I haven't posted for a while as I was due to have a small operation last week and - don't you love the NHS - they changed the date and didn't tell me till I got there, all geared up and ready to go! So the next date was last Saturday and, yes - you guessed it - they cancelled that one too. So I'm waiting for a 3rd date but not holding my breath too much. It's the mental stress more than anything, even with all the arrangements for children, dog, food, husband (not necessarily in that order!).

Anyway, I was delighted a few days ago to get this lovely card from Jean who swaps with me on the ATC Mixed Media group. She's kindly allowed me to put a picture here.

As well as making 30 large red stockings for the school Christmas Craft Fair this Saturday (why don't I learn to say no?) I've been playing around.

I used this lovely wool top I bought at Knitting and Stitching Show to make coloured discs on the embellisher, then put some chiffon over them with some water dissolvable paper and stitched with the machine. I was looking at the sketches I did recently of architectural carvings.

I then got the heat gun out on it to distress it a little. The whole thing was then laid carefully over some transparent organdie and hand stitched with some lovely space dyed threads someone sent me which went beautifully with these colours. Now I can't decide whether to stop stitching, whether it's a complete mess or if it's OK?!

Had a great day on Sunday when I went to the AGM of an embroidery group I belong to. We've had an exhibition on in Abingdon Museum for the past few weeks which was very successful so we all toasted ourselves! We have a great AGM - everyone takes some food and we sit down round a large table, with tablecloths (I forgot the candles) and have a really good meal. Definitely not 'ladies that lunch'. I was also celebrating selling another picture!! It was one I did recently but which I don't seem to have blogged about! It was going to be part of my 'stock' ready for Artweeks.

Yesterday I received my bag swap through the post. This was organised by Lenna Andrews in the USA http://creativeswaps.blogspot.com/. I've been following on her website the bags she's received and was excited to receive two beauties. The one on the left is from Dawn Sellers and the one on the right from Linda Bean. Thank you to both of you - they're great! One of the things I love about the internet is that you can 'talk' to people all over the world. I e-mailed both Linda and Dawn to say thank you and heard back almost immediately from Dawn. She has a great blog http://www.dawnsellers.typepad.com/ and, like me, has signed up to do Lenna's White on White swap!

Apart from that excitement I'm hosting a swap on Remembrance Sunday for the Mixed Media ATC group and have remembered that I'm the only one whose cards I'm waiting for. Must get on with that today. I'm also playing with the remnants of the lovely wooltops I bought at Knitting and Stitching show - will put the pictures up in a few days if all works out as it should!

I don't know where the time goes to - too much of it spent on the other job and family (why are teenagers so horrible???), but I have managed to do some drawing this week. Found a wonderful book called 'Surfaces' by someone called Judy Juracek in the Oxford branch of the Embroiderers' Guild library last week. So I've been doing some drawings of the twiddly bits often found on wrought iron. Similar looking twiddly bits on some wood carvings.

Not quite sure what I'll do with them but they've filled up several pages of my sketchbook quite nicely. Keeping a sketchbook is something I've meant to do for years but didn't really start until I was doing a Machine Embroidery City and Guilds course at Urchfont Manor a couple of years ago with Val Campbell-Harding. She got me started and I've been hooked ever since. Hardly a week goes by (I'd like to say a day but have to be honest) without something being doodled in. Or a picture being torn out of a magazine, or a photo of something I like being stuck in. Very addictive, I recommend it.

I finally managed to change the needle unit on my embellisher last week. I had tried brute force but the lady in my local sewing machine shop obviously had more muscles than me and she got it out. Brilliant - I can now put in a full set instead of managing with three needles. I have also ordered the new Janome unit so that I'll be able to change needles individually in the future.

I had a marvellous time on Wednesday - we went up to town early and wandered down the Embankment. Stopped for a lunch and to watch the boats going past then over Blackfriar Bridge and along the Strand. Joseph was wonderful, only slightly spoiled for me by learning that the small girl behind me knew the words to all the songs! Very sweet I'm sure, but extremely irritating for those of us who wanted to hear the stage performance.

Anyway, I've finished my pins for the UK Embellisher swap. Will get them posted out either later today or tomorrow. I made them from some wonderful coloured wool top that I bought at Ally Pally. I wish I could remember which stand it was so that I could get some more.

Tomorrow I'm off to a Guild organised workshop doing Faded Frescoes with Jan Evans. Some hand stitching will be a nice change. Lucky me, two days out in a week!

Haven't had much 'me' time recently; spending all my spare time with the other job and catching up on a list as long as my arm on things that need doing around the house. So yesterday I cleared out the barn, today I painted the window boxes and re-filled them and took two old TVs and an old computer to the tip. I feel good - and totally as though I deserve my day off tomorrow when a friend and I are off to London to see Joseph! We saw The Sound of Music back in January and had a ball, so we booked another trip.

Anyway I have managed to finish my notebook cover for the UK Embellisher group. I was quite pleased with this. I did a background of torn up papers stuck onto a piece of old sheeting. I then splashed paint all over it and put a layer of acrilyic wax on it (I love the stuff). This idea was all from one of the Cloth Paper Scissors e-mails, one of Beryl Taylor's suggestions I think. Then stitched some pieces of organza over. Finally, made a piece of fabric using the embellisher and cut a heart shape out of it and stitched that on. Only thing is I'm not sure just how durable it will be. But it looks quite nice.

I'm also putting my earth, wind, fire and water cards in the post to Ula. Still have a long list of things left to do and Artweeks hanging over me. Still, May's a long way away (!)

Haven't had a minute to do any sewing this week, been busy with Halloween parties, niece's 18th, etc, etc, not to mention 'the other job'. Anyway, the post brought me some nice little parcels today which really cheered me up. there was a lovely little brooch from the Embellisher swap group from Liz - really great, and beautifully made. An ATC on the theme of summer from Ati of the same group, lovely colours and some cards I've been waiting for for ages (so it seems) on Monsters Inc - I really enjoyed making mine but it was so long ago I can't remember where I filed the photo of mine.

Back from Portugal - lovely weather, it was so good to get a solid week of sunshine, I'd almost forgotten what it was like. However, I still don't like the Algarve; too full of ex pats! We hardly met any Portuguese. The children had a good time though and I read lots of books and did my sketchbook Frances Pickering style.

Got back to some good news - I've already sold one of the pieces (alliums) that I did for the Abingdon Museum exhibition. Had a message on the answerphone that someone else was interested in the same piece and wondered if I could do something along those lines! I think I probably could!! Funny, it's the piece I liked least of the two but I'm obviously doing something right there. (Have just rung the museum, explaining that I was away last week and only just got the message and the lady I spoke to couldn't find any details of the person who was interested - typical! So long as he/she doesn't think it's me being inefficient.)

Also need to get on with doing some work ready for Artweeks next May. It sounds a long time away, but I know that it will go really fast and to make a good show I need to get started now. I did two pieces based on Klimt for an exhibition for the Oxford branch of the Guild this time last year and I really liked them, so I might go back to my sketchbook and get some ideas for some more along those lines. They were machined on painted brown paper, a way of working I seem to go back to.

I collect blue and white china and couldn't resist photographing these tiles on the outside of a house in Lagos!

Going away next week with the children for half term so I've been busy catching up on my swaps. Finished doing Earth, Wind, Fire and Water for ATC Mixed Media UK group and felt very pleased with myself then realised I'd got muddled and this one didn't need sending out for another month! Then had a mad panic doing 4 Seasons for the Embellisher group which I must get out before Saturday. Anyway, they're done but I didn't find it easy at all. These are summer and autumn but the colours of autumn have been a little lost by the flash.

I've also made my pages for my Frances Pickering type sketchbook for the holiday, all blues and yellows (and yes, a little bit of green mixed in!) but can't get the cover right. I used Brusho again, as I did for the pages, but there must be something in the pelmet vilene that doesn't like it much because it dried nearly purple! Will have to have another go this evening. I'm going to take that together with Koh i Nor paints, pencils, etc and a canvaswork cushion I've been doing for ages. Can't go away without some sewing! I'll leave the quilt I've been working on, it's too bulky to take although I rather fancy sitting in the sunshine while the children play in the pool quilting quietly. That's if we get any sun.

Just realised I can read the 'comments' - thank you Liz for your kind comments and where on earth did I find 'Sue'?!! Sorry, it was really nice to meet you, I put it down to not being very computer literate.....

Anyway - I photographed this old, rusty mattress when I was walking Tilly down to the Thames the other day. I'm beginning to be interested in circles of all types and the colours in this were fantastic - lots of rust, green, oranges, golds. Really yummy! When I can get my eldest to show me how, I want to put it into some sort of programme and see what fun I can have with filters.

Just got back from a full day at Ally Pally - fabulous! Bumped into so many friends, it was such fun. I drove down with some friends - two embroiderers from the Oxford Branch and a quilter friend whom we may have persuaded to at least 'visit' on occasion. Three of us were still thrilled with managing to persuade the rest of the Oxford Branch to vote to stay in the Guild despite the appalling state of things after dropping out of the Manchester project. I was so pleased; being a part of the Guild has meant so much to me over the past 20 years and I really didn't want the Branch to walk away from the problems, rather to help try and build a Guild we could be really proud of instead.

Anyway - the Knitting and Stitching Show. Yes - of course I spent more money than I had planned to. Bought all sorts of lovely things - some lovely Koh i Noor paints that Frances Pickering recommended, some wool tops dyed in really vibrant colours that are really crying out to be put under the Embellisher, a doll pattern for a niece, some beads, some dyes so that I can have a go (again) at dyeing fabrics - never something I willingly did when doing C&G, and a few other bits and pieces. Wonderful exhibitions, particularly the Val Campbell-Harding retrospective that Maggie Grey and Jane Lemon have put together. Val would have loved it and it was so 'Val', lovely to see all her samples again. I can't believe it's a year since she died.

Loved the Pfaff exhibition too - based on still life and what a lot of different takes on it there were! The Graduate exhibition, as always, very exciting. The 62 Group - loved some of it and hated some, but so be it. A great day, can't wait for next year. Now I just need to get on with some work.

Have had a week tied to my computer busy with the 'day job'. However, I have managed to finally finish two small books that I started at the fabulous Frances Pickering workshop weekend we had here in Oxford recently. It was great fun and has given me loads of ideas.

I've also stolen a little bit of time today away from both the computer and the housework (I hate housework with a vengeance) to work on a purse on the embellisher for a swap I'm doing with the UK Embellisher group I belong to. Love the colours, I must use these again. I just wish I was better at photography!

I didn't get anything done over the weekend except to finish gessoing and painting the pages of an altered book I'm doing on seedheads. Read through Linda and Laura Kemshall's lovely book on quilts - lots of lovely ideas for sketchbooks, printing, etc. I'd quite like to do some mono printing using this photo as a basis, with some seedheads on top.

Today I've promised myself a 'me' day, but already it's nearly 12 and so far I've not got near my workroom. I did take lots of photos though when I was talking Tilly, my golden retriever. I'd like to do something with seed heads and have a large pot full of thistles, dried crocosmia, poppyheads, queen anne's lace, etc which I've been drawing and studying. Brought back some more queen anne's lace (much nicer name than cow parsley I think) from the walk to add to the collection. If I do anything worthwhile later I'll post it.

Bag swap

I've just completed a bag swap for Lenna at http://creativelenna.blogspot.com/. I did an eight week workshop with her earlier this year on quilties which was great fun. I'm quite pleased with what I've done, be interesting to see what comes back!

Have also finished a piece which started off as a sketchbook cover. My friend, Jo, and I have both got embellisher machines and we had a get together to play. Then decided we should have a theme so we started sketchbook covers. However, when I laid mine out flat, after quite a bit of work on it, it looked more like a wall hanging so that's where it's at at the moment. However, another embroidery friend pointed out that 'it's not finished yet' so back to the drawing board for the finishing touches. I'm quite pleased with it though.

I'm not sure I've got the hang of this blogging yet, still can't seem to add pictures in the middle of a post or change the layout but I'll persevere.

Met Sue today from the UK Embellisher swap group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UKEmbellisherSwap/ that I belong to. She came all the way from London, hope she wasn't bored. It's nice to put faces to names.

I've currently got two pieces of work in an exhibition in Abingdon Museum. It's been put up by the Oxford Embroiderers' Workshop, a group I've belonged to since it started about 12 years ago. We meet monthly and spend the day sewing (and chatting!). About once or twice a year we have a visiting tutor but otherwise it's just us. This exhibition was based upon a day we had when we had several still life sessions and spent the day drawing and photographing things, then we've spent about 18 months trying to produce something from it! It does mean there's a certain cohesiveness that it's sometimes difficult to achieve from a group exhibition, but I found it very hard and I'm not terribly pleased with what I did.

It seems rather self-indulgent to start a blog, but several people have suggested it and I can't think of any real reason why not!