Taking a breather.

Phew... busy times this week. There have been three birthday parties to celebrate, nine year old granddaughter and then her sisters first birthday, and not forgetting my youngest sons birthday as well. Also a host of baby sitting duties, due to illnesses.

The stitching this week has involved a wonderful meeting of the Great Western Embroiderers. I was showing them some of the stuff I do with the embellisher, and everyone had a go. Some great work was being done by the members.



Anna also demonstrated how to do embellishing by hand... think it is called needle felting when it is executed in this way. She is very good at it. I always end up spearing myself.. give me the machine every time!

Next week we are going into Steam Museum in Swindon, and will be sketching on site, in preparation for our exhibition with the Museum on their open weekend in September. Don't worry I will remind you nearer the time if you want to go and see the exhibition.

This week also saw the end of my teach the teacher sessions. We ended our series of sessions with one of my ex. students Fred, (Made me feel quite old) showing the teachers how to do cartooning and sequence drawing. He is a very natural teacher and we had a wonderful time.

Can you guess what I have been doing today? These should be a clue, aren't they beautiful. Aparently they are a Dutch breed of sheep. Zwartbles. If you want to know more about the breed.. click here

If you have not guessed what I have been doing this should help.......

Got it ? No ......!

Ok this is the final photo.

Yes I have been learning to use a spinning wheel. Great Fun. I was allowed to borrow a spinning wheel as I do not have one. I have never used one before, and the teacher said I should get one straight away as I am a natural. Praise indeed! I was really chuffed. So I suppose I had better start saving my pennies.

I have one full bobbin of Zwartbles wool and another full bobbin of white fleece ( from Jeremy.. the sheeps name!). They just have to be plyed together now. The sheep reside on the nearby farm and their wool is fantastic to spin... each sheep gives an enormous amount of wool too. The farmers wife sells it at a very reasonable price ... but I have no wheel!