Cold...

This was my garden this morning,

Now it would be fun if they cam to play.

C'mere give me a hug!

Thanks to Damn Cool Pics for these beauties.

Old and new old.........

In my meanderings this morning I found these two pieces. The first in a link from Sue Lawty on the conservation  of  an egyptian tunic , there is a short video here. The second is on Thistle Threads The Embroiderers Story where you can follow  the making of this stunning replica of a 17th century jacket.
It has taken three years!


I was lucky enough to visit the Plimoth Plantation  when we were in America.It is an fascinating replica of one of the first settlements, the role players were excellent.

More London

You will have gatthered by now that wandering round London is one of my delights, a few more from Saturday.

I think the sculpture by Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy was definitely Chistmassy.  "Did they use glue?" I heard a little girl ask.

Great fun to play with!

Anyone for chocolate?

This magnificant beast was in Covent Garden.

and so was this one.

and this one was in Trafalgar Suqare for a short while, global warming being aided by lots of little hands.

Inside a "polar bear"

and a final look at the square.

This may be next years Christmas card.

Christmas Shopping.......

Well a Santa outfit wasn't obligatory but there did seem to be a lot of them about when i was in London on Saturday.

I'm not sure what they were doing but they were having great fun, wish I'd worn mine.

I found the window display's a little disappointing this year.

Selfridges were very camp pantomime themes.

Me and friend in Bond Street

Fortnum and Mason had Matthew Bournes Swan Lake

 

   Very clever but not very Christmassy.

December card

http://www.textiletales.blogspot.com/

This was the Calendar Girls inspiration for December chosen by Neki.  My first thought was the embellisher but I only have heavy duty needles at the moment and I found that I lost the floating illusion which I so liked so in the end I simply layed the fibres onto the felt and then coverd them with black chiffon.

It is for Carol. I hope she likes it.The end of another year it has been fun.

It never rains......

well it rarely stops at the moment.  It's been a very up and down couple of weeks, low points, daughter trapped her finger in car door and then hurt her shoulder, son had to have his beautiful cat Shadow put to sleep because of a tumour and I lost a pendant that  I loved because  my daughter brought it back from Denmark for me and it was one of those very useful pieces. Yuk.

High points, son became a householder, there was no lasting damage to daughter and last night son and I went to the National to see Mark Ravenhill's  adaptation of Terry Pratchett's book Nation. We enjoyed the performance and then had the added bonus of meeting Sir Terry who had been sitting close by. Great stuff.

I was riveted by another performance during the interval of two young women sitting in the audience putting on their make up.  They had obviously come straight from the office and were "going on" after the play but it was fascinating because it wasn't just a quick dab with a powder puff , oh no, they laid out an array of pots and brushes which they wielded with great skill. I meant to check at the end to see if they had changed their clothes at some point during the second Act.

I can't remember the name of the shop, they sell clothes, but they must have cornered the market in old sewing machines.  I took tthese on my mobile phone so they are a bit grainy but I thought they would be fun to play with.

Here are some basic plays.

Have fun.

HEN

I had an exciting e-mail this morning ot tell me that the first edition of the Hand Embroidery Network magazine NEEDLE is now on line.  I have only had time to skim through but it looks very impressive.

This is the cover

Early Christmas....

Because we don't meet in December the Sevenoaks branch of the Embroiderers Guild had our Christmas celebration on Saturday.  Lee Ault brought some of her wonderful collection of antique and vintage dresses, which also included exquisite baby garments and handkerchieves which were definitely just for show.  The most amazing part was that she allowed us to handle the pieces, a rare priviledge.  While we relaxed , after  our huge shared lunch, Lee showed us how a dress should be packed. with layers of tissue paper in each fold and "doughnuts" of tissue packing the sleeves, it can take two hours to pack a dress properly, as Lee and her husband were off to New Zealand the next day I hoped their packing was done. Unfortunately Lee doesn't have a web site but if you ever have the chance to listen to her grab it.This is Lee in a vintage gold embroidered coat which she wore over a black dress.

Some of the lace and beaded pieces, click on them to see the detail and imagine yourself doing work this fine day in day out.

and imagine yourself doing the Charleston in this

this had a matching jacket, gorgeous!

For a bit of extra fun we had a dress the doll competition,remember those days with paper and crayons designing, colouring cutting out.  How many times did you accidentally cut off the tabs?  Queen Elizabeth won.

a few of the others