Great weekend

We had a lovely weekend in Devon, the weather was glorious, a little bit of an Indian summer at last.

I met up with Val as planned at the Rosemoor gardens, which are very beautiful and quite different to our local RHS at Wisley, in Surrey. We had a lovely long chat and exchanged our work for a 'show and tell'. I got to see Val's latest embellishing samples in the flesh, wich I can tell you were brilliant as they look so full of life and colour. That's the unfortunate thing about the web, it does tend to flatten images of our work.

I was also priveldged to see Val's latest PC for the CG challenge, which will be winging its way to Lynda. It's a beautiful piece with a very cleverly worked embellished BG, which you can see here .

Val is a lovely person with a wealth of creative experience that she's very happy to share, so it was a real treat to sit and compare notes and absorb some of her creative advice. I came away from our meeting full of enthusiasm and confidence for the remainig work I have to do on the C&G. I hope we will be able to meet up again one day for a catch up on the next chapter of our creative story.

I even had time to take a few shots in the gardens of some very inspirational plants etc.



The colours on these Chard really caught my eye.



This sunflower was well passed its best , but the dried flower head has a wonderful texture.



Couldn't reist these artichokes against such a blue sky.



And how about this glorious texture on the melon.

My friend's wedding was beautiful, she looked absolutely radiant, unfortunately I can't post a pic yet as the happy couple have gone on their honeymoon, and I haven't got permission to post a pic.
The setting for the wedding in the Sculpture park was a great idea, there was so much to see between the various stages of the wedding. I managed to snap a couple of the sculptures that I really liked, sorry no names, you'll have to make them up.





On sunday morning we went to Woolacombe Bay which appeared to be a major surfers' magnet. It had a great atmosphere with all their vans lined up on the cliffs above the bay. You'll probably know by now that we have a soft spot for VW campers as we have one ourselves.

Excited!!

I'm, off to Devon tomorrow for 2 exciting reasons.

Firstly I'm meeting up with the lovely Val tomorrow at the RHS Rosemoor gardens, which I've never been to despite being a member of Wizley Gardens, which is the Surrey equivalent, since '93. I'm really excited to be meeting Val as she's going to bring some of her embellishing samples for me to have a look at in the flesh, while we indulge ourselves with some naughties form the cafe.

The second reason for the visit is that we're going to a friend's wedding at Broomhill sculpture park, which looks amazing, so all in all it should be a very special w/e.

I would like to make a couple of thank yous in this post too.
I have been very touched by the number of bloggers who welcomed me back after my enforced internet break, it was so nice to know that my ramblings had been missed.



Secondly I was delighted to receive the 'I love your blog ' award from Carol this week, it's so nice to know that people enjoy your blog enough to want to give you an award.
At the moment things are pretty busy, so I think I will just have to say a big thank you and pass this on to all those who have given me so much friendship and support since I started blogging.

I have been promoted yet again by my lovely DD2 and am now responsible for the in stock baby carriers. You can see them here. Once again there have been a few tricky moments as I get to know the new fabrics and design, but I think I'm up and running now, but very busy with a steady work flow, so time is tight.

I'm still managing to keep my 2 DCD's (dedicated creative days) a week that I set out to do on Jan 1st, but they are now focused on the finish date in March next year for my C&G embroidery course. No mean feat considering it's taken me 2 1/2 years to get half way , so now I have to do the other half in 6 months, hmmmm!

Anyway the point of all this dribble is to explain why my presence might be patchy over the next few months. But I'm so nosey I dare say I won't be able to stay away for long.

And because I can't bear to put up a post without pics here's a few to be going on with.



I saw this lovely planter at a local NT house the other Sunday, made me think of my progress at the moment.



This lovely carved seat has been placed in a recently reworked little retreat garden at the Arundel Wetland Centre.



And this paper-cut design is the first piece of design work for the new module 5, which I will post about later, just wanted to prove I have been doing something creative.

I'm back!!!

At last!! After a week and a half we're back on line. AOL finally found out why our router wasn't talking to the phone line.
Thanks to all those who sent messages, it was much appreciated. I shall now have a great time catching up with everyone :-)

It's a very strange feeling being without internet contact, makes you wonder how we managed without it, all I can say is that I've tidied the entire contents of both studios, revamped a previous C&G module that I bungled, and am now looking forward to the new module after a succesfull assessment on module 4.

It's great to be back!!

Message from Sharon

Hello!

This Sharon's daughter Hannah posting on her behalf. Her internet connection has unfortunately gone kaput and she has no access whatsoever to the blog or her emails, so please be patient if you are waiting to hear from her, she'll be back as soon as possible!