Hands On

I love leading Indian inspired workshops! People have such fun working with bright block print fabrics, simple templates, a little bling and lots of imagination. It's so good to be directly in touch with your materials, assembling everything by hand. Wavy lines and uneven stitches are good, they tell a story and show that a real person stitched the piece with pleasure, slowly and thoughtfully. 
 

  
These images are from the day I spent with Souter Quilters in Selkirk recently. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and look forward to seeing some of the finished bags and cushion panels in due course.

Since then I have been to St Abbs for a fine Wool Festival.  Enthusiastic knitters and spinners came along to browse our stalls and partake of some excellent refreshments. I had the company of my felty friend Laura Brittain on one side and Alice from Whistlebare on t'other. Such a good name for a farm, isn't it? You can just feel the wind howling across the Northumberland landscape where Alice and family keep angora goats and Wensleydale sheep.

During tomorrow evening and Saturday I will be one of the craft stall holders at the Roxburgh Federation SWRI Show in Kelso. (Scottish Women's Rural Institutes, just in case you don't know, are groups of women who meet together across Scotland - they are interested in country life, home skills, family welfare and citizenship and they promote the preservation and development of Scotland's traditions, rural heritage and culture. With an awful lot of laughs along the way!)

The craft stalls are not the main event. On show will be the combined labours of local members who have entered over sixty different creative classes - an impressive array of talent by any measure. Many will come to visit the show over the next couple of days so I am hoping to tempt them with haberdashery supplies rather than finished goods (and invite them to our Open Days here in December, of course)