hospital and royal wedding!

Phew! what a weekend. Starting on Friday with the royal wedding. I was glued to the TV while Geoff was busying himself in the garage and reading. I was therefore a bit surprised when at 4pm I couldn't find him. He had a minor surgical procedure on Thursday so when I found him in bed shivering and with a rageing temp. alarm bells rang. On phoning the hospital I was told to get him in straight away. He had developed an infection so spent the next three days in the hospital on a drip and having different anti biotics pumped into him. I have just been to fetch him home so have to see that he rests now!

teaching, Canvey and Stow on the wold

Just Had a great few days. Last week I had a visitor from Australia working with me. She was a wonderful lady called Jeannie and she came to spend two days with me to learn how to make a silk bowl. Her family thought that she was very brave coming to stay with someone she didn't know especially as she was 78 hard to believe when I met her. She traveled from Cheshire where she was staying with her son to Swindon by train. She was brilliant and nearly completed a bowl while she was with me. I felt I had made a friend.  After we saw her off on Friday we went to my mothers at Canvey for Easter joining Sarah Andy and Fraser who were there already. Fraser enjoyed his chocolate rabbit hunt on Sunday. We hid them round the house and garden and he found them all.
I then spent Tuesday teaching embroidered bowls at Stow on the Wold Embroiderers Guild.

I had a brilliant time at the weekend at the Uttoxeter Quilt and Embroidery show. This little Chameleon caused a lot of comment. He is my latest piece of work and great fun to make. he is about to pounce on the Dragonfly but unfortunitely has lost his tongue. Well actually he has forgotten that it is curled up in the back of his mouth.

Tree dweller

This is a piece of work that I am taking to Quilts and Embroidery 2011 at Uttoxeter. It was inspired by a recent visit to a Reptile shop. I spotted this little lizard poking out of the hollow tree and decided to attempt to make him.I was lucky enough to be allowed to photograph him as the owners got him out of his tank. He was really timid and kept trying to hide but I got some good shots. Once I had made the piece of fabric by machine stitching scrim onto felt I cut him out and constructed him over a wire base. The tree trunk was made from silk cap by my bowls method then shaped over a Pringle box. I am now gong to make another one for a chameleon which I have just finished.

Some of the photos of the guests who attended the surprise 65th birthday/retirement party we arranged for my husband Geoff. How he didn't guess what was going on I shall never know but he had no idea. I had to tell loads of white lies its. a wonder my nose didn't grow to three times its usual length. He thought that we were going to a Gilbert and Sullivan party. I had arranged for friends and my daughter Sarah to prepare the food and the rest of the kids to go and decorate the room.

He is now looking forward to present which is to drive a steam train!!!

Here is my second doll and hollow tree trunk inspired by the Monarch Butterfly.

I used my bowls technique for her skirt. The wings are made of organza which was stitched using the new stickybacked washaway fabric. The monarch Butterflys were made the same way but using cotton.

Just a few photos taken between performances of Patience at Steam Museum last week. We had a fantastic week with four great performances. I made my costume by utilising a dress of my daughters (size 10). I cut it straight up the middle of the front, put a panel in and added sleeves. It was then trimmed with a beautiful braid that a friend of mine had brought me back from Oman. The whole outfit went together really well. I had the photo of me on Thomas taken for my grandson. Someone who knows me well and went to see the show said that it had taken her a while to recognise me in the wig. At least it kept me warm.