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.