A week of fun and friends - and a good deal of hard work!

I got stuck in traffic this morning and looking out of my car window, look what I saw...

Sadly not what it seemed, and Edward wasn't at work there - it was the top of a ride at Hull Fair which is always held the second week in October. Though the brandy snap stand wasn't open for business when I drove past in this direction, by the time I drove back, the lights were on and there was even a parking space right nearby so I could jump out and make the purchase!

I've been at the Fashion and Embroidery exhibition with the Textile Treasures at Harrogate since last Wednesday, and when we'd finished packing up last night, I drove over to Hull so that I could spend an hour or two with Mummy before coming back to Gloucestershire today. Another 650 miles on the clock this week.

We got off to a good start and managed to get a few bits of our exhibition up before we were shooed out of the Harrogate showground at 6pm and went in search of a pub with food somewhere near our temporary home in Nidderdale. More of a challenge than we thought but after a bit of a detour we found The Wellington Inn

It was quite a lucky find and Susan decided we had earned a bottle of Champagne - delicious! (Thanks, Susan!) The food was yummy - we ate there three times and felt quite at home, so warm was the welcome (and so tender the steak....)

We took around 12 hours to set up the exhibition, which has 300 items in it, and finished around 6pm on Thursday, ready for the Friday opening.

This was the view for most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday! The exhibition is amazing and the comments left in the visitors book include almost every superlative we could dream of. Anyone unlucky to miss it so far can catch up in Cardiff next month, then Brighton, Glasgow and Birmingham next year.

As we drove to and from the showground, we got to see some of Harrogate but not much. Mostly we saw this

At lunchtime, we found a sunny step to sit on and the view from the other side of the building was somewhat better.

The show finished at 5pm Sunday afternoon and we set to immediately to take down and pack. We left the showground at 7.30pm, somewhat cream crackered, all four of us.

The exciting thing was meeting so many friends: Artful Dodger friends, WI member friends, knitty friends, stitchy friends, ladies who proudly announced their part in some of the textile treasures, Kate from the Quilters Guild who turned out to be my exact contemporary at St Johns, York all those years ago, and Margaret, WI steward who went to the same school as I did, in Hull. We were so well versed in our German conjunctions by good old "Bill" Sykes that we could still recite them word for word. It was as if we'd written them all in our "Sykes Guide to Success" yesterday.

And of course, my colleagues, the real Textile Treasures; Pat, Sue, Sue and Susan - cheers team!!

Another beginning

Yesterday afternoon I was in Cricklade, at the Blackthorn Centre for the start of something rather exciting - the Great Western Embroiderers. Maggie and her friend Kath identified the need for such a group in the area and twenty two like-minded women turned up to find out what it's all about. We got off to a great start.

As well as familiar faces and good friends it's always great to meet new ones: Anna, and Jackie amongst others. Nice to meet you all!

It all began here

Whilst up in Hull at the weekend, I spotted this little cloth which has always lived on a small coffee table in Mum's sitting room. It's the first piece of sewing I ever did - worked whilst at Beverley Road Infant school, aged 5 or 6. Everyone (boys included) made a similar cloth from binca and Anchor Soft Embroidery cotton . We were allowed to choose the colour for each row of stitches, the teacher started us off on a new stitch and we were expected to continue round. In today's terms, I guess she achieved differentiation by starting us off on more challenging stitches, depending on our progress towards the centre. All very impressive, I think.

Equally impressive is the wonderful 50's print on the reverse. The teacher herself finished off the back for us.

Good grief, she sews!

A day at home, set aside for "me". I've had a little project on hand for a few weeks (thanks Fanny!) and today was the day to make the blueprint. Took a while to sort myself out - how long is it since I used the software with my sewing machine to access stitches? - and I never did manage to track down the particular stitch I was after but made do with a similar one which worked just fine.

The product of my labour is now drying in the sunshine (there's a layer of acrylic paint on it) and will be finished later. Seems ages since I fiddled about like this, with fabric and thread and I must say, it's been fun.

Here's to more days fiddling about! I think I have another free day scheduled sometime next March...

Off to see Atonement later, which should be good, too.

Art in Action

Together with what seemed to be the rest of the country, we went to Art in Action at Waterperry House today. It used to be a regular event in our diary and one to which we looked forward, but in recent years we felt it had become a little samey and so we deliberately chose not to go for a while. We stayed on the mailing list however and with the weather forecast promising the one fine day this week, we gathered up m-i-l Bettine and headed off first thing ths morning. We still didn't beat the queues

Everything is beautifully organised however, so it didn't take long to get through the gate and into the first marquee: Drawing , where we admired the work of Gill Crabbe Akasaka.

Sad to say, we didn't really tune into much of the painting, nor most of the sculpture....and our days of collecting treacly ceramics are over. We loved Jenny Crisp's baskets, however.

Shame I have no need for a boat - isn't this a lovely one? (Butler & Co)

In the textiles tent, it was interesting to chat to the embroiderers working on a new set of vestments for St Pauls Cathedral. So willing to share their knowledge and experience, delighted to find so many people interested in this magnificent project.

But what makes Art in Action special is the way in which visitors can get involved and have a go themselves. For some reason, we found this year's show rather more commercial than we recalled and so we were pleased to find this corner of the calligraphy tent set aside for what we think to be the principal purpose of Art in Action.

It was a good day, we enjoyed ourselves and can't complain about the commercial aspects when we left one or two pounds behind ourselves, mostly in the Rainbow Silks till but also for a set of Inktense pencils to take on holiday, since my Caran d'Ache Neocolour crayons have become so mucky.

Thanks to my internet friends (and Dijanne's worksheet), I have a few ideas of what to do with my Lutradur, but ideas of what the Evolon is going to do for me will be gratefully received! (No, I don't plan any hi-tech wiping....)