Here in Black and White

So much for coming back the next day. I was overcome by all the work I’ve been neglecting since the Festival of Quilts and getting our living room back. The room changed colour rather unexpectedly due to me falling for some handsome black and white wall lights.

Sorry about all the gaps - it won't let me edit them out.grrrr.

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This meant the curtains looked wrong so I dug out some dramatic black and grey ones.

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Had to knock up some new wall art with a black and white theme, so I hastily took some shots in the garden.

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Upped the contrast considerably and then changed to greyscale.

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A little bit of highlighting with the fill can and white.

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And then made two more.

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Here they are on the wall.

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Remember that I wanted the flooring to match Smudge? Well, the new rug (below) matches him so well that every time he laid on it we trod on him. He now avoids it.

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Great excavations

This is what we are tackling next. I expect you can guess what it is!

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Comments on comments

Heather – Grandad would love this – on a good day we only clock up one or two units on the electricity useage meter. It was nine or ten before.

We get a contract for 25 years for our feed-in tariff, Aussie Jo. If they renege, we can all sue the government! It is also inflation proof and tax free. This deal ends early next year as I think they have realised it’s too generous.

Hey Gillian – loved your show – so very different.

The low numbers may be a sign of the times Diane, but I do hope not. It will be interesting to see what happens at the Knitting & Stitching Show. We haven’t got a stand this year, although I’m doing a couple of seminars. We have noticed a big increase in Workshop on the Web numbers since the shrinking of C&G classes. This is very welcome but not the way I want it to happen.

A Quick Post Festival Post

Lots of posts in that title. Whose idea was it to have PV panels and a woodburner fitted the day after we returned from the Festival of Quilts? Ooops – that’d be me, I think. However the guys were great and just got on with it, with the result that our twelve panels were up and generating by Tuesday afternoon. So far we have clocked up seventeen units and that includes one dull day and one day of torrential rain when it was as dark as night most of the day. It’s such fun watching the meter click around that we are thinking of putting a chair in the hall – better than the TV and certainly more lucrative.
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The woodburner is wonderful – the last one we had was very traditional and this time I wanted one of the modern baked bean cans. Here it is in full flow. It will look much better when the new wall lights go up.
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Back to the quilt show which was rather disappointing from a trading point of view (number down on Saturday and Sunday) but great for seeing everyone and keeping in touch. Some lovely exhibitions – perhaps not quite so cutting edge this year – and incredible individual entries.

We had some help on the stand this time with Sam Packer and Paula Watkins. It was lovely to go off and do our talks without having to worry about the stand and they gave great demos, too. We also sneaked off for lunch together – a rare treat at shows.

My overall favourite was the Studio 21 exhibition which also had an interactive ‘Come and have a go’ area which was a wonderful idea and very popular. This group has such a strong membership – Sandra Meech, Sue Chapman and Dawn Thorne to name just a few off the top of my head. It was interesting to see them taking the same theme – a sense of place and running the work in a continuous fashion around the wall. I love Anne Froggatt’s work and this is her Studio 21 entry, Svalbard.
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This exhibit from Gillian Cooper made a great visual impact as you look in from outside.
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Must go now – it’s the youngest grandson's birthday and the gang is about to descend. Will post more foq pics tomorrow.

A blogette

Just a swift line or two to stay in touch. Frantically trying to get the car packed for the Stitched Up event in Sutton Coldfield, where I'm doing a talk and demos. I also have to get ready for the Festival of Quilts at the NEC next week. Our poor catsitter is coming today and we will have to try and put our sitting room back together for her. The plasterer is still in residence at the moment.

We had a plaster disaster as our usual chap is ill and couldn't make it. He was supposed to be here on Monday and we only found out he wasn't coming on Monday morning. Frantic phone calls brought us Gary who made a start yesterday. Luckily it is only a skimming job so won't be too damp and I've made Sue the sitter a bed-sit (with telly) in another room, in case she doesn't fancy the soggy one. Sometimes life just gets too hard but it's small beer compared to what some folks have to put up with.

Exciting things are arriving in the post for next week's show. For my Workshop on the Web display I have Gina Ferrari - her newspaper backgrounds made a splendid article.

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Olga Norris wrote a super article on using paper in reverse applique. I love the shapes of the figures shown here.

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Hope we can get lots of new Wowies. We need them, as BTinternet are putting an extra financial strain on us. They treat all our emails to subscribers as spam and place them in a separate folder - without even showing it to the account holder. We do tell people how to find it (in FAQs on www.workshopontheweb.com) but, understandably, some people find it hard and we have to resort to snail mail. Ridiculous with an internet magazine and very expensive.

Anyway, lets end with a giggle. This was one of my birthday cards! Who does it reming you of? Nuff said.