There are more uses for a heat tool Horatio....

We've had something of a harvest festival with loads of tomatos, marrows and grapes. The grapes are the very small winemaking variety and I prefer to leave wine to the French and the Ozzies. Brenda Weeks gave me a recipe for cordial and this led on to thoughts of jam.
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Well, jelly to be precise. I'd never heard of grape jelly but it was amazingly successful. We purchased a device (like a milking stool with no seat) to strain it through. I know you can use a chair but ours weigh a ton. It said 'easy to assemble' but we ended up with Clive struggling to click it together while I frantically stirred the mixture shouting, "Hurry up, it's boiling".

Then it set too quickly, before dripping through, so I got the heat tool out. Worked a treat.
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My hand is healing well and I've seen the nurse for a check up. Feeling a bit stir crazy we had a morning at the local stately home, Cranborne Manor.
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All lovely long vistas and ancient apple trees.
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With the odd visual pun - look at the man working in the field to get the scale.

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Love this head by Elizabeth Fink and look at the wonderful stains on the marble.

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Smudge has been poorly (fighting again) and we had to visit the vet. I don't know what was in that injection she gave him but I think I need one. He now needs feeding every five minutes to get back to fighting weight.

Tomorrow we go to London for the photoshoot for Lynda Monk's new book Fabulous Surfaces. I have seen the pics - amazing - and can't wait to see the real thing. I have the text all ready, edited and copy edited so when the pics are done it's off to the designer. Can never tell with the printer but we are hoping for November. Watch this space.

Thanks for all comments and lovely get well messages - I'm sure going to try Livewriter, Celia. Blogger drives me batty.

Will announce winners of the precious book next week.

The Single Handed Blogger

Having loaded these two pics into blogger I am unable to move them. It just won't let me. So I shall post around them. They are the result of some one handed drawing and painting I did in the sketchbook I am giving away.
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By the way I forgot to say that comments on this blog will go into the hat for the book, as well as those on Workshop on the Web's Facebook page. Thanks for reminding me that we need to do both, Stitcher, but only one name per person, please.
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The pics are the result of some metallic watercolours I bought, recommended by Jane Wild, and they are lovely. You can't see the full effect in these pics but they give a great gleam and many work together for a variety of effects. Daniel Smith's Extra Fine Watercolours (got mine from Jacksons) and I will write a full review in December's WoW.
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So I'm back again, using one hand in 'hunt and peck' mode - not easy when upper case is needed. Thanks so much for all your good wishes - it's all going very well, not nearly as painful as expected. Something of a surreal experience, lying down with arm outstretched, chatting to a nurse who lived near me about our local traffic chaos while, on the other side of the screen, my hand was being tortured.
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Anyway, the big bandage is off and a smaller one applied. Quite spectacular bruises - should have photographed them, the colours were great. Arnica is wonderful for bruising so they will soon fade.
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I managed to give a talk in Salisbury on Thursday, which was fun and seemed to go well, in spite of struggling with a microphone and the laser pointer (known as Mr Pointy) in the same hand.
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Clive is great at cooking, but rubbish at blow-drying so I treated myself to a hairdresser visit yesterday and am now feeling great.

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Must go now and direct operations in the garden. I have the perfect excuse for my favourite gardening method - pointing and saying 'just plant it there'.

The Cutting Edge

I should be in hospital having my carpal tunnelly hand sorted out but they found they had got their am list muddled up with their pm list, so I have to go back later. Wish they'd found out before I got up at 5am!

Never mind - at least I have time for a two-handed blog before I go.

We've got a give-away on our Workshop on the Web Facebook page. It's one of my inspiration books - remember a few posts ago I had the idea of putting good samples into a 'special' book. Well, this is the first one and I am giving it away. Ain't that noble? Do go and put your name down if you fancy a chance of winning.

This is a detail of the cover. Paint effects and Pearly powders with embossing powder.
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And one of the pages with a slight celtic twist. Hand-stitching - I do enjoy that, but won't be doing much with the hand all bandaged up.
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The pond is nearly finished. Just a little row of bricks to build, new paving and some planting. Smudge took site inspections very seriously.
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So much so that he nearly got drowned when Clive did the trial filling. At one point he was asleep in the bottom.
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All filled now and holding water. Will show the finished version, with droopy plants when I can garden again as all planting is my responsibility.
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Ah well, soon be time to have another go at getting the hand sorted. Think of me.

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.

Being a Bit Cross and Reasons to be Cheerful

I am feeling a little cross as Twisted Thread has messed up the dates for my teaching trip to Italy next year. Last November they asked me when I was free and I suggested April 2012. I duly drew a line through the whole month as they rearranged the last trip. Now they say they didn't get my email (very strange as it was the same email as I notified them of my change of address and they have certainly been using the new address). I am pretty booked up for May so can't do that and don't want to travel in February, the other suggestion. I've also been turning down work in April so it is doubly annoying. I suppose I should have checked to make sure but, as there was no paperwork last time I went, it didn't cross my mind. Never mind - I 've already got a booking for a talk in the Wirral in April and I shall enjoy it just as much.

Reasons to be Cheerful 1

Anyway it's hard to stay cross when you pull back the curtains in the morning and see this young chap. He was eating the fallen sunflower hearts that the finches drop - must be hungry. I bet my neighbour with the chickens would not say 'Aah, bless'.

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Reasons to be Cheerful 2

I've been to Art in Action which was as much fun as ever, although a little light on demos this year. Found a fantastic collagraph artist, Sue Brown, and learned so much from her. She uses birds as inspiration.

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With my d4d hat on, I do hope to sign her up for a series of small books next year.

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It was good to meet Liz Clay (above) as she has written articles for WoW but we hadn''t met. She does great 3D stuff with felt.
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Reasons to be Cheerful 3

It was almost my birthday so Clive bought me this amazing piece of glass. It reflects its surroundings, upside down in the bottom, as well as the lovely swirl. Made by someone at Bournemouth and Poole College - they had a really good stand and are local to me in Dorset.

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I am trying to pick a colour for the sitting room carpet. I am going to base my colour scheme on Smudge as he has a lovely coloured coat of creamy, tawny hues with touches of blue-grey. As you can see from the following run of pics he is not co-operating in the choice.

.How boring - fancy interrupting my sleep for this....

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On the other hand it might make a good hiding place....

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..for surprise attacks.

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Hope the lady from the carpet department doesn't follow my blog!