What a wonderful day I had yesterday with the lovely members of the Solent Embroiderers Guild at our one day's pictorial machine embroidery workshop. A lively, friendly, inspiring and very talented group of delightful stitchers, here in the photo all showing off their hard work.
Thank you everyone for a great day! Happy stitching!

Crochet and Foxes

I had three and a half weeks out and away from the studio for Christmas. It was a difficult present to give myself, but the overwhelming feeling of guilt at taking so much time off payed out big time in feeling refreshed, revitalised,  and full of new ideas and projects for the new year ahead back in the studio.
I had a lovely time meeting up with family and friends and just being with lovely people eating and drinking and enjoying the feeling of being full up and happy. Projects were accomplished in the holiday time too, one of them being a crocheted blanket for my niece which I started in September - on a glorious  sunny weekend sitting in my parents garden with a bag of new wool and new to me scraps, the deadline date being Christmas and my kind Mum helped me with the start of it as we crocheted as quick as we could my lovely Dad talked us through the newspaper and his take on the world today as the garden blackbirds serenaded us through the afternoon.
The other project which has been in my head a long time is Foxy. I've had a gentle fascination of foxes for a long time now, since childhood when I met a big dog fox on a path, we looked at each other and he skipped away back to his work and me to mine. For the last four years I've been saving Maurice and Big Ones discarded whiskers which they have both kindly left at their feeding station and on their blanket for me, I put my idea of Foxy and the whiskers together and this is what I've made, and I'm very pleased. At the studio almost all of my work is flat, pictures and I love so much what I make, but sometimes I have an overwhelming desire to make in 3D, hence my blankets, Angels and now Foxy.

An evening of Christmas Angels

On Monday evening Jill www.blobglass.co.uk  and I held a Christmas Angel Making Workshop in our lightbox at the Colour Factory, complete with mince pies and mulled cider the evening was a great success. The lovely ladies who attended the workshop each made a beautiful unique Angel and we were all thrilled with the results. the workshop was planned a while ago and  Jill crafted the angels heads, arms and legs from porcelain and I with a lot help from my friend Graham's  www.grahamhollick.com Mum - a very clever stitching lady Joy, made the bodies and dress,  then using paint, new and antique fabrics, buttons beads and hand sewing the angels came to life and were carefully carried home. Well done everyone and thanks for a great evening.

 

 

 

It's been a long time I know since I blogged, and my excuse is.................I've been everywhere but in the world of blogging! I have travelled the almost lenght and width of the country traveling with my embroideries and exhibiting them at fairs and events around this beautiful Isle, I have loved meeting all the wonderful stitch enthuiasts and textile makers as well as of course of all the delightful supporters of my work. My last two fairs are this weekend - Saturday in Dulwich at the Workshop Sale www.theworkshopsale.co.uk  and Saturday and Sunday in Winchester at the Handmade Fair ukhandmade.co.uk (the lovely Rosie with be maning my stand on the Saturday) I hope that you are able if you are in one of the areas to come along and say hello!

 

 

 

It's a whole week now since I returned from exhibiting at the Great Northern Craft Fair in Manchester,

a whole week!! I honestly don't know where the time has gone. I had planned on my return to make loads more pieces as my head was full of ideas and where are these pieces? still in my head! it always amazes me that on return from shows and exhibitions all my ideas and schemes for new work simply just disappear as I have been purely exhausted. Today, however I am thrilled that  I have finished a piece which I have called "An Eight Inch Square" The lovely ladies of the Milton Kenyes Embroiderers Guild have asked me to exhibit a piece of work alongside their exhibition "Tyranny of the Eight Inch Square" I was delighted to be asked and so hence have made this lady with a patched coat. www.mkgallery.org/education/projectspace/  December 6th - 30th

 

Now I am getting ready and  preparing  for MADE London A new and exciting Craft Fair, 26th-28th October to be held at One Marylebone NW1 4AQ. www.madelondon.org

I hope you will be able to come along and say hello and see my machine embroideries.

 

 



A selection of little pieces I have been working on this week.

Ummmh, I wonder if those robins are really standing on those cats heads, or are those cats just dreaming?

I am getting ready for the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in Manchester.  4th -7th October. www.greatnorthernevents.co.uk/