Many things

Many things to tell you! I always tell myself "I'll write a blog post about that" and then time gets away from me again, and then another thing happens and I say "I'll add that to the blog post I was going to write about that other thing"...and so on.

Where to start?!

Workshops

Just before Christmas I had a very exciting meeting with Becky Drinan from Dot to Dot Studio in East Hoathly, East Sussex. Becky is the dressmaking tutor who taught Jade the Girl with the Bright Red Hair, youngest ever participant and finalist in the 2016 BBC Great British Sewing Bee.

Anyway, back to Dot to Dot. We've agreed three dates for one-day machine embroidery workshops for this coming year, with yours truly teaching up to 8 people a little project in the Dot to Dot studio.

The first workshop is Saturday 13 April, making little books with appliqué covers and stitched cord fastenings.

These are great little book covers for using up all your snippets and oddments of fabric, practising free motion embroidery, and learning how to stitch a cord. Your little book could become a needlecase (easiest) or a cover for a handmade paper book, or a reusable slip cover (a little more involved - for the keen!).

The second workshop on 17 August is machine embroidered landscapes - again, using lots of scraps of fabrics and different threads and fibres to create either an imagined landscape, or maybe recreate a favourite place in stitch.

In the third workshop on 23 November we will be making embroidered Christmas baubles!

To book your place with Dot to Dot please click here.

Exhibition 1

In 2017 I exhibited at Ramster for the very first time, and I'm going to be there again this year. The show runs every day from 16 to 31 March, and is well worth a visit - two gorgeous old halls in a stately home, absolutely packed with embroidered textiles. Much of the work is for sale, and there are always hundreds of artist cards to choose from, unframed pieces of work, and other bits and bobs for sale.

I think I will enter my purple swirl

and my two little birdie pieces that I've been working on recently. Here's the first one (sorry the photo isn't great, I blame the lack of daylight!)

Exhibition 2

Maggie Grey has kindly invited me to take part in the Brockenhurst Needlework Fiesta in the New Forest on 27 and 28 April. I'll be exhibiting and selling work, as well as handmade cards and packs of goodies. I've never been to the Fiesta before, but I know it's a popular event - and I love the New Forest! The last time I was there we were camping at Easter, and our tent zip froze. While we were struggling with frozen fingers to escape into the frosty morning, we were taunted by the smell of sizzling bacon from all the cosy campervans and caravans. I've booked a B&B, but I am tempted to take my little tipi and camp...it won't be that cold, will it? It's nearly May! 

I've also given one talk already this year, and one workshop, with another three workshops and a talk to come - all before Ramster kicks off!

So at the moment I am VERY BUSY trying to make enough things for all these different things, and keep all the plates spinning! But busy is good, and it takes my mind off politics, albeit temporarily.

Finally...

Back in November I did a couple of little questionnaires asking for your thoughts about what I'm up to, and also about the creative process. Thank you to everyone who took the time to take my little surveys - the results were really interesting to read and very encouraging!

The results of the creativity survey are being compiled into a project that I've had ticking over for a while now. I have a Big Idea about the creative process, in particular how to get "unstuck", and also how to make your work "better" (something that is also hard to define).

Personally, I get stuck all the time - and I'm a master procrastinator, so I have much experience in this area! Can you tell?!

As a tutor, I like to think that I help people to get the best out of their stitching when they come to one of my classes or a workshop. I've worked with many many people now, and I can usually tell where people need a little prod to produce really wonderful work.

The problem is, do I turn this project into a mini online course? A mini book? A longer course? A longer book?! Maybe I'll do them all. When I've got a moment.

Thank you for reading!

Many Things

I have many different things going on - a lot of them in my head but a lot of them are on a Master To Do List.

Something that's been on the list and in the diary since June last year is a course at the Weald and Downland Museum on making books, birthday present from the bro. Fantastic stuff. I've made little books before, including with Gina, but it was good to try something different yet again: I've never had the patience (or the clever little table-top stool thing, cradle thing) to make a book with ribbons, so this weekend I did. Hurrah.

So that's something ticked off the list, off the diary. Unfortunately, Make More Books Because I'm Now Obsessed has now added itself to my Master To Do List of Projects Started and Things I Want To Do.

These are things that I absolutely MUST do, and apart from the DIY one that's sneaked onto the list, I actually WANT to do all of them - they are good things to do. The list is currently running at:

1. Delve into the baskets beneath my desk and pull out the clothes/old shirts that I was going to alter and actually do it, and make dresses with fabric/patterns bought previously...ahem...several years ago

2. Finish online course started on Play Therapy

3. Finish online course started on Coaching

4. Continue language revision/learning - French, German - using various means including apps such as Memrise and Lingvist. I've also just discovered Gabriel Wyner of Fluent Forever who has also written a book and blah blah etc - basically, there are so many things to investigate! All so interesting! But I never get round to doing any of it!!! I want to add Danish to the list of things to learn - too much? Don't answer.

5. Read various ebooks on language learning

6. Read various ebooks acquired over the last few years on all manner of things, including Food/Recipes and Creativity. And Procrastination. Yup, probably a few unread books about procrastination lurking on my Kindle app. Irony.

7. Empty the compost bin and bung a load on the raspberries and rhubarb, then restart the Bokashi system (halted temporarily because the compost bin is FULL).

8. Decorate the stairwell - paint the walls, but also - sigh - strip, sand and repaint the banisters.

9. Finish the Do What You Love for Life course started in January. I came to a grinding halt when it asked me to consider all things to do with "money". I'm not good at confronting that one.

10. Start and finish online course on WordPress

11. After WordPress course, completely overhaul my website

12. Meanwhile, at least update the gallery section of my website; hopelessly out of date

13. Start and finish online course in NLP

14. Start to firm up ideas for ebooks, PDF tutorials and online courses that I have had for ages

15. Be More Consistent - with blogging, Facebook page, Etsy shop and so on.

16. Make More Books

17. Obsessively search charity shops for interesting second-hand books and papers to Make More Books.

18. Find another 30 hours in the day.

Soapy Stevens

Hello again! It's been a while, and as usual I've been busy, and taking photos the while, always with the intention of writing a blog post - but not actually writing it! (When I was in college, I used to think about writing or phoning home, and then when I did, Mother would say she had been thinking about it too - and writing letters in her head but never sitting down to put them on paper and post them. Actually, we're both the same now, and it's 24 years later!)

At the start of the holidays we had The Girls for a sleepover and a climbing party, to celebrate Girl's 14th birthday.

Then it was the exhibition in Seaford with my usual last-minute flurries of preparation. We had nearly 600 visitors in all, and everyone sold something - hooray! It was utterly lovely to spend time just sitting, either in the gallery or on the beach, without the guilt that I should be "doing" something.

Since the exhibition finished I've caught up on some gardening, and even done a bit of dressmaking. Remember when I made a sort of sack? This time I've made a voluminous blouse. My reasoning being the Japanese models in my dress books are so slight and willowy, I need to scale up and cut out a 12 not a 10. And then my seam allowances are probably a bit off too, so I keep ending up with large, shapeless bags. Comfy, but definitely bags! Just as well I don't teach dressmaking...

In news of sourdough, I have well and truly got this nailed, I can tell you. Look at that:

And the "crumb" shot:

And how about hot cross buns from the excess starter?! Genius! Ok, they were ready at 10pm on Easter Sunday so a little more work may be needed on the timings, but they were utterly delicious for breakfast!

And today yesterday I finally got round to making a batch of seaweed soap, something I've been meaning to do since last August. The packets of dried seaweed from the French health food shop have been sitting there waiting patiently, but I admit I chucked away my hand collected and "home dried" (ie laid out on a bin bag in the sun until crispy) seaweeds from the beach. 

It was all a bit of a palaver, involving multitudinous implements, pans and items of protective clothing, but the smell lingering in the house now is amazing, and no! It's not what you think! I used sweet geranium, bergamot and patchouli essential oils (and a touch of green clay). I can't wait until the four weeks is up and I can try it! 

* Two Way Stretch, 1960, starring Peter Sellers, Bernard Cribbins et al

Let the tidying begin. Or not...

First though, here is the craziness of last week in pictures (but not including the train'n'tram trip to the Big Blue scandinavian emporium of white picture frames and the "interesting" journey home again with three Big Blue Bags in a heat wave...)

Stitching a new sort of doodle on a piece of embellished felt

Foiling a huge piece of painted Bondaweb and felt, ready for sari silk strips. Note that the kitchen worktop is not man enough for the job, so I've now moved onto the dining room table ...

Stitching said huge piece of foiled sari silk strips.  

The complete Slater, put to good use sticking down my book covers.

Sari silk bead production line

Picture/gift bag production line

The beginnings of a big foiled bit of velvet (the random one I mentioned last time)

Now with foil

and now with stitch

to be turned into book covers, a bit like this one (sorry for bad pic).  Glad I did these, turned out to be popular!  I also did a demo of this technique on the stand, and lots of people came to watch, even the "serious" oil/acrylic painting types over the way!

My lovely huge corner stand at Art Trail.  Boy, was there Much Faffing, I've never taken so long to put up a display before.  Pleased with my sticks!

But just LOOK what I woke up to on Sunday.  It's Tuesday evening and I still can't face it!  Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow...

Chasing my tail

Nothing new there then!

Why is a half-term "holiday" busier than a normal week?

Maybe it's something to do with the presence of a Small Child who actually isn't that small any more...

I started the week with all sorts of good intentions, including finishing my pencil bundle:

But that's as far as I've got.

I read a book about pencil sketching while waiting to donate a pint of blood last Tuesday.  I got all inspired and even called in at the shops on the way home to buy some more pencils (ahem, like I didn't already have any...). 

So much for that then.

We did make it out to our favourite Sunday morning place though, and stopped a while to smell the Daphne:

and admire some magnificent fungi

And the past two days I have cleared away all the dead things from the garden.  (By dead things I do just mean stalks and twigs and lacy old courgette stems and six-foot dried fennel stems, nothing more gruesome than that...)

It's still cold, but there is hope - little buds and green bits poking their noses out of the ground despite the frost lingering in the shady bits i.e. all of my back garden - I found a wonderful disc of ice on the top of the Girl's green bucket...

Tomorrow we are off to see this exhibition minus the Small Person.  I'm sure the Small Person would very much enjoy a trip to London and a museum, but I'm also sure the Small Person's attention span would be shorter than mine and Trouble would ensue and it would end in tears and grumpiness (from both of us).

Finally, this evening I've been particularly busy with some heroic kitchen action:  I looked in the fridge earlier and discovered eight pints of milk that was all about to go out of date.

So far I've made a toad-in-the-hole, custard, cheese sauce, a mammoth rice pudding, 30 drop scones, a pint of yoghurt and a ginger cake...was there anything else I could have done?!

Maybe it's time for a cocoa...

It's the law

...to have a honey ice-cream

if you ever find yourself in Aberaeron.

Like the Girl and I did on Monday.

It was our first day "out" since arriving here on Friday:

Not least because the car suspension had complained very loudly about being driven down the track to the cottage and we didn't want to push our luck by driving out again until we really needed to:

This is the view from near the top, by the road (I say road, it has grass growing up the middle and the hedgerow threatens to touch both sides of the car...)

And this is approaching half-way towards homemade cakes and an awaiting Mamgu:

Thank heck there is now a cattle-grid and not a closed gate.  That was always fun when arriving in the dark of winter...

Since we returned, well-fed on welsh cakes, maids of honour and apple tart, the Girl has been a bit busy:

We finally dug out the peg loom (lurking in the office for over a year - ahem) and a table mat was born:

And the next day, the Girl sat herself down with her box of bits and whipped up a little improv embroidery:

Seriously jealous. 

And a little bit worried that the Girl has a box of bits already. Scraps of fabric, the odd button, oddments of thread.  Uhoh.

But I did at least create something the day before we went away:

(I'm the blue one, since then I've unbeaded a bit - I had to finish for the photo in a rush).

A lovely workshop with the lovely Jill Flower.  I've wanted to do the flower workshop for AGES and I finally got the chance!  Hooray! 

So much to do, so little time to blog

A coupla weeks ago when I was under enormous pressure to create, starting a blog was so irresistible I just couldn't wait...since then of course, I haven't posted a thing.

I have finished the invitations:



But I haven't stuck them onto cards yet...

I have also made bread and bread rolls, several times, to my own tweaked recipe. It usually looks a little better than the finished result here, but on this occasion I had left the dough too long on its second rising and it went a bit lopsided: