Tuesday, November 27, 2007



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!

Monday, November 19, 2007

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.

Friday, November 9, 2007

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!


Tuesday, November 6, 2007



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 (!)

Thursday, November 1, 2007











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.