We spent two lovely quiet days just reading and sewing. Unfortunately I couldn't go out walking because my hip is still giving me trouble. :0(
After that we drove home to exchange the camper for the car and then tootled off to a beautiful country club hotel in Birmingham for another two days where we met our friends Dawn and Glen. The purpose of the hotel stay was so that me and Dawn could take in the 'Sewing for Pleasure' and the 'Hobby Crafts' exhibitions at the NEC. Here's our room at the hotel:
Or should I say here's our first room at the hotel. I was really looking forward to spreading out in my own bed but that was before Gary threw a whole cup of tea over both beds and we had to be changed to another room! Although the new room had one ma-hoos-sive bed it was much the same as the first.
I was worried that my bad hip would put a stop to our day at the NEC, but on the day I was ok. There was so much to see, I was like a kid in a candy shop! The first hall was 'Sewing for Pleasure'. I had exactly £100 birthday money to spend. I of course bought some beads, then some glorious threads which Dawn and I plan to wind onto bobbins next weekend (our Easter camping trip) I also bought some wonderful polyester ribbon thread stuff which I plan to dye. Dawn bought a beautiful X-stitch kit depicting poppies that I love. I hinted so I might get a finished version one day!
One of the stalls was demonstrating lace making. A wonderful old guy was showing us how it's done. It looked so confusing with all those bobbins flying around! The old man let me have a go and I did realise that there is a simple method that can get as complicated as you like.
Then we found a knitted house! Absolutely everything was knitted from the chairs, stove, logs by the fire, sleeping cat on the bed to a box of Swan Vestas and a fire extinguisher on the black stove!
We also found this amazing beaded lizard made from thousands of tiny seed beads. Isn't he beautiful?:
Here's one last photo of a bin liner fashion. If you refer back to my New Year blog you'll find some photos of a game we play every year. Two teams have to come up with a fashion outfit using only a roll of bin liners, a pair of scissors and a reel of sticky tape. I'd say this outfit is rather better than our attempts!:
The next hall was 'Hobby Crafts' which held exhibitors showing all sorts of crafts but of course I homed in on the card making stuff. We were particularly taken with a demonstration on how to use mica powders. Leeta and mum had given me £20 each to spend on their behalf so I bought them each a set of the powders and a special ink pad while I spent my remaining £45 on a very cool set of roller stamps to use with the powders. No doubt I shall blog when the three of us get together to use them. :0)
