blue cot quilts and pink cot quilts and were being asked for neutral ones as they hadn't been told the sex of baby yet.  And we didn't have enough larger play quilts!  All info taken on board for next time.

Wednesday evening I went to Aquafit with a friend.  Elsa was supposed to come along too, it was all her idea after all, but was knocked a bit sideways by a cold bug.  Sensibly she stayed at home and just about managed to shake it of in pretty quick time.

Lucky really as yesterday we drove down to Westpoint, Exeter for the Creative Stitches and Hobbycraft show.  We'd never been before and we were very impressed.  It wasn't overly huge but there was plenty to see and we had just about finished all the stalls at the right time.  Neither of us came away thinking we had missed anything which is always a nice thought! We didn't over spend, there were lots of crafting stalls and not too many fabric ones, but were more than pleased with the purchases we did make.

Not really a place for taking photos but I did manage to have a sneaky of this fabulous little number by Maggi which she blogged about here but has since moved to To Dream To Stitch so she can sell all her gorgeous hand dyed fabric and threads.  Maggi and I did the C&G in parallel and we managed to lean on each other once or twice! It was truly wonderful to see this piece for real and if you are going to any of the other shows she lists I would highly recommend looking for it!

And finally I've have a little clear out of excess magazines, most have gone to my ladies as they a stitching ones, but these two are on offer to whomever would like them.  They are issue 3 and 4 of the new Fibre Art Now.  If only one person wants then, you can have both, if two of you want them I will send one each.  Just leave a message here and the first who asks for them can have them. I will have a look on Wednesday and post on Thursday 4th. 

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Oops, I Done it Again

Sorry, long time no post!  But I'm sure you've all been busy and not really missed my drivel!!!

Anyway...

At the beginning of August I had entered three quilts and a necklace into the Dorset Arts and Crafts Association annual show.  All were entered just to see how things work really but you always hope!  'Johnny Zeppelin' and the 'Waves' quilt both won a gold and the 'Border Blocks' quilt managed a commended but did have the nice comment that the quilting couldn't be judged as it had obviously been professionally done.  Well I had done it on the Bernina and was really quite flattered that they thought my quilting was 'professional'!

My bead embroidery necklace also won a gold and then also won the section trophy!  This trophy has only just been added this year and was made by Jane Sherwood, or 'Wheezyanna' hence the Wheezyanna Trophy name, who is a lamp-worker and made these beautiful beads on the stand.  It's so new the wood turner has yet to make the base for it so it does look a little lost

Last week was our wedding anniversary and we had a few trips out and about.  This week so far we have had Son staying with us so we have used him to help around the garden etc!  (Useful these children things).

I have done a little on the C&G but not much.  I am also doing a quick 6 week course with Sharon Boggon called Sumptuous Surface Embroidery and very much enjoying it. Also the My Tweets seems to have run away without me and so I have been starching up two of the blocks for that before the next one comes out any time soon!  I hate that feeling of losing the plot.

Thank you for the birthday wishes on FB!!  I had a great time being flown down to southern France and Bergerac again.  We had had an invite to a reception in Belcastel for the summer exhibition of Casimir Ferrer's sculptures, and the artwork of Wayne Anderson, Nicoletta Ceccoli and Daniel Merriam.  You may already know we are great fans of Daniel and we were over the moon to actually meet him this time after we had just missed him last year.

Time to breath tomorrow, well lots of natter with my stitching ladies, and then John's birthday on Thursday before a very family full weekend!

I hope those of you who went to the Festival of Quilts all had a wonderful time, one day I will make it there but you've probably sussed August is usually pretty busy for us, and thank you to those who have posted pictures on the their blogs.  Have a great week!

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And on the Way Home...

We popped into Quilts UK, Malvern 2010!

We were there at 10.10 am and John agreed to come in with me.  I was really pleased, I know how much he hates crowds and enclosed places and I know how busy this could be!!  I listened to his comments carefully and I think I took photos of all the main ones he liked.  Luckily, our tastes seem to match!  There was some fabulous work there and here are some of the photos.

'Floral Dimensions' Pauline Ineson

'A Morris Medley' Valerie Coupland

'Old Gold' Sally Bramald

'Bella Celtica' Linda O'Sullivan

'The Denman Kannon' Susan Briscoe

'Aotearoa' Kathleen Matthews

'Greek Fossils' Ferret

'Leather Star' Ferret

And there were so many more!!   A little retail therapy after John had gone back to the car, it was becoming manic in there, and we were on our way home. 

Tomorrow I'll tell you of some of the goodies that were in the post.