Home Alone?

OH has just been picked up and whisked off to Heathrow, he's working in Madrid for a few days! I've got plans, get lots of textile projects finished and some new ones started. I wont feel guilty if I spend all evening painting or all night on my sewing machine.

Rachel will be coming home at some point to help give Belle (the constipated cat) her medicine, I cant manage on my own, however Rachel can! When I try there is sticky medicine all over the house, a cat with her fur standing on end and me scratched to bits, hot and really, really frustrated, a sight no one wants to see! Rachel just opens the cats mouth and pops in the syringe, done, I wish I knew the secret?

From Chelmsford to Brixton

On Monday I went to Chelmsford branch of the Embroiderers Guild, I've become a member! The speaker was Jacky Russell, her work was amazing, she uses a lot of Lutrador, something I bought ages ago but had no idea of how to use it, but I have now! They are a really friendly group, I did already now a lot of people there some from Aqua , also from my City and Guilds class and of course some are blogging friends, Sharne and Nickie and Diane. It's about a 25 mile journey for me but well worth it, I'll be a regular at the meetings, their programme of speakers looks really good, next month it's Sara Impey!

James, my son had some good news this week the band he plays in Gyratory System ,have been booked to play two nights at the Brixton Academy they are supporting Soulwax, apparently they are really well known! We are all really pleased for him, the only thing is that we had all planned to go out on one of the night's for dinner. It's one of my nephews 21st birthdays, we will miss James and Becky his girlfriend, but it's an offer that the band couldn't refuse! The Brixton Academy is such a well known venue, James took Rachel my daughter there to see Morrissy years ago, so Rachel's really excited to think that he'll be playing on such a well known stage!

The weather here is really miserable, it's going to be another afternoon spent watching TV and hand quilting I think. I didn't manage to get any quilting done yesterday, so I need to get lots of stitching done today!

It's Working

A really good week, three trips to the gym, it seems to be working! I visited the doctors to get the results of a blood test I had a couple of weeks ago, my cholesterol is fine and the other things he tested for were good to!

Friday I went to the V&A with a group of friends from ERTF we went to see the Maharaja exhibition, Chris generously took me in as her guest! The exhibits were wonderful I was particularly taken by a necklace Diamonds, Emeralds and Platinum! I couldn't take photographs in the exhibition, this is in the foyer of the V&A it's a glass sculpture by DALE CHIHULY. Then as usual we sat and had a lovely lunch and a good chat, it's always nice when we catch up. The plan had been to go and look at a venue that is possibly going to be used for ERTF 2011 exhibition, but that didn't happen.

Yesterday I went to Romford Embroiderers Guild meeting, the weather was awful really strong winds and pouring rain, I was surprised how many people turned up. Today was totally different weather warm and sunshine! We went to Lakeside Shopping Centre and managed to get a few more Christmas presents.

Now the weather is changing I'm glad to be snuggling up under my quilt in the afternoons watching something good on the tv and stitching!

Tomorrow evening I'm going to Chelmsford Embroiderers Guild for the first time, I'm really looking forward to it!

My Favourite Poem

i carry your heart with me-by e e cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

11th November

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

More Info on Yesterday's blog

Sharne I wish I could say I had dyed the fabric's but , the fabric's are Hoffman's Batiks, I bought it on the last day of a holiday we took in W. Virginia in 2006. We were staying in Charlottesville for a few days and I'd already spent far too much on fabrics on our tour through W Virginia and found Cottonwood , I fell in love with a block of fat quarters and said to Dave 'That would make a lovely quilt for our bed' it took 3 years before I could bring myself to undo the ribbon and take the block of wonderful colours apart. The quilt is for a King size bed and I've got enough fabric over to make a small quilt, I did buy some extra black batik for the boarder. I'm quilting in the ditch of each block, then I'm planning on machine quilting a free machine pattern on the boarder, not sure about that yet!

Thanks Gina, glad you like the colours.

A couple of photos of the hotel and the gardens of the hotel we stayed at in Charlottesville. It was when I was looking at the photo's for yesterdays blog I realised how long I'd been admiring the fabrics, how sad is that 3years!

Sew At Last!

Finally the quilt is ready for what I think is the best bit HAND QUILTING. So it's gone from this...

to this... and despite kneeling on the hard floor my knees felt fine this morning and I had a good workout at the gym!

Fun Fun Fun!!!!!!!!

Where to start, I've had a really bad eye infection all week, I'm on antibiotics so cant even make myself feel better with a stiff drink! Dave had this week off so we had planned to go out for a few days. But! we had been waiting for the builder to come and pave our driveway which we are having done jointly with our neighbour. The guy turned up and started, Dave wasn't at home so I went out and talked to him and all he said was 'Yer,yer, yer' your not listening to me I thought! No he wasn't! As a consequence we couldn't go out except for short periods of time as we didn't know what we'd come home and find! I was glad Dave was here as the guy really dismissed everything I said, still it's all finished and as it turns out it looks really good, we just need to sort out our flower beds and it'll look really good. During the week the Aqua-8 group met at he RSPB site fairly close to where I live for a walk sadly the weather wasn't that great. We still managed to have a nice walk and get some good images.The site it's self is really interesting it is on marshland very close to the Thames, and was once used as a Rifle range I know it was used up until the late 1970's as Dave went there when he was a young lad, and every time we pay a visit he spends ages telling me about the good old days!!!!!! I'm not sure if it was used during the First and second world wars? One of the images has the numbers clearly there these were where the targets were located, I think? Yesterday I went to the ERTF conference in Letchworth, the venue was really good, I had been a few weeks ago with another member to check it out, it was ideal. I took along my lap top as a few members are having trouble with their passwords, so I got them sorted out. I'm going to try and take the lap-top along to most conferences, I hope this will make things easier for the members.During the morning there was a talk from Claire, she works for Southend on Sea Museum Services, she gave an interesting talk on costume and textile conservation. Then Liz Holliday did a "members spot light talk" about her work and her inspiration, her work is beautiful. These talks are always inspiring, we are so lucky to have a lot of very talented artist in the group. I was looking around yesterday and thinking, as there are so many members thank god I'll never have to stand up there and give a talk about my work, they will have to get out a search light not a spotlight if they ever ask me to do it. I'll be running for the hills! After a really nice lunch we did a networking- speed dating! It was really good fun, we each took a piece of work that we liked and were happy to talk about, we then had five minutes each to talk to our 'date' before we moved on. As you can imagine it was very noisy a room full of woman chatting at the same time, but really very enjoyable. I did get to talk to a few people that I'd not spoken to before, that's always good!
Who knows what this week holds? Hopefully I'll get in a few trips to the gym, I'm also going to the V&A and while I'm in London I'm hoping to pay a visit to a gallery that we are planning on using for the next ERTF exhibition.
I promise I'll post during the week with some images of textile things, I've made a piece of felt this morning so I'll post about that. I'm supposed to be pinning out a quilt now but the thought of kneeling on my hard wooden floor is putting me off which is why I'm blogging now, can't delay any longer here goes..........Comments are always welcome!