Back to blogging

I've just realised that it's 7 months since my last entry here so I'm going to try to blog regularly from now on. Lots has happened during that time including a lot of stitching in various forms - mainly bridesmaids dresses for Jon's wedding in August.

Last week I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace - I decided to go twice, once on my own and again with a friend. When I went on thursday I booked to do 2 workshops in the afternoon, the first one was Silk Shading and the second Goldwork, both with a tutor from the Royal School of Needlework. It's ages since I really did any embroidery but I really enjoyed doing the Silk Shading and have managed to complete the design since getting home. I didn't think I was doing the wings particularly well when I was in the class, however the tutor and those around me seemed to think that it was really good showing a good direction of the stitches - see what you think. (photo tomorrow as its too late to do it tonight). Most of my purchases at the show were linked to dyeing fabric including a book on tray dyeing and a book about Shibori.

I started the Goldwork design in class but haven't had a chance to finish it yet - it has inspired me to get a goldwork design of harebells that I bought at the show a couple of years ago and need to finish.

In the meantime I am in the process of quilting a quilt for Matthew who has just gone off to university a couple of weeks ago. It was supposed to be ready for him to take with him, however, when I got to the quilting stage I was rushing to get it finished and made a mess of it so I pulled it out and started the quilting again. This time I am much happier with it - I quilted much of it in the ditch, I then digitised an african drum outline to use as a quilting motif on some of the plain blocks and am now adding some more straight quilting lines diagonally across some of the blocks. I will try to finish it tomorrow and add the binding.