BLOG 204

 

Normal service has been resumed thankfully but, if I had to admit it, I rather enjoyed my period of non-contact with the outside world. It coincided with the lovely weather so the garden benefitted and our daughter’s boarding dogs got plenty of walks. It made me lift my eyes to look outwards into the big wide world instead of lowering them to focus on a small intense screen of the computer. And I know which I prefer.

This week, the focus is on the Gresford exhibition last week. I sold all of my items in the exhibition itself and all but 2 items on the sales table (an Xmas box and a cushion cover) which I gave away to get rid of them! I feel well cleared out and cash heavy and the process has been extremely cathartic. I have sold 4 utility quilts to date also. I hasten to add that all these items were priced to sell and if I had tried to price them for what they were really worth, I would have been bringing them home again!

The exhibition itself was very successful, with takings up again on last year at £6,714:58. As usual the food was the biggest earner, it has become a pivotal part of the week, with visitors enjoying the generous lunches and home cooked food as part of their exhibition experience. For those who visited and are interested in the results of the BLUE challenge, the beaded necklace won first place, Little Boy Blue was second and then the blue crocheted basket was third.

                                    Quilts 1

                                               Quilts 2

                                        Quilts 3

 Quilts 4

                                       Quilts 5

                               Quilts 6

                    Quilts and Blue challenge

 

Since the last exhibition, many of our members undertook a yearlong challenge to knit or crochet woolly hats for ‘Innocence Smoothie’ bottles. Apparently, during the winter months the makers of this product put a woolly hat on all their bottles. When they are sold, 25p is donated to Age UK. As a group, our target was 1,000 but we greatly exceeded that and made well over 1100 and counting.

                                 Innocence hats

                                  Detail of hats

It is impossible to show everything but here is a taster.

                 Cross stitch alphabet shawls

             Suffolk puffs Xmas tree

                                  Felted items

 

                        Bead display

  One of our guest exhibitors this year was hand embroiderer Daphne Ashby and what a wonderful display was put on in her name. Some of her pieces were mind-bogglingly exquisite!

                        Dimensional butterfly

                                 Mirrored box

 

            Ribbon work with stitchery

                                 Threadwork

                                   Raised robin

 

There was also a fascinating display of work by student J Franklin. I think many of us thought it was a bit creepy when we first saw her disembodied trio staring at us through the open fretwork of the church screens but further investigation proved fascinating. Her accompanying book and design manual explained that her figures represented a neurological condition and how it affected her and other sufferers. This journey of discovery formed the basis of designs that she has subsequently used for very original jewellery.

                                Ghostly trio

 The first showed swollen nerve endings with the condition taking hold and spreading across the body.

                           Taking hold

 The second illustrated how debilitating this was and how it made her reassess herself as a person.

                    Debilitating

The third illustrated how much effort it took to do anything, even the smallest tasks took vast amounts of effort.

 No energy

 Nice to be back in ‘chat’ mode. More next week, computer-willing!