A Tale of Two Cities.

No not the cathedral, but still pretty impressive to my mind. On Wednesday Sue K and I had a jaunty day out. We had a wander round Norwich, fortunately it was just the day for a jaunt as it was a little chilly but very sunny and NO wind or rain. We chose well we thought.

Here at the market is Sue with an encredibly well endowed brain. I have no idea about the provenance of said brain but it also is a pretty impressive edifice!

This paving slab is just one of many interesting memorial slabs to be found in the city.I particularly liked this one as my Grandad was a joiner, and through my dad, my husband has inherited his huge wooden tool box with several box planes like this one.

We spent time in Paperchase...and a few pennies too! We had a cappucino here:

And we were VERY GOOD and didn't have any cake as we were saving ourselves for lunch!

 No I wasn't sitting in the cupboard under the stairs though it looks like it. And yes, it is a blurry shot, but you just be thankful for the fact!

Then, much against my will, Sue DRAGGED me into this lovely little shop. It is an independant  shop with some fab clothing. Remember  Adini? I had a fair few pieces of theirs in the 80's but then they went 'off' a bit. But they had some nice pieces in here. The owner, Richard was such a nice chap, we saw the photos of his family dogs and chatted dogs for a while.

To be honest it was such a lovely old building it would have set anything off to advantage. We oohed and ahhhed all over it!

These lovely one-offs from Poland caught our eyes. Yes, I know, more grey! But they were gorgeous clothes. AND Richard was having a sale! What more can I say? I have a Very Special Family Occasion coming up next month so I was on the look-out for something nice to wear.

I must say in my own defence that I was positively strong-armed into these purchases. Oooops, this purchase. However, Richard was so nice he gave me two lovely shopping bags like these:

And a beautiful scarf which I haven't photographed. If you live near enough, do pop in and have a look yourself, you won't regret it! (Perhaps your wallet will but I take no responsibility for that!)

Then we were off again. We were both so overcome we had to pop into Waterstones for a quiet browse round the books and then we had a nice sit down and a cold drink. STILL no cake! Oh, yes, then we had a quick walk round the Cath Kidson shop and came out feeling a little UNDERwhelmed. Perhaps we are getting all Cathed-out?

Eventually we finished up here:

This is where the old Waterstones used to be. It's a lovely building.

Just a bit awkward to get much of it in shot without including all the passers-by! Anyway, we had booked so we sailed in.

My starter, stuffed zuccini flower oh! The flavours were wonderful!

Sue had stuffed tiny peppers:

Mouthwatering! Then there was vegetarian canneloni for Sue:

And sea-food bucatini for me:

Both of which were sensational. The aromas, the flavours, really brilliant. We had been given mixed reviews about Jamie's in various places, but we were very pleasantly surprised and impressed. Good service, everywhere clean and comfortable, and  excellent food.  We were so stuffed, I'm afraid we couldn't manage any i dolci! So we never did get our pudden'!

Then we tootled off (sedately, after all that food!) to catch the bus at the Park and Ride, and drove back to Sues in time for a quick drink before I shot off to my melodeon lesson down the road. It really was a quite perfect day. As Sue noted, everyone seemed to be amazingly pleasant to us, we chatted and joked all the way round Norwich and had a terrific jaunt. Don't you just love it when a day goes as well as that? Even without spending money! Thanks for your company Sue it was great fun.

Now I'm afraid I am so fatigued with all this typeing and remembering all that food and spending, that I am going to have to split the post, and tell you about my exciting weekend of musical mayhem next time. I will be quick, honest!

Lino prints and feeling felty.

Tapping away at my lap-top in rhythm to the pattering of the rain on the conservatory roof. Actually, I have a sneaking feeling of comfort and cosyness, despite the awful weather; I don't have to go out again today, Jim's away so no big meal to cook, chores done this morning so rest of the day to myself. Off to Norwich with friend Sue K tomorrow- we have booked lunch at Jamie Oliver's new (ish) restaurant, and we will be having a wander round the shops, no doubt. Then on to my melodeon lesson, always a high spot in the week. Thursday again, a take-it-easy kinda day , Friday quick whizz round the shops for mum then back home to pack...I am off for a weekend at Witney, Oxfordshire with a load of other melodeonistas for 2 days of workshops! Yay! And guess who is one of the tutors....yessssss! ANDY CUTTING! Phew, calm down Lynne. Anyway, I wil fill you in about that when I get back...blogging will be a little behind I'm afraid. I am thoroughly enjoying my low-key, kicking-back, sybaritic week.

A photo of the finished wool/felt cushion, I rather like the little 'tongues' round the edge, don't you?

And this is just a glimpse of a felty heart which has been winging its way to a bloggy friend.

And this is a glimpse of the dining room table which is going to stay like this for the next couple of days -  but I will tidy up before I go, promise!

Now though these next photos are not textile related, I want to talk about them for a couple of reasons. The first is that I love graphic prints, and these lino cuts are brilliant. And secondly I love to give a heads up to local Norfolk artists and crafters.

 I adore the work of  Angie Lewin, and pore over her book Plants and Places often; and a book by printmaker Mark Hearld is hopefully going to find its way into my Christmas stocking. I noticed these lovely lino cuts on Pinterest - sorry I can't remember whose - and clicked on through to read all about Amanda Colville, and immediately remembered reading about her as a winner in Country Living's Kitchen Table Talent Awards 2012 - the September issue. Amanda did a printmaking course at the College of West Anglia and went on to create these fabulous lino prints, using of all things, an old mangle! She has a blog  mangleprints.blogspot.co.uk and a website. Her prints are available on-line and at some interesting shops around the UK.....our nearest is at  Dalegate Market, Burnham Deepdale on the north Norfolk coast. A really good excuse for a trip out if you ask me!

I have contacted Amanda and have her permission to include her photos here. My post-header is of course one of her prints, too. I'd just like to wish her luck in her enterprise and hope she gets lots of lovely orders for Christmas!


Well that's it for now folks, just like to say I was a trifle overwhelmed by the response to my '50 shades of gery' hair colour! I hope you will be as fulsome in your praise for Amanda's work. See you after the weekend, I'm now going to settle down to more stitching whilst listening to Michael Jayston reading aloud to me from a PD James thriller - what's not to love?

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.

Autumn Interlude

A bunch of photos, in the main this time round, as I'm waiting for some photos from the Apple Day dance out by the Ouse Washes Mollie Dancers yesterday,  at Gressenhall; I'll blog more next time.

The garden is looking pretty ropey at the moment - Jim has been round doing the autumn prune and tidy but what with the dratted leaves and the general bedraggledness of everything, it is not the prettiest of sights. However, on my way to the compost heap the other day I did notice there are a few blooms hanging on here and there.

And in the greenhouse, a profusion of green tomatoes and a few little brave red ones. Terrible summer has done for them, unfortunately. Green tomato chutney, anyone?

Such a shame. I'll try and encourage them with an apple or two, see if we can coax a little blush out of them.

On a different tack, I found myself shelling out £12 YIKES!!! for this chunky publication:

Now I'm not really into the vintage vibe too much, and have resisted the other new vintage-type mags. This one caught my eye though and there is quite a bit of interesting stuff in it; if you collect ephemera for collage and journalling as I do there is a fair amount here, and some interesting articles and photographs. It will certainly be a one-off for me. I did my usual sniffing and tutting in Smiths this morning having a quick flick through the outrageously priced Selvedge - I know it is rated by the textile cognoscenti but frankly it is really just an upmarket Mollie Makes at twice the price. There are a couple of good articles now and then, but I seldom find more than one item of interest just a lot of nice pictures. I shall get a lot out of 'Pretty Nostalgic' and it will be canibalised quite thoroughly, I can tell you!

Right, time to put this 'to bed' as they say before the BT engineer arrives (and he's cutting it pretty fine) to install the new hub for Infinity. He's already 3 days late, and only coming today (We hope) because Jim complained long and loud after being let down with no apology on Friday. How to run a business, eh?

To end on a good note...I am going to Bungay (provided I can find my way in the dark!) tomorrow to the Fisher Theatre to watch TRIETTE! Yes, they are supporting the Old Dance School, a really great folk band. I'm staying the night with Mollie friend Elin who is roadie-ing for Nick! Should be a great night. But there are still tickets if you fancy coming with us!!

Textile Jaunts

No, I didn't polish off all of this! Just a 'remains of the day' shot of the detritus of last week's Stitch and Bitch. It was a post-birthday meeting, so there had to be cake...no, honestly, they twisted my arm...... and pressies, it was lovely.

And lots of work was done too, so that was pretty good.This is the beginnings of a wool cushion cover.

Love working with wool/felt/felted blanket, just so soft and NO TURN-UNDERS! Though I do love needle-turn applique, I have to say.

So that was a jaunt to mine, you might say. I took a jaunt out off to Heacham for coffee with S&B Lynne, and before I got to hers I popped into a lovely shop just up the road from her house, called Bradfields, an old fashioned hardware shop circa 1898 which has moved with the times and become a wonderful home furnishings and accessory shop. I was meeting with Pam, the owner to discuss some workshops which I'm putting on later this year. I'll take some photos, as the room we will be using is part of the old house which has been  renovated and decorated and is just gorgeous. I want to move in!
So I shall be doing a mixture of one-day workshops, and some on-going classes. More  anon, but it's quite exciting to be planning workshops again -  I haven't done any for ages, totally went off the idea some years ago.

Another textile jaunt for me happened this weekend, when I took myself over to Norwich, to the Dragon Hall, a wonderful mediaeval building run by a trust, where numerous workshops take place , including several textile related classes. I was doing a class run by lovely Teena Vallerine, whose blog kitschen pink I have read and enjoyed for ages. Teena creates lovely textile pictures using bonded applique and simple embroidery - the whole process is simple but the results are fabulous! And Teena is very laid back and accepting, it's a very unthreatening workshop, we had a great relaxing time and throughly enjoyed ourselves. The earlier classes had been quite large, but we were lucky there were only four of us so we had Teena's undivided attention.  Here are the results of our labours:

This is Pat's picture, she has used that lovely scroll stitch on this flower. We only really got onto the stitching way after lunch, as the preparation and positioning takes a lot of careful thought.

Joy, choosing just the right shade of thread to make her flower 'pop'!

And this is Margaret's. She was a newcomer to bonded applique and boldly set off in a landscape direction. Her choice of fabric for the sky is inspired, I think.

And this is mine, sorry, I am in a tearing hurry and i know I should tip these photos but I haven't the time. Tip your head, instead! I now think I need a flower slap bang in the centre to balance the whole thing, so will titivate things later on. So far my embroidery is very, very basic. But it will develop. I'm really enjoying doing this. Do you like my 'in yer face' colour choices?? A whiff of the Indian sub-continent, I think.

Here are some shots of Teena's work, but you can get a much better idea from her website/blog.

Lovely, isn't it? She really has the 'eye' for placement and design. And was also very generous with her fabric and scrap stash! We'd all taken stuff, in fact one or two of us had been panicking, and worrying about whether we'd packed the right things, having so much to choose from!  However I think we all dived into the scrap pile and and came up with our hearts desires. It was a lovely day, thanks Teena for a great class, and to Joy, Margaret and Pat, lovely meeting you, hope your finished pictures are all you'd hoped they would be.

On my way to Norwich, the sun was shining, and as I drove through the dappled light in the country lanes to reach the A47 (the story of my Norfolk life is writ large on that road!) I was thinking how fortunate I was, a day to myself in congenial complany, stitching, sunshine, and Jim doing the vacuuming at home, bless his cotton socks. Then just as I left to come home, the heavens opened. It was torrential! Only a short sprint to the car. But I don't sprint, so I did get a bit of a soaking. Never mind, soon warmed up with the heater on, it's just that I drove home with the odour akin to damp dog pervading the car. Ah well, you can't have everything!