Gigs and stitches.

The last ten days or so have been fairly action packed one way or another. First up I promised some photos of Ouse Washes Molly side at Gressenhall for Apple Day. You can just make out Nicky in her red dress, and melodeon, and me next to her looking very black with my fiddle! My dress does have lots of red satin (tasteful!) but it doesn't show. This obviously is a dancing action shot.

This is at the end of the day, following the Wassailing to the apple trees. Colin, Nicky and I then led the crowd  (many more than you can see here) in a Circassian Circle dance. Despite the cold it was a very successful day, and the organisers were profuse in their appreciation for the contribution Ouse Washes had made to the overall entertainment.

Then my trip to Bungay to watch Triette supporting The Old Dance School at Fisher Theatre. I had a brilliant time. Here you can see Nic Zuppardi and Nick Wiseman-Ellis, who were superb.

And here is a not very clear photo, sorry, of The Old Dance School, who played some really fine music, I had to treat myself to one of their cds!

I pop a quick one of me here, to show you the new hair colour....or rather the old hair colour! There are so few photos of me as I'm not keen on seeing myself (unless heavily disguised in Mollie-garb). And I notice two things - one I have no make-up on and this is not a great look! And two, I am wearing the same top I was wearing in my profile photo, taken two years ago! (The top-hat is new........)

Ok, a spot of slap...perhaps overdid the eye-treatment, never mind.This will possibly be the last photos of me to go on this blog! (Massive sighs of relief shake the Blogosphere!) I have to say, Jim really likes my hair in its natural state. Men eh?

Here is a strange little tableau, my original kitchen knife set, bought in a hardware shop in Gosport when I was in the QARNNS and about to be married. Yes, this hardworking set is 42 years old! We celebrated our anniversary last week by me being in Norfolk and Jim being in Wales doing something official with a crowd of other flyfishing chaps! Never mind, we had a romantic phone call...I expect I'll get taken out for a nice meal eventually!

A quick catch-up on the wool cushion progress - the embroidery is finished, just have to make up the cushion cover. Oh, and I found an old piece today which I'd been searching for - Jim had unearthed it and put it on display on the cushions in the porch! Without telling me and I hadn't noticed. I wanted to show you because we were talking about getting obsessed with one stitch when I did Teena's workshop at Dragon Hall the other week. Her obsession was French Knots, mine was feather stitch.

Sorry the light is horrendous. I used all my own hand-dyed fabrcis and created a design which I won't show in full as I no longer like the overall design. But I still LOVE the colours and the stitching! I hand- appliqued the shapes and heavily embroidered with seeding and feather stitch and beads and shisha mirrors.

I used various weights of thread and loved working with the variegated colours. The stitching became hypnotic, almost meditative, and although it was completed about 10 years ago I can still remember the pleasure it gave me to be working on it.

And then there's been music. Music music music. I find I'm having to drag myself away from it in order to do some stitiching. However, I'll say more about that next time. I'll leave you with the thought that although we here in the UK complain long and hard about our weather - it is a National Pastime, after all - we have not been suffering the extremes our friends and relations in the States have been experiencing. I hope if you've been directly affected that you are safe and unhurt, and that the chaos will soon subside and your lives return to some kind of normality. Til next time.