First go with the embellisher at last!

A couple of weeks ago I treated myself to an embellisher after resisting for as long as possible. Today was the first chance I have had to play on it .
This was done on painted Timtex and has wool roving (acquired at Woolfest last year), silk fancy yarn, ribbons and some Madeira gold FS thread used to embroider a little with a Bernina 180. The rest is just some stripped down silk flowers which allow a 3D effect.

I found it very useful to catch it all under some dress net to stop it moving whilst doing the needlepunching. The needles seem to go
straight through the holes in the net and then it just lifts straight off.

My Tropical Paradise Quilt.

This quilt will be at Sandown for the Sandown Quilting Championships today in the Batik Beauties competition. This is a quilt I panicked about as it turned out smaller than the specified size after being quilted. I got lots of advice re. blocking it and pressing it from
the BQL. (British Quilters' List ) After doing all that I then added a few 3D bits to regain the still missing centimetre. Next time I will make sure that I oversize to start with!
I called the quilt "Peace and Quiet".

Red sky at night.

Red sky at night is supposed to be "shepherd's delight" meaning a good day tomorrow. The Met. Office says heavy rain and thunder?

Waistcoat update.

Remember the waistcoat I showed earlier? It won 3rd prize :o)
The prize was a box of goodies including Swarovski crystals, cotton fabric prepared to go through the printer, fancy thread etc and also 7 spools of Robison Anton machine Embroidery thread.
It is now fingers crossed time for the entries I have made into the summer competitions.

Bank Voles are busy.

The bank outside the study window is very busy at the moment with a succession of rabbits of all sizes and these delightful bank voles performing their acrobatics to reach the seedheads on the campions and goosegrass.

They make the most perfect little round nests set into the ground, out of dried grasses all woven together .

Children's Carnival Day

The rain held off and the parade set off at a brisk pace

These are a few pictures of the second half of the parade. As you can see much fun was had by all, though umbrellas were at the ready in case of a cloud burst.

While the parade winds all around the town it occasionally has to slow down when one of the larger floats invariably gets stuck in one of the narrow junctions before reaching the Main Street. All the roads through the town are closed for about an hour.

Unfortunately one bridal party forgot it was Carnival day and one of the limousines got stuck behind the Carnival Queen so that would be one late wedding!!

Fairy in the garden!

Last week our youngest GD was 5 and she got a fairy outfit.
She obviously had to "fly" round the garden casting spells and magic dust!