September 22, 2007
New Design
Its here! The brand new blackwork design, The Unexpected Guest is now available in kit and chart formats. For all lovers of the 1920’s and 30’s this scene is set in a café where a Private Investigator and his lady client are sitting discussing a case when in walks her brother. Worked in black, 2 greys with a touch of gold metallic the design is already proving a winner. If you happen to be visiting the needlework show at Exeter next weekend you will be able to see the stitched model (thanks Julie) on the Craft Lines stand.
Another Unexpected Guest
We had an unexpected guest of our own the other day! I let the dogs down the garden and they seemed extremely interested in the garden shed.Further investigation found a baby pheasant hiding behind it.
Unable to fly yet it hightailed it up the garden with two excited dogs following in hot pursuit. A dive into the conifers, followed by a mad dash back down to the shed meant the dogs had to do a wide circle to change direction. By the time they got back to the shed the bird has disappeared and the dogs calmed down slightly.
On returning to the house the dogs wandered through to my office in anticipation of where I would be heading. Then I heard excited yaps and squawks.
The silly bird had nipped into the house for safety and was hiding under my desk. With another chance to catch it the dogs were going silly. Trying to hold onto two collars, I shouted for my 19 year old son, who was still in bed, to come and retrieve the pheasant. He shot downstairs in answer to my frantic cries and rescued the baby and took it back outside, where it immediately hid behind the shed once again for the rest of the day, eventually leaving under cover of darkness.
In the excitement of the moment I didn’t even realise until later that my son had been stark naked!
Another bird story
The village pub is often the place to go to hear stories of country life. The landlord, Jim, told me a tale last week.Many, many years ago, as a young lad, he had come across an abandoned nest of baby rooks. After waiting for their mum to appear with no success he decided to take the four babies home to care for them until they were ready to fly.
He built them a cage and popped them inside while we went down the local builder’s yard for something to put in the bottom. He "acquired" some sand and gave the babies a deep, comfy layer to sit upon. A bowl of water to drink was his final step before heading off for school.
On returning home he was horrified to find the babies totally stuck in place! He had mistaken a sand/cement mix for ordinary sand. After bathing in the water and splashing it around the baby birds had settled down to sleep and they were now "set in stone".
Poor Jim! It took him 3 hours to chip them out and clean them up. A service that the baby birds did not enjoy! They did not hesitate to show him their displeasure and by the end, young Jim's arms were scratched and bleeding from their sharp beaks.
Safely ensconced in a cement free cage the baby rooks survived and were eventually released to the wild. Till this day, Jim will not go near another rook and there are plenty around our village.
By the way according to an old English proverb, if you see a single rook it is actually a crow and if you see lots of crows they are more likely to be rooks.
Whats New?
I am still in the process of changing all the pages on the site over to the new format. You have all kept me busy with orders, which have to come first, so the changeover is taking longer than I expected. As each page is done, I read it through and alter it to make it easier to understand (hopefully) and add extra pictures if I can. The latest pages to undergo this treatment are Whitework embroidery and Embroidery fabric.I have also added a page with fabric for sale, including Goodie Bags of offcuts and remnants that are left after cutting the fabric for the kits. A bargain 250g for just £10! You can find these and fabrics by the metre on the cross stitch fabrics page.
I recently visited my Mum and took photos of her extensive embroidery collection, so expect to see some wonderful photos of old needlework scattered around the site in the days to come.
Step by Step sampler
Last month saw the final part of the blackwork band sampler we have been working on.Don’t worry we will be doing something similar again soon.
This time, as previously requested by many of you, I will be showing you how to do various whitework techniques, including hardanger, pulled work, drawn fabric and hemstitching. I will take things very simply to start with and build up your skills with each band, explaining the method along the way with diagrams as before.
Thank you!
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have taken the time to fill in my contact form and let me know how much you are enjoying the site. It really means a lot to receive feedback like this. I have added some of your comments to the site after asking permission and really appreciate your kind words.
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See you next month,
Regards,
Carol
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