Almost Normal

I have been really poorly with this flu thing - I keep feeling better and then it comes back to bite me again. It is only in the last few days that stitching, drawing and walking have been possible and then only in short bursts.

I meant to tell you about my visit to my friend Elli Woodsford who does fantastic work. I expect you have seen her book Machine Embroidery and Textile Decoration (Elli wanted to call it Body and Sole as it had lots of lovely projects for bodies and shoes). I saw her, and managed to infect her, the day before I took to my bed. Anyway, one of the reasons for my visit was to see if she would be in the DVD I am making on the embellisher machine. I am doing lots of stuff with mixed media and paper on the felting machine and am also excited about embedded stitching, but thought it would be good to make up some yardage and turn into jackets and such-like wearables.

Not only did she agree to help me but she produced some wonderful pieces, like this jacket, made on her embellisher. So I will be able to show you them.

We will visit her Embex Studio for some filming. I have another mystery guest for the DVD and will tell you more later. I am determined that it will be full of ideas and information but not too static. I plan on having free, downloadable technique sheets to go with it as I find it annoying to play movies in my workroom.

Elli has lots of animals - three lovely dogs, a Maine Coon cat and a Ragdoll like Smudge (a distant relative of his, actually, also bred by my daughter). Her Ragdoll is called Genghis Ken and is quite unique. He has his own Facebook page (Ken.Genghis Ken) and gets up to all kinds of evil deeds, egged on by the dogs who are his partners in crime.

Ken was very interested in the samples that I took to show Elli. In fact he thought a little more distressing was needed, as you can see.

So they had to be placed in Elli's larder for safety. Then he took an interest in my scarf and that had to go in the larder, too.

It was a really good and fun meeting, especailly with Genghis.

Comments

Thanks for all the heartening messages, they really helped.

Anna, I have heard that Kingcombe was wonderful. Can't wait until next time.

If anyone is still waiting for their prize, do email again, in case yours got lost.  Fiona has sent them all out and thank you for saying that you are pleased. I am working up tp another giveaway on Workshop on the Web's Facebook page so watch out for that.