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.