Ushaw

Jenny and I set off for Ushaw Friday lunchtime and returned home Sunday teatime, tired but happy having had a wonderful weekend amongst friends and fellow embroidery enthusiasts. Ushaw is a wonderful venue, a neo-gothic collection of buildings that was originally built in the early 18th century as a Roman Catholic Seminary for young men. It expanded into three schools with children (girls were accepted at primary level) covering the ages from 5 to 18. The main church is one of Pugin's and always astonishes me everytime I go there.

This weekend the daffodils were out in the grounds around the buildings.

View from the workshop window.Toni Handley our tutor for the weekend kindly stood for this photo and allowed me to post it and her embroideries on my blog. Toni is a wonderful teacher, friendly, knowledgeable and very free with her help and supplies.
This is a panel from one of her Indian treasures (bought in India for her). Its reverse applique a bit like mola work.

The weekend started with lessons in shisha work followed on Saturday by stamping and stenciling and ah.... the word has gone, quilting type running stitches.

Sample of Toni's shisha work.

Toni kept her shisha mirrors and other accessories in these little bowls which I thought looked very colourful.

This is my piece, well the only one I actually liked. I did do another couple of shisha samples but hated the rather thick yarn and crude look so I did them again in finer yarn.

One of the 'quilt' of stencilled and stamped pieces done by the class, mine's the black one at the bottom. I wasn't exactly sure what it was and was pleasantly surprised once I'd put the stencil on the black. Not sure whether I'll actually finish it though.

Vivienne Brown was the second tutor on the weekend, her class was experimenting with printing on fabric. There were was very exciting but I won't post photos as I haven't asked permission but I have got one or two ideas from them so might do something along those lines and show you that later.

Been a busy few days this week full of hospital/GP appointments for both me and Mum. Mum's hip replacement op has been brought forward to the 18th April and mine has (not hip op) has been put back until 10th July. The delay is due to lack of communication between two hospitals but this has now been sorted out. The delay also means I can go on holiday next month not feeling sore.