Dodger meeting day

This year has been so wonderful, I have had the opportunity to meet many of my cyber pals and fellow textile artists and yesterday was no exception. I was rather nervous as I had never met Penny before, and she and her husband John were over in the UK for a short holiday. Such excitement when she agreed to come and visit me at home. A number of us have chatted over the years via the Internet and posted photos and of course blogged about what we do, and recently we have taken to meeting up if possible, if we are in the same country or sometimes at one of the big UK shows.

Penny arrived for lunch yesterday and had bought along some of her wonderful bead work to show me.

We were just starting to look at the canvas work she had created, when Gill arrived she could not stay long as she had to prepare for her next visit to Saigon. (Its all right for some!). Whilst Gill is in Laos she is taking part in a natural dyeing workshop see here, she has promised to blog about it. Can't wait. Fascinating.

Shortly afterwards Sue arrived. After all the greetings, we were all sat on the floor around the chow table and became totally engrossed in the show and tell.

We looked at Penny's wonderful bead and canvas work and sketchbooks to die for..... Sue had bought her rust dyed fabrics for us to oooohh and aaaahh over, as well as her Willcox and Gibbs machine. Gill had bought a tiny printer with her to show us. So cute it prints tiny "moo" size photos which are sticky backed. Very " Blue Peter!" ( sorry its a Brit Children's show for anyone who does not know). I took the opportunity to show my machine embellished samples from the course Dale has been running in OZ.

Interestingly Penny had not seen an embellisher machine before, and as Gill had bought hers along for Sue to borrow, we set them up on the dining room table so Penny could have a play. We had great fun too. John had videoed a lot of our chatter and a lot of the meeting on his camera, I still need to edit it, as it is too large a file for blogger. But here is a short video taster of Penny using the embellisher machine for the first time. This is on my little camera... so am very sorry there is no sound.

Regrettably, Sue then had to go home to her family, and Penny, me ,and our husbands went out for a meal together at a local hostelry. It was a wonderful evening which bought a great day to a fitting conclusion. I hope we can meet up again one day.