The Great British Sewing Bee Re-enactment
Summer has come and gone in a mighty blur of creativity, I accomplished so much that it will be tricky getting it all on one blog. The highlight was spending a week in The Creative Sanctuary re-enacting the Great British Sewing Bee without the fear of elimination. We worked from the book that accompanies the series and with the ever cheerful, Jane Conway, as our teacher and cheer leader we measured, cut out, altered patterns, inserted zippers, ate cake, drank tea and generally had a wonderful time. Imagine having all the time you want in a fabric store, all day to sit and admire fabrics and notions then pick the right one for a dress, tunic or skirt. The photo below tells the story; four very happy ladies wearing their creations, but look behind us, we wandered amongst fabrics all day!
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| Modeling our dresses |
We all learned to add piping and pleats without stress and with the aid of tea and cake. Sadly, Angela has had a flood at the store but she will be back to normal very soon and after the success of the course I am sure she will do more.
Another highlight of the Summer was visiting knitting stores in Kansas and Houston. The most popular knitting in America over the Summer was lace knitting. Luckily I spent the day with some experts in Kansas and they taught me all about "lifelines". This is a wonderful way of threading a line of yarn through your work so that if you make a mistake, I made plenty, then you can pull your work out to the lifeline and start again. My daughter has asked for a shawl for Christmas but she hasn't said which Christmas, or rather I haven't said which Christmas. When and if I get any lace work accomplished you will all be the first to see it. In Texas the craze was knitting skirts, I met one lady who has knit 16!
Here's the BIG news........drum roll please......I finished the Debbie Abrahams Mystery Blanket!
I drove it down to Switzerland last week and donated it to a Cancer Clinic to help keep the chemotherapy patients warm and snug while having their treatments. Soooo, thats it! I have learned to blog, finished my blanket and now all I have left to accomplish is the Patchwork Quilt. That has been a W I P (work in progress) for a while now in the corner of my sewing room. I have found lots of other things to distract myself with; during my travels this Summer I visited a Tea Room and found it was next door to a wool shop, it would have been rude not to pop in! I managed to get so distracted by the wool that I put my rental car keys down under a magazine, bought my wool and then went for a sumptuous tea next door. During tea the owner of the wool shop came in to say goodbye and off she went. Mom and I had our tea and then spent 15 minutes looking for the car keys. When we realised what we had done the story only became more hilarious: there was no phone signal up in the hills and the owner of the tea room tried calling for a taxi but wherever the taxi driver was had no signal either. My rental car had to be back in the morning and I had to be on my return flight to Germany. As all this chaos reigned a voice of calm came from the Tea Room, "Let me drive you down the hill to the Wool Shop owners house and you can get signal there to call your dad and he can drive you back up with the car keys." Mission accomplished and all was well. I felt I had to make the ladies a little something to say Thank You, so I made them some bunting with tea pots on. Then I discovered Debbie Abrahams made a mystery cushion too so I have started that. Oh and I have some lace knitting to get done. Looks like I am going to be blogging for a bit longer!
