more from Hamburg

As you can see, the sun was shinning still, different story when we got to Holland.

It seemed like a good idea at the time !!

Great idea, have a giveaway, hand made bobbin lace book mark! Yes!!!!............err maybe slightly damaged handmade bobbin lace bookmark.
Moving the pillow, I trapped one of the bobbins, didn't realise until the thread snapped. So I now have the option of replacing the thread or giving up on this piece. grrrrr.


Anyway, the idea is to have a giveaway next month to celebrate 16 month blogging and 315 ish posts so watch this space.
Hope you all had a great weekend.

Diary dates

Nottingham Goose Fair starts Wed 1st October 2008- follow link for details

Mablethorpe Sand Racing 1st meeting this season is Sunday 19 October 2008 - follow link for details

Long Eaton Chestnut Fair start Thursday 20 November 2008 - follow link for details

TAST revisited, week twelve

Couching Stitch in Gold, fabric from Melanie, french knots to finish,

Size ATC

Take it further ( September)

Confession, this is the first TIF that I haven't completed. I picked up the subject whilst we were away but haven't been able to find that vital spark of inspiration. I'm not a great list maker, just the one of how things pack on the bike which I use for our holiday each year. I'm going to put it on the back burner for now.

Glimpses of Hamburg (part one)

Theres something about these cranes that I find attractive, maybe its the symmetry?

Kates ATC Challenge

Last month, Kate issued a challenge to make an ATC from bases provided by herself. These pieces of material have been sat by the computer awaiting inspiration which suddenly struck last night.

original base

under the embellisher

start to embroider using the original design as a guide

finished ATC in the post to kate.

not quite David Bailey

I had a lovely couple of hours yesterday in the company of my friends son Lewis who wants to learn how to use a camera. Never wanting to pass up an opportunity to play with my newest camera ( which I did'nt take on holiday) I suggested that he used my old Fuji and we went walkabout. Lewis hasn't seen his photos yet so I've posted the ones I took instead.

Nottingham Arboretum flowers looked stunning

Autumn on the way

Nottingham most famous character Robin Hood


Budding young photographer

A more serious holiday visit

As Ian plotted a route from Hameln to Heide Park, he noticed that the road would take us near to Bergen-Belsen. I imagine most of you would know the name but here is a link to their site. I'm not going to try and put my feelings into words but will add that the sound of machine gun fire which we assume was from the local nato base or the arnamonts factory made the whole experience even more sombre.
Just three photos, there will be more on my flickr site and Biker Ted will cover this in more detail later this year.


Wall Hanging
Made by Antonina Konyakina in Bergen-Belsen circa 1942 . Anotonia Konyakina hung the image of a cat she had embroidered on an old trouser leg over her bunk to symbolically protect her from mice (Reproduction)
Scarf
Made by Antonia Konyakina in Bergen-Belsen circa 1942



Barbed wire and wooden post from the camps original fencing.

Tempted again

As many of you know, I go to Stitched up on Wednesday evening at the Textile Workshop in Sherwood, Nottingham. We just sit and natter and work on whatever our currently project is. If you are in the area, all are welcome. Also check out the workshop courses, they are very reasonably priced and popular. Anyway, what I'm rambling on about is this.




couldn't resist it!! it will probably go under the embellisher this weekend:-) Karen had a section of unusual wools in the shop as well as the usual range of dyed fleece etc.
Unfortunately I can't get the link to the courses to work so if anyone wants anymore info, let me know.

We also went here.

Colossos Roller Coaster, Heide Park, Germany. The Worlds steepest wooden roller coaster with a drop of 61 degrees.

Bet you didn't know that I'm a sucker for old fashioned wooden rollercoasters ( I do ride some of the new ones as well)

TAST revisited, week 8

Fly Stitch


Size ATC

TAST revisited, week Nine

OK, I admit it, I'm a little behind with this so I'm playing catch up :-) So this is cross stitch.


Wool fibre embellished background, hand stitching, size ATC

Embellisher

Found this when putting my new threads away yesterday.

added black felt and my embellisher and it became this

love this texture, next step will be to add hand embroidery

This is where we went!

Our original plans were to head for Spain but the nasty virus put paid to that. Instead, we decided to stay fairly local and caught the ferry to france and rode up to Hameln in Germany ( as in Pied Piper) for a couple of nights. Beautiful old place and more pictures can be seen here
I had to sneak these three photos of tradional embroidery as the museum did not sell postcards or a guide book that featured them.




At 400 miles, this was the longest days ride this year making it more relaxing, just as well as neither of us were fully recovered.

Retail therapy

I had intended to go to the knitting and stitching show at Birmingham but a combination of being tired and getting up late scrapped that idea :-) So I headed off to the local car boot sale this morning with my usual spending allowance of £20. The last time I went, I came back empty handed. Today was the opposite as you can see below.

I managed to grab the following:
9 large 4500metre kops of thread, polyester but I can easily find use for it
1 cutting mat, hardly used, A3 size
1 A3 sketch pad
1 unopened Setasilk silk painting kit
2 bags of DMC threads mainly pearlescent/metal effect
3 Material sample books each about 2 inch thick
1 yard or so red/gold crinkle fabric
and my favourite.... The womans weekly 10 in 1 handicraft set!!

Normal Service will resume ASAP

Hi, we arrived home about two hours ago feeling rather damp. It rained all the way from Dunkirk (france) to Nottingham (UK) 240 mile of rain, yuck, yuck ,yuck. Anyway, there will be photos and details in the next few days once I've done the boring stuff, washing, shopping, more washing etc. A small hint as to one of the places we visited, main tourist attractions were Chocolate, Beer and Lace!!