Portrait Quilt finished!

At last, after nearly a month, I have finished my quilt. Uh-huh, oh yes, it's true. Loads and loads of hand stitching. I machine stitched the background quilting though as I didn't fancy hand sewing all that! Anyway, here's the finished quilt. See how I have all those pretty red buttons in my arms? That's my latest passion that is, red buttons! :0)

Tomorrow I start on a challenge quilt for my web group The Fibre Pirates. I have sent a package to the coordinator in the US which contains lots of lovely scraps of fabric, ribbons, threads and beads. Yesterday I received a similar package from the States (from a mystery donor) and I have to see what I can make from it. When everyone is finished we get to find out who got our package and then we send the finished piece back to them. I'm really looking forward to making my 'thing' and I already know what I am going to do, but it has to remain a secret for now! So you won't get to see the progress I'm afraid. I'll have to report back when the challenge is over in two months time.

Sewing For Pleasure And Hobby Crafts

Our mini break was wonderful. First of all we spent two days at Clumber Park in the motorhome. We lost a day because I couldn't drive in the high winds, but we eventually got there at abort tea time. Here's the view through the front window:



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)

Stitched Portrait Update

I have now stitched all the main outlines on the portrait quilt. It came along much quicker than I expected. I am jolly proud of all the hand stitches because as Bry knows, I am not very patient with hand sewing usually! I am a bit miffed though that Gary reckons my nose looks like an erect penis! Now that's all I can see!!!!

I'm not really sure where to go from here. I wanted to stitch and embellish it to death and I feel like a need a day or two to mull over the next step. Here's my favourite bit in close-up:

All Change!

Just a quickie to let you know that we are changing Bobbie's name to Suzie. We are sick of everyone calling her a 'he'! It will be difficult to change after three weeks though. :0)

New Piece Of Work

I have started a new needlework project. It's a self portrait of sorts done in caricature.

Here's the first paper draft. I will surround myself with familiar words and symbols. Obviously the syringe is for chemo and not because I'm a drug addict!

Here is the start I already made on fabric. I fused the pieces onto the backing using my own hand dyed fabrics. From now on most of the work will be hand stitching. I really wanted to do something complicated with my hands and thought this would be fun to embellish with buttons and threads and beads. I shall keep you regularly updated on the progress. :0)

The Puppet Catcher!

Last night was the premier of Emily's puppet film. She worked on it over the half term with the Puppetechnics team: http://www.puppetechnics.com/

There was a red carpet and the press were there and Emily's going to be in the paper. :0) When they gave the presentation speech Emily was mentioned because she had the biggest puppet parts and did most of the puppet work. Emily plays Robbie Green:

and Miss Hooper:

All the scenery is made and painted by the same people that do Coronation Street. It's all very cool. Here's the link to the film. You can watch the whole thing here (in two parts):

http://www.puppetechnics.com/My%20player%20Puppetcatcher%20part%20one.htm

I hope you enjoy it, we certainly did. We were roaring with laughter! Were's so proud of Emily. :0)

Poor Bobbie!

Look at my poor baby! I took her to the vet on Wednesday because she had a very sore eye and he said she had a pinprick ulcer. Despite eye ointment by Friday the ulcer had grown to about 1/4" across and he said that if he didn't operate the next day she may lose her eye. They have scraped away all the dead tissue on the eye (yuk!) and then sewn her third eyelid (where is the second one?) to her upper eyelid. She is so dopey after her anaesthetic and it's so cute. Doesn't she look like a little teddy bear in this picture. My poor, poor darling. :0(

Apart from that, I am on my second round of radiotherapy in as any weeks! First I had five days on my spine lesion as the pain was getting too much, now I am halfway through a nine day block on my hip again. Apart from being tired, there are no side effects. I will expect some burning in my groin like last time, but it shouldn't be as bad as it is a lesser dose apparently. Seeing as I am only allowed two goes at radiotherapy in any place I am expecting my mobility to be seriously compromised if the pelvis lesion starts playing me up again later on as this is already my second go. My Oncologist said this round of radio' should keep the pain away for many months, but not years. :0(