Harrogate Lace Event

Yesterday was a fabulous day of stash enhancement!! Eddy and I met Sonia at the Harrogate Lace event a little after 10 and hit the stalls. It was a lovely day - I've been making lace long enough that I've started to know some of the 'crowd' - it was lovely to catch up with Stuart and Sue Johnson and Christine and David Springett (the team behind the May lace course we go on), then Jane and Agnes (plus their husbands) who also come along in May. And lots of people from Sheffield Lace Makers - and especially Phyllis' gang - Margaret, Kath, Di and Barbara - and Phyllis of course!!

So we spent as much time chatting and catching up as we did shopping. Eddy really enjoyed himself too - he can't wait until we can work out how to get a lathe for him - he really enjoys turning bobbins! He was also in an extremely generous mood, and bought me a lovely present of stash from one of the stalls, plus I joined a bobbin a month club - and the first three bobbins for that are part of a Christmas present from a few years ago!



So what did I get... I bought some bangles for making lace Christmas ornaments, some ribbon and pins, a glass paperweight to pop my Bedfordshire flower in, some new plyers and cutters for spangling and some huge bobbins for making large scale lace with different fibres (like wool or ribbon). Eddy bought me the lovely rainbow wood knitting needles, scarf pattern and skein of 2-ply alpaca (yup, definitely going to give large scale lace a try - I just need to buy some more of the large bobbins!!), and I bought the rainbow wood crochet hook as a present for Louise.



I also bought some beautiful bobbins from (left to right) Acorn bobbins, 2 by Stuart Johnson, I can't remember who did the next one, Margaret Wall, three unspangled bobbins by Malcolm Thorpe. Sonia bought me the one on the right, which is by Sarah Jones and which says 'making lace is making friends'. The spangle on the far right is by Margaret Wall, and all proceeds are going to Comic Relief! The four buttons are by Stuart Johnson (one will go on my new cardy when I finish it), and Eddy bought me the four dividers by Brian Goodwin.

After all that shopping we went to Fodder (a lovely farm shop/deli/cafe) for a lovely (if slightly late) lunch, and bought lots and lots from the shop...

Last night I worked on Holiday Holly Biscornu - I'm about half way through the second side now:


Today we went to two garden centres and did some gardening - my roses are all pruned an ready for summer now.

Happy Stitching :)

And the winner is...

I did do the draw for my giveaway last Sunday (or, to be specific, Eddy pulled a name out of the hat). But I've been both shattered and busy all week, and not had chance to blog... There have been some days that I've been so tired that I've not felt like stitching, which is a really bad sign, and last weekend I mostly slept. Anyway, the giveaway winner was Lindsay (I must stop pulling her name out of the hat...) - congratulations Lindsay, I'll be sending a little something your way as soon as I've stitched it!!

So I've not done an awful lot of stitching this week, but it's a long time since I posted a photo of A New Beginning... so here it is:



Sorry, it was dark when I took the photo, so the colours don't show up well. I made a major error in the green motif on the bottom right corner. The top 2 rows were off by one stitch, but I decided to frog the bottom row and move the whole thing up a stitch, as the bottom isn't exactly straight anyway... I really dislike frogs...

Tomorrow we're off to Harrogate Lace event, so there will be some stash enhancement going on. My poor visa card will be in shock again...

Happy stitching everyone

Four hearts HD

So two weeks ago I went on a day long quilting course at the Skep to master using triangles... Maureen had picked out a really pretty four hearts pattern to try out. I was immediately inspired to do this in pink (not the bright reds Maureen had pulled out for us to pick from), so nipped into the shop and picked 4 fat quarters. I think the fabrics I chose have a really 'Old Colonial America' feel to them, if you know what I mean.




Sorry for the not great photos. I've left my camera at work, so these were taken on my iphone.
ETA: I have no idea why they are rotated.. I just rotated them by 90 degrees and uploaded again, and the new images are rotated through 180 degrees in blogger. So I deleted them again. I give up...

I really enjoyed the class, once again learnt some new things, and am really, really happy with my cushion cover. Even though I'm not really a pink person I think my choice of fabrics was just right. I finished the binding and did the button holes at home - which of course took over a week to do. Mostly because I couldn't remember how to make a button hole....

This weekend I'm trying to finish my cardigan (sewing it together is making my fingers hurt, so it is slow going), and am stitching on A New Beginning. I may try and share a couple of photos tomorrow.

And to remind anyone reading this tonight - there is still time to enter my giveaway - see my last post. I'm thinking of stitching a Black Bird Designs piece for the winner...

The amazing generosity of bloggers

I've been meaning to post this for a while - and in the meantime, the generosity has increased and I've still not done something about it...

A while ago Lindsay posted a really pretty TW finish called Greetings, and Karen shared her lovely Button Tree by The Drawn Thread. After commenting on how lovely both pieces were, Lindsay lent me the JCS magazine (April 1990) with the TW chart in, and Karen sent me the Button Tree chart - on the basis that I pass it on once I've stitched it. I was really delighted when they both arrived in the post a couple of weeks ago.




I then won a couple of giveaways (must be my lucky month!). First of all I won Sara's giveaway, in celebration of her having reached 30 followers. She's not sure exactly what she's stitching yet (a girl after my own heart), but it's really exciting that something will come at some point in the future! The second giveaway I won was Karin's - and I got the lovely 'green' prize, including Vicki Clayton's dragon earth thread and some of Karin's beads. The deal is that I stitch something with the thread and send a photo to Karin... any suggestions anyone? What I wasn't expecting were the lovely extras - a piece of hand dyed fabbie (a much prettier shade of green than the photo suggests - it reminds me of springtime, perfect for this time of year), some Krenik braid, mill hill seed beads and a lovely scissor fob. The parcel was wrapped in some pretty tissue paper and tied with a lovely ribbon, which of course I will also add to my stash. I feel very spoiled.



A while back, Avivah came to the UK to stay with Sarah, and she joined us at my house for a stitch and bitch. We got on really well, and since then have been blogging buddies and facebook friends. She asked me to send her some English tea before Christmas, which of course I was happy to do, and I squeezed in some chocolates as well. On Thursday I received the most amazing thank you present... 4 skeins of fingering weight yarn, hand dyed by Avivah, two sets of the cutest kitty stitch markers (which she also made), a bar of soap (and made by one of her friends) on a little soap dish that Avivah made in her ceramics class, a cross stitch kit of a Cochiti drummer and a copy of the Subversive Cross Stitch book. Again, I am blown away by her generosity (I mean, I sent her tea bags...).




If you like Avivah's yarn and stitch markers, she sells them on Hairball yarns. The yarn is a wool/bamboo/nylon mix and is amazingly soft. I keep stroking it...

So all in all I have to say thank you to each and every one of you. Your generosity is astounding, and each package was a special treat to receive. And I know that at some point there's another treat coming from Sarah! Yup, I'm a very lucky girl!!

So... in honour of exceeding 50 bloggers here (which I've been meaning to do for a while), and to mark the amazing generosity of my blogging friends, I'm hosting my own giveaway. I'll stitch something (no idea what - well some idea, but nothing concrete) for the lucky winner, and add a few goodies to the package. To enter, comment on this post before midnight a week today (Saturday 19th March).

Happy Hedgerow Birds!

This is a quick post, as I'm meeting two friends for dinner shortly. I've been meaning to post this for days now, just have no time... Hedgerow Birds is finished!!




I have a few other things to share, hopefully I'll have time to blog at the weekend.

Happy Stitching x

TUSAL

I've had a busy week this week, and am about to go out for another quilting class. More on that later!

It's time to post a photo for the TUSAL:


Most, if not all, of the ORTS I've added this month have been from Hedgerow Birds. The beady eyed amongst you will see it creeping into the corner of this photo... I'll show a proper photo of it when I'm next online.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. After my quilting class I aim to do some knitting and to pick up another WIP - or maybe even a new start. It depends how the mood takes me!

Happy stitching x

March goals

It's that time of the month again....

February in review:
1) Finish sewing in the threads on the Bedfordshire flower, and also complete a lace ornament I have almost done yes to the flower, no to the ornamant. Disgracefully really, as it is so close!
2) Work on another lace project nope
3) Work on Hedgerow Birds yes, lots!
4) Work on another WIP no, but did start and finish a bookmark, and started a biscornu
5) Do some quilting yes, 2 more blocks done
6) Maybe start some knitting and this is where I did a lot - knitted 1 scarf, started another scarf, and knitted about 1/2 a cardigan!

So what would I like to achieve in March?
1) Finish Hedgerow Birds
2) work on another WIP
3) knit the rest of the cardigan
4) make some lace (anything would do)
5) do some quilting
6) start TW's Fruit Bell Pull, now I have all of the supplies
7) I would also really like to get more of the biscornu done, but I've found the 32ct fabric hard on my eyes (which is unusual for me), so we'll see

And if I do achieve all that it will be a miracle!