Bolt

Thanks for comments - and birthday wishes, Margaret. I'm trying to put it all behind me - really don't feel so old - must be a chronological error.

Doreen - the lace is OK, if you are careful but, if I'm not sure, I anchor 'difficult' materials down by embellishing chiffon all round them and then zapping some of it away.

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The BOLT exhibition was great. Quite small but definitely perfectly formed, and the work was excellent. Sometimes you go to a really big exhibition and only like a few pieces, but everything here was very classy and inspirational. Linda Westerman's work is always spot on. She is writing an article for Workshop on the Web (December). I'll certainly be trying out some of her ideas from that.

Deb Jackson (hi Deb) works on our most precious memories with her pieces based on nostalgia. Interesting to imagine the reaction from the viewer. I saw these baby dresses and went straight back to my daughter's first summer - so were the people next to me at the exhibition feeling that, too? Textiles that play with our senses - there's a thought.

Jessica Abrahams' text pieces were lovely (top, below) and Sheelagh Stephens had some fascinating work on Lutradur. Selfishly, I'm only going to show you a small piece of this as I've bagged it for my Image to Stitch book.

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There was a really big Gothic column from Diane Carrington. It was gilded and distressed - most impressive. I was going to show you but, for some reason it won't let me bring in any more pics. How annoying - is there a limit, other than the overall mg one? Will show you tomorrow.

I didn't intend this to turn into a review as I've already done that for September WoW. It will be on the free section of the site so everyone can see it. Let's finish with Jean Littlejohn's piece on Pathways - below.

Jan and Jean had just returned from the Quilting Arts Textile Cruise where they were tutors. They were full of the wonderful Arctic scenery (the cruise went from Vancouver). Jean was raving about a glacier which, she said, was the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen. They'd had a great time but were very tired - they had 100 students between them which meant they had to be very organised. They were amazed at how much work the students did and they all completed a book. Did anyone go on that cruise? Love to hear from you.

We went home via the usual National Trust lunching post. This one was Upton House, near Banbury, and the paintings (especially the remnants of altar pieces and icon-like works) were very special. The gardens were wonderful, too, sort of hanging gardens - very hard on the legs with lots of steps. My ankles are still aching, even today but think how good the exercise was!