Beading with Marcia DeCoster

The 1st weekend this month I was lucky to attend two bead workshops with Marcia DeCoster a Bead designer from the USA, our bead group and a couple of others had arranged for her to come over and teach some classes. She started out in Robinhoods Bay on the North Yorkshire Coast.

Saturdays class was called a touch of whimsy and we nearly manged to finish it in class, I did finish it that evening and wore it the next day.

Sunday Class was called Romantica it was a lariat, I didn't manage to do as much this time.

This above pictures are of Marcia's lariet as you need to make loads of components, before making it up.

We all had a great weekend beading with Marcia.

I have not done much beading this year but the class got me going again so I got a UFO out from a class I did last September with Melanie Potter, most of the others have finished theirs so I thought I should get on with it.

This is what I had done in class last year this is what I have done in the last 2 weeks.

I have also signed up to a mystery week long bead along which starts the 25th July there is some pre beading to be done bezelling some riviols. 

Gifted Gorgeousness July

I am a couple of days late but here is what  I have gifted in the last month and received.

I took part in a Christmas Ornament Exchange with HOE.

This is what I sent to Carol in the USA a Lizzie Kate pattern called Noël.

 I received this beautiful ornament in the post from Gabriele in Australia,  it is from Country Cottage Needleworks stitched in recommended threads, 

At the end of June when I went away with my mother for a stitching weekend I made myself a  project bag using a piece of stitching I had done from Little House Needlework.

I had also made myself a thread Wardrobe which I had seen on a Blog.

I also made myself a matching thread catcher I decided to make my Mother a project bag as well this matched a little bag I had previously made her.

I made quite a few of my thread catchers and gave them away to the ladies we sat with,

One of the ladies sent me a surprise in the post as a thank-you for the thread catcher this is what I received.

Woolfest

I have wanted to visit Woolfest for sometime but we are usually in Scotland this week so I have not been able to visit, so this year since we were not in Scotland we decided to go. This is their 11th year.

From where we live it is about a 3 hour journey so we decided to come up to Penrith yesterday and stayed overnight in a loverly B&B, then off to Woolfest this morning taking only 40 mins to get there my Hubby dropped me off, he went off to Senhouse museum at Maryport.

I have been to Yarndale in Skipton the last 2 years so I knew what to expect, this was a lot bigger and there were more animals to see.

I think these Angora rabbits are ready for a trim.

These Alpaca's were really cute they were very small.

Hardwick sheep.

Valis Blacknose Sheep.

Teeswater Sheep.

Ronaldsay Ram.

Members of the The Wool Clip organise Woolfest they are a Cumbrian cooperative of fibre artists, they had an exhibition of their work,

This is our B&B tonight it has it's own Roman well in their entrance hall this excited Hubby as he is into the Romans as we are off to Roman Vindolanda Fort and Museum tomorrow.

The sat nav took use round in circles  and down many country roads, so we feel lost.

We had a great bar meal here forgot to take a picture of dessert had the ice cream rasberry surprise 4 scoops of ice cream, raspberries, meringue and loads of cream!!

A stitching weekend away.

I have just come back from a stitching weekend with the Cross-Stitch Guild at the leeds Hilton Hotel.

The weekend was centred around the Shuttleworth Collection at Gawthorpe Hall, a private viewing of some of the collection had been arranged, unfortunately we were unable to go around the Hall as it has been closed due to some damage.

This is the part of the stable block where we viewed the collection.

We where provided with refreshments and lunch and we had a place to stitch as the group was split into 2 to view the collection.

These are some of the ladies in our room at the hotel stitching, my Mother and I have come on quite a few of these weekends before so we know quite a lot of the other ladies.

Here is Jane Greenoff who runs the Cross-Stitch Guild and organised the weekend we had ladies a far away as Austrialia and the USA attend.

Jane runs her own cross-stitch design company and has published many books, she brought a lot of goodies with her for us to buy. I did manage not too spend much money I bought her recent book.

Our stitching kit had the pattern to do all the above samples, with thread and linen, I decided to do the sampler this is what I managed to stitch.

I had a great weekend renewing old friendships, just relaxing, stitching and eating food I had not had to cook.

Gifted Gorgeousness

Bit late this month!

I took part in an Christmas Ornament exchange this month I stitched a Lizzie Kate pattern from the Jingles series  called noël for Carol in the states.

I receive a beautifull Ornament from Gabrielle in Austrialia from The Country Cottage Needleworks range.

Quilting treat

I am coming to the end of a weeks holiday, I started out on Saturday doing a quilt workshop at the Viking Loom with Stuart Hillard, the class was the daisy chain quilt.

I had a great day I always learn so much, Stuart gives out so many tips over the day, I have a Benina machine and so did two other ladies,this is also the machine Stuart uses he showed us how to de-fluff and oil our machines.

I shall not be making the quilt I was going to learn the techniques, I have done very little bonded appliqué, we were shown a couple of different methods to use, I used steam a seam lite which I have not used before, I  have many fancy stitches on my machine that I have not used before once I worked out how to program the stitch in, I used the buttonhole stitch.

Here are both blocks we did.

There was just 7 of us in the class so we had plenty of room my work table.

I intend to turn my blocks into a quilted project bag I have been and bought myself a zip.