Dorset

Hiya

Well, I had the most fantastic time on the "Creative Applique" course down in Dorset. The little B&B I stayed at was absolutely lovely, as was the owner, Dave.

And the course itself couldn't have been run from more beautiful surroundings.

Willimien runs the courses from her studio which is attached to her gorgeous Arts & Crafts house. How I would love to have a studio like hers !! The first section is the office. You then walk through a little door into the utility part of the studio which houses the loo, butlers sinks and irons and ironing boards and then through another little door into the actual studio itself. The studio is painted completely white with lovely wooden floors. There is a giant work table in the centre of the room, lots of shelves full of fabrics, books and magazines and a couple of tables where the sewing machines live. The walls are covered with Willimien's work and the windows overlook the beautiful West Dorset countryside. Heaven !!!!

Anyway - the course itself was fantastic. Willimien is such a lovely lady, as is her daughter who also happened to be on the course, and one other lady, Ruth, who is a friend of Willimien's.

The morning started with Willimien showing us examples of her past work and explaining various techniques. We all then had to write our names onto a piece of fabric (in joined up writing !!) and then embroider over the letters ... freehand !! This was my first taste of freehand embroidery and although I felt extremely nervous, I managed it !! YAY !!

We all then had to sit down and draw a sketch of what it was that we wanted to produce. Willimien's daughter did her garden with the shed, pot plants and the cat walking along the wall, Ruth did the view from one of her windows and I did a hot air balloon floating over the tops of trees. Willimien then showed us the technique we needed to use to transfer the sketch onto a background fabric and we all then got to work dying our background fabrics and choosing complimentary fabrics to use for the applique.

After a delicious lunch which was all made by Willimien using all of her own homegrown spinach, salad, potatoes and rhubarb etc and organic eggs from the farmer at the bottom of the field, we then got back to work and the freehand embroidery began again. By 4pm and the end of the course we each had a piece of work that was virtually finished (in fact Ruth had actually finished hers), to take home and complete at home. I have to say mine wasn't the best out of the three, but hey, practice makes perfect and now I know the various techniques, I just need to practice my freehand embroidery. I came away with so much enthusiasm and inspiration that I just can't wait to finish my hot air balloon and then start on a new project. I have lots of ideas in mind and need to keep jotting them all down for future reference. Once my hot air balloon is finished I shall post a picture here (but it is nowhere near as good as Willimien's pieces !)

Since then I have been catching up with a couple of orders I received through my website, giving my blog a new look - what do you think? and finishing getting ready for the Jimmy's Farm craft fair on Monday. I think I'm just about there with the stock, it's just the packaging I need to finish now. Oh, and I just realised I forgot to go to the Bank and get a load of change .... doh !!!! Oh well, the children's moneyboxes will have to be raided !!

I'll see you again after the Craft Fair !!

xxx

What a Nightmare !

Well, from having a good start to the Bank Holiday weekend on Friday and Saturday, things have rapidly gone downhill !!

Yesterday, we had my family coming for lunch (as England were playing Australia in the World Cup Cricket and my family love to watch England playing cricket!). So, I had said that I would do a roast turkey with all the trimmings. I turned the oven on at 10.15am to pre-heat it and after 15 minutes put the turkey in. Hmmm, I thought - not particularly a warm oven, but I'll just put the turkey in anyway. 45 minutes later I went into the kitchen and thought to myself "no nice smell of turkey cooking", so I opened up the oven - no hot air - took the foil off the turkey - still smothered in unmelted butter !!! OMG I thought, the oven isn't working !! I checked the top oven and that seemed to be heating up ok, so I shoved the turkey in that instead and then phoned my Mum to tell her what had happened and asked what I should do because there was no room in the top oven to do the roasties and sausages and stuffing and stuff. She offered to do the roast potatoes for me and bring them over and we could just stick them in the top oven to warm up once the turkey was cooked and resting. Good old Mum, major roast dinner disaster averted !!

Today, we decided to take the children out on the bikes for the afternoon. We have a lovely farm track opposite where we live which leads down to the farm, fields and public footpaths. Off we went in the beautiful sunshine - once we got to the public footpath it became difficult for Sam to peddle his bike (because of the stabilisers), so I had to push his bike and my own while Paul pushed his bike with Grace on the back. Soon we came to a stile over a little stream, so after a bit of dithering we decided to lift the bikes over - all ok so far. We went through a lovely wood (still pushing all the bikes) and came out onto the small country lane at the top (which has no footpaths but lots of traffic on their way to the sale at the garden centre !!) Turn round, go back down the public footpath and take a diversion (Paul's great idea !!) across a field - by this time Paul has got Sam's bike slung across his crossbar. Eventually we got back onto the original farm track, stopped for a bit of a rest and could hear a hissing sound. It was Paul's back tyre slowing deflating. Never mind - we're only HALF A MILE from home - we'll just push it and carry on walking. WRONG !! The tyre then came off the bike. So then we have to get Grace out of the bike seat and try to get her to walk because everyone else is pushing their bikes (well actually, Paul is by now carrying his bike). Grace decides she's too tired and just lays down in the middle of the track ! So I have to dump my bike, pick her up and carry her (much screaming and thrashing about of arms and legs then ensued) all the way home and Paul had to go back for my bike later. What a lovely afternoon we had :-)

I'll update my blog, I thought to myself, that's relaxing. But of course, in my widsom I thought that it might actually be quite nice to get a custom blog template sorted out. I found a lovely free one I liked, uploaded it to my blog and it didn't work. So I deleted it and tried to reinstall the original blog template. It didn't work - I ended up with the most bizarre looking blog (so sorry if you were attempting to read my blog at this time). Finally, I've managed to get my original blog template back - well, I think it's the original one - it looks pretty similar anyhow.

So, hopefully that's my 3 disasters out of the way now. Well, it had better be - I can't cope with anymore !!

Back on to nice things now - I sold another one of my felt brooches through ebay this afternoon - hooray - they seem to be popular. I need to start restocking as I'm hoping that they'll be popular at the craft fair. Talking of craft fairs, one of my friends did the Jimmy's Farm Easter craft fair yesterday. She said it was quite slow in the morning, but picked up in the afternoon and she did well, although a number of other stallholders didn't do quite so well. I'm really hoping that her good fortune will rub off onto me and I will do well, especially as it's my first fair. Below is a picture of her beautiful stand. I really hope that I can get my stand to look as lovely as this.

If you would like to buy any of her bits and bobs, her website is www.sommerwood.co.uk. She has an amazing range and is a very talented lady. It's definitely worth a look.

I've been very busy revamping my website - do please take a look and let me know what you think www.pictureitinstitches.co.uk . I'm hoping that it's more crafty looking and also more welcoming. Whilst I was happy with the previous design, I did feel it was a bit "utility" looking, so have been playing about and came up with the latest design.

Of course, all this website design means I've been a bit lazy with my crafting lately so don't have any pictures of my own to show you today. BUT, I found this beautiful needle felted duck on the internet the other day and really hope that with a bit of practice, I can get to do something as beautiful as this :-)


Enjoy the sunshine and the rest of the Easter holidays x

It's official

I'm addicted to felt !! And yes paper-and-string, it's all your fault !!

Below are 2 photos of my latest creations using felt. The first will be framed and used as my logo/sign at the craft fairs I will be attending later this year (more about those in a mo!) I used buttons for the centres of the flowers and also as the dots on the letter "i"s



The second is a new design that I will be adding to my website and also using as an example, again, at the craft fairs so that people can commission their own "initialled" picture. I will frame this (when I get a spare 5 mins!)


So, more about these craft fairs. I was lucky enough to be asked if I would like a stand at the "Jimmy's Farm" craft fairs later this year. For those of you who don't know who Jimmy is, he is Jamie Oliver's mate and is a Pig Farmer. BBC2 have been running a series of programmes over the last couple of years about him and his quest to reintroduce a rare breed of Essex pig. The fairs will be held at the farm which is on the Essex / Suffolk Border on the 28th May (Bank Holiday Monday) and 27th August (Bank Holiday Monday). If you live nearby, fancy a great day out (they also have a Farmers market there) and would like to see my work up close, do pop along - I'd love to see you. If you're really lucky you might get to see my twig tree in all its glory (probably with Sam standing there holding it up, if I don't manage to get it to set in the pot properly !)

Yesterday, my little stash of needle felting supplies arrived, so I spent the evening stabbing myself with an extremely sharp needle (note to myself - buy a thimble). Here's a picture of my very first needle felt attempt (don't look to closely in case you see any blood - oh, and please don't laugh either !!)


Not bad I thought, considering it was a first attempt and was done completely freehand. Could do with being a little less bulky, but overall I'm pretty pleased :-)

No sign yet of my Japanese needle felting book, but it is coming from Japan so maybe I should give it a bit more time and stop mugging the postman for a week or so! As soon as it does get here I will post some more pics of the beautiful projects in there and, if I'm brave enough, show you some photos of the projects I have attempted from the book. I am hoping that my wholesale supplies of needle felting goods will be arrive within the next week or so. I shall be putting together some needle felting kits to sell at the craft fairs and also on my website and these will contain everything you need to give needle felting a go ie. needles, foam blocks, beautiful merino wools and bags and purses for you to decorate (I might even pop in a couple of plasters !) If you would like to receive details of when the needle felting supplies are added to my website, please join my mailing list on the front page of my website.

Well, I think that's it for today.

Look forward to seeing you soon x