Lichens and the NEC stitching show

Last Thursday I made my way through the lakes to Keswick where I was given a friendly welcome by the local Branch of the Embroiderers' Guild. I set up my display of embroidered  Lichens on  a variety of backgrounds and photographs showing their beautiful acid colours, textures and shapes.

We started with the basic lichen made by embroidering over curly fibres to build up texture.

It was then demonstrated by reducing the size of the basic lichen it could be attached to various  backgrounds  along with textural stitches to build up the

The members of the Keswick branch enjoyed the day and here are some of their efforts below.

The next day I was up at 5 o'clock to catch the 6;23 train from Oxemholme to Birmingham International.
There were the usual stalls and some beautiful exhibitions of work to inspire everyone. I bough some threads, beads and a book and enjoyed lunch of fish and chips.See photos below

I photographed the next pieces because they were inspired by metal which is something I am working on at the moment.

The Embroiderers' Guild had a very interesting exhibition called page 17 in which members had embroidered their favourite book. It was a very beautiful idea and it was fun trying to work out some of the books.

My nephew picked me up from the NEC and I spent the weekend with him and his wife.
Over Friday night there was a blizzard and this is what the garden looked like.

On Sunday I met a friend in Birmingham for lunch which was very enjoyable as we caught up on our news. It was a cold bitter day but with 4 jumpers I was quite warm!
I returnrd home on the Monday with lots of ideas from the show.

Lichens, birds and mono printing

I have a busy week ahead of me with my embroiders' group meeting on Tuesday, leading a workshop on Lichens in Keswick on Thursday and Friday at the NEC Birmingham for a stitching show

Taking advantage of the dry sunny weather before the week of cold snowy weather,   I had begun to dye some fabric ready for the lichen workshop which you can see on the line drying.

 I also dyed some degummed silk cocoon waste to use as texture in one of my embroideries and to add texture to felt pieces for backgrounds for Lichen.They are in orange net bags to stop the fibres going all over the place.

I also acid hot dyed curly wool fibres for embroidering lichens.

I will finish packing for my workshop tomorrow.

Today I went to my embroiderers workshop which was on making reverse applique birds The tutor brought some lovely samples which you can see below.

My effort of a black tailed godwit is below and needs finishing!

I have started to make a few samples and work out what to teach and in what order for my mono printing workshop. We will print on paper and material. 

Lots of work to finish and get ready for a new workshop so another busy week and the garden needs attention!

Gardening

Just over a week a go we had a beautiful sunny day and although I needed 3 jumpers and a coat, I was able to do some gardening.
The sun opened up the crocus and they looked beautiful.

My first job was to untangle a clematis from a shrub and train it to grow up a cherry tree. I had tried to train it last year but several days of strong winds had blown it from the tree and around the shrub.
I have a attached a piece of trellis to the tree and then tied in the climber. Hopefully in the Summer/Early Autumn I will have a waterfall of clematis flowers  dangling from the cherry tree!

After a few nice days in the garden it was all downhill with snow and a bitterly cold wind. Unusually most of the country was affected. It has been the coldest weather I can remember in a long time.
Spring has therefore been delayed a little!