Bridging Waters is Going to Maldon!

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Amendment to the end date - it will be before the 18th September  confirmation to follow!

Textiles On The Hill

There is a post on The Material Girls blog all about  the weekends event and my images are over there, so please pop over for a look, but don't forget to come back, I'd miss you! Apart from being busy I did manage to buy a few things as usual from that temptress Denise from Craft Arena, and who could resist buying a couple of Helen Wilson's prints from The Material Girls Shop. And then to top it all I just had to buy Lynda Monks book and some of her foils, a weekend of bliss spent with lovely people and it was so nice to meet up with old friends ( I don't mean old, I mean friends I've known for a long time, they could be reading this!) and family especially the young ones..... I managed to get a cuddle while her Mum, Dad, Nan, Auntie and Uncle looked at the exhibits.  There was time to speak to a lot of new people some who said they read my blog so hello there, hope you enjoyed the day.

Ella with her Uncle James

Two Prints by Helen Wilson

Lots of Inspiration in Lynda's book!

Today has been a chill out day, a visit to the shops a bit of ironing, writing the blogs. Also I find it hard to believe that today is the second anniversary of my Mum's death, sometimes it feels as though it was yesterday and sometimes it feels as though she's been gone for ever, especially when something happens that I would love to have told her. For instance she would have been there this weekend and enjoyed it all and I know she would have helped in the kitchen making tea.  Then last week my daughter got a new job, the job she should have tried for when she graduated from university. Mum would have loved it all!

I should say thanks for all you good luck posts and those of you that were working or also exhibiting at the weekend I hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as I did!

You Know Where You Should Be.........

This weekend, No not laying on the beach drinking a cocktail or catching up on your gardening but here

And just so you don't miss anything

Textiles on the Hill Demonstrations


Saturday 26th May 2012

11.00 - 12.00 Beverley Folkard

12.30 - 1.30 Helen Wilson

2.00 – 3.00 Sara Impey

3.30 – 4.30 Chris Spencer

Sunday 27th May 2012

11.00 -12.00 Margaret Lacy

12.15 - 1.15 Lynda Monk

1.30 – 2.30 Janette Bright

2.45 – 3.45 Juliet Bryson

Hope to see you there!

A lot of Firsts

Last week we were on holiday, it was Betsy's first time away, in fact there were a lot of firsts. The first time she'd been into a pub, the first time she'd spent so long in the car and the first time she'd seen the sea. Everything was a great success apart from the sea, she wasn't at all impressed, mind you even though other dogs were going in for a swim I wouldn't have gone in either far to cold! We stayed in a cottage in Edingthorpe Green, Norfolk, the cottage was a  stable conversion attached to the owners cottage a former Forge, it  was beautiful. There were lovely walks through dedicated 'Quiet Lanes' not something we had ever come across before. There was a foot path to the coast, something we would have probably used if the weather had been a little better as it was a couple of miles. Instead we had a few lovely walks through Bacton Woods and visited a few other places that were dog friendly, I have to say we were really surprised how easy it was to find places that welcomed Betsy. She didn't let us down at all, we even sat in a pub restaurant and everyone said  how well behaved she was.  The only problem we had and it wasn't really a problem at all , the owners of the cottage have two elderly Jack Russell's and every time they left their cottage to go for a walk they barked, as dogs do Betsy needed to bark back! Our biggest problem was Betsy was woken up every morning at either 4.30 or 5.00 AM and I mean every morning, the sun shone straight through the skylight in room where she slept, after the first morning we brought her bed into our room once she was awake, she went back to sleep until 8. Thankfully now she's home she's back into her routine of waking up at 6, we've not started letting her into our room although I must say I'm tempted but Dave isn't, he thinks its the thin end of the wedge and once we start she'll be sleeping on the bed! Anyway that's enough of our week away apart from a few images......

North Sea a bit rough!

Norfolk is feeling yellow!

Holkham Beach 'You get your feet wet if you want to I'm not getting any closer'

All this walking and fresh air is very tiring!

Sandringham ' Is that a corgi heading my way?'

Crab salad

A very quick walk through a field of cattle at Blickling

Robin shares our afternoon coffee and cake at Blickling

View from window at cottage

Another view from cottage window into the garden

This week will be taken up with a few family things and baking cakes for next weekend.... yes it's 'The Material Girls - Textiles on the Hill'. A lot of hard work has been put into the event so I hope to see you there!

Nothing Wasted

I wrote this over a week ago, for some reason I couldn't get the images to load properly and gave up, then I've been on holiday so better late than never!!!
As I said there is now a page for images of my Quilts, not all are there as I cant believe I have given some as presents and didn't take photographs! I will have to get images of them and get them posted, some of the dates are approx as I didn't put dates on them in the beginning, why? I will also get a page up at some point of Art Quilts!

A while ago I posted about a felted bag that went terribly wrong here , this is what I did with the mishap, nothing wasted! Brooches I have used the embellishing machine, and stitched them, I think they have turned out OK.

I spent some of Saturday getting them ready for the Material Girls event Textiles on the Hill (see side bar).  I've found the images of the bag that did turn out OK. A before and after shrinking image, Betsy seemed impressed, not sure if it was the bag or the fruit that was most intriguing!

Where has it gone?

Time just flies by and I'm struggling to get everything done especially keeping my blog up to date. In the previous post  I said I was going to get a gallery set up of the quilts I've made, nothing yet, I still plan to do that! The trip to London and the British Museum was a success, I had already decided on my theme for the next Material Girl project but it was an enjoyable day. Oh yes, thanks for the 'sympathy' I seemed to give you a laugh about the VERY felted bag. Never defeated I made another bag this time it turned out OK ( I cant find the image at the moment) and the first lump of felt has been used to great advantage, watch this space! So nothing lost only time.....

Despite the bad weather we've been experiencing here, I've had a lovely week.  Here's why Julie at THIMBLE FINGERS awarded me a blog award, I've been following Julie for long time she just celebrated finishing a distance learning C&G course. I'm full of admiration for anyone that completes a distance learning course, it takes a lot of dedication, please pop over to her blog and have a look at her wonderful images not only of her work but also places she visits in her home country Australia! I was also really flattered not only for the award but to be on the same list as Louise Gardiner, I was lucky enough to attend one of Louise's classes at the Jersey Textile in Focus two years ago, you can see the results of that here

The Liebster Award is a blog award, which apparently originated in Germany, to showcase bloggers with fewer than 200 followers.  Upon accepting the award the recipient must then pass it on to five more blogs of note, which is a wonderful way of introducing bloggers to your own favourite blogs.

The Liebster Convention says you must:-

1. Thank your award presenter on your blog and link back to him/her;

2. Copy and paste the award to your blog;

3. Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs (with less than 200 followers) that you love;

4. Leave a comment on their blog to let them know;

5. Have faith that those award winners will spread the blog love.

I now get to pass this award onto five other blogs that I read and enjoy, easy I thought, but I discovered it's not as easy as you might think. The problems I found are not all bloggers publish their followers and a rule of this award is the blog has to have under 200 followers. I wish I could give all the blogs I read an award you all deserve one but here are my five;

Lyn at stitch&bake 
Su at Living On The Edge
Jacqueline at Super Gran
Anna at inky fingers
Chris at chrissythreads

Please pop over to these blogs and have a look, I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
I was over the moon to have a piece of my work mentioned on Lynda Monk's blog this week, Lynda will be doing a demonstration at The Material Girls- Textile on the Hill event towards the end of this month, take a look here for more details of the event.

These are images of Water Water, that Rachel took at the Brentwood Road Gallery,  it was so difficult to photograph I keep meaning to try again but..........
To top off last week on Sunday I went to see the Lucian Freud exhibition at the Portrait Gallery, I'm not a big fan of his later work and I must admit I came away from the exhibition feeling the same!! Why go you may be thinking, well Rachel had booked the tickets then realised she had something else on and couldn't get a refund. She offered the tickets to us, as Dave and I are all for broadening our minds we decided to go. The best bit of the day was afternoon tea at The Langham, we came away totally full and as a picture is worth a thousand words, ( I did forget to take a photo of the six scones, yes six and no we didn't eat them all).

Sandwiches!

Cake!

Same Cake but closer!