A rare day off

Today had to go on hold because the electricity was turned off all day.
I had to decide, would I rail against it or just give in. Hey I'm the glass half full type so I let myself have a rare day off. After my walk and meditation this morning early, I started franticly emailing, ringing, planning my day when the power suddenly died. I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to bed. A luxurious couple of hours sleep ensued.
After lunch I strolled around to my friend Clarry's for cups of tea and chocolate cake with her and Zebbie; phew, so nice to get off the treadmill for a while.
I have however been enjoying the treadmill very much lately with some gorgeous commissions. Take a look at these bright beauties for Tamara in Rome.


.... and I can post pictures of these now too. Cushions for my friend Tat who celebrated her 40th birthday on the 31st of July, and her wonderful partner ordered these for her. Tat has a thing about marone and I found these beautiful pieces to make up into some cushions.



including a precious piece of ecclesiastic embroidery.
I hope she likes them. Happy birthday Tat. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Summer exhibition

Sorry it's been a week or so without a blog post but there's been so much to do to catch up after my two weekends away from the computer.
The exhibition last weekend went really well. I sold more cushions than ever before and the really nice thing was that it was mostly local people from East Harling that bought things. I'd made quite a few cheaper cushions thinking that because of the recession no one will buy anything expensive! On the contrary, I was left with all the cheaper ones and the most expensive and glamorous cushions went on the first day.
Here are some pictures of them on site at Sheila's house, unfortunately it was pretty dark and cosy in there so I had to use the flash.The one below on the right on the window sill, sold before we even opened the doors and almost every person after that wanted to buy it too. I can't get any more of that particular fabric but I have managed to find some with the same patterns of embroidery but in a different and even more gorgeous colourway
Here are the three exhibitors looking slightly gaga after all the hard work of getting everything ready. Maz Jackson on the left, Sheila McDonald in the middle and me trying to look keen on the right.
Here's Sheila looking a bit more relaxed in amongst her glass cases of beautiful enamel ware.
This is what she does...and another photo a little bright and hard to see though.

Here's Maz..
and her beautiful work, using egg tempera and gold leaf.
Thanks girls for a wonderful event and if you missed it, we'll be doing it again closer to Christmas. Email me if you would like details as to where and when on exocush@hotmail.com

Joe and Fern's wedding

Phew. At last I can sit down at my sewing machine and sew, instead of racing around a makeshift kitchen for hour after hour a bit like the white rabbit in Alice in wonderland. I've been away helping a couple of friends cater for a wedding in Worcester. We worked for 17 and a half hours on Friday (after I twisted my ankle on Thursday catching my foot in a rabbit hole). Ouch. It didn't however stop me from dancing crazily for hours on Saturday night in the fabulous circus big top that Joe and Fern (the happy couple) had erected for the weekend.
I must admit that the wedding, was the most UNBELIEVABLE wedding, (no, make that EVENT) I've ever been to. The wedding bar has been raised and will not be seen this high for at least a year or so to come.
We had all sorts of helpers though...
this was the kitchen that we had to work in...it took Clarry and Lisa 8 hours solid to make all the mini sausage rolls.
the only way to stir that much sausage mince was to get right in there up to your elbows.
We made hampers for 200 people. Here's one we prepared earlier.
Joe and Fern had booked the whole campsite of the most amazing farm and recording studio called "The Hatch" here's a photo from their website (I hope they'll forgive me for using it).Everyone brought tents and camped in the orchard.
A great time was had by all.

This is what it looked like apré wedding!After it was all over, I decided to keep going West and make a short detour to Wales instead of setting off at 6pm on Sunday for the 4-5 hour trip back to Norfolk.
We have Welsh ancestors somewhere in our lineage and I'm not sure if it was autosuggestion or not but it looked REALLY familiar. I drove to Brecon and stayed in the quietest hotel you could ever wish for. I slept for 10 and a half hours solid.
And guess what? Wales is beautiful just like everybody says.
What the hell were those green shapes in the landscape though??? Oh I get it they're hills.

On fire

Somehow in the last few weeks, I've managed to get organised.
I've managed to go for a walk every weekday morning at 6.45 with my friend Cath...
then come home and meditate for 20 minutes. (No image for that as it would be really boring for you to have to look at the insides of MY eyelids).
I've managed to not spend toooo much time checking my emails and facebook. (No image for that either for much the same reasons).
And, AND....... I've been managing to tie myself down to the sewing machine and make lots of cushions.
I've had quite a few commissions lately. The first, some bolsters for a narrow boat called 'Moonbow'. The leaf printed silk came from a friend in Australia and it's so soft and luxurious.
The next was for a cushion for a girl who teaches yoga (crikey I hope she doesn't read this blog as I've just posted it off to her and I think it's a surprise). Her lovely partner got in touch with me after seeing a cushion that was only on the website for about 2 days. You might recognise the purple and green theme from the tiny Liberty miniatures.

I took photos of the precious pieces I had left that we could use and this one took his fancy. It's ancient and from an altar cloth that had mostly disintegrated.
The last commission was for a tenth wedding anniversary present.
The tenth anniversary is symbolised by tin so we made it from silver silk. I appliqued their initials in gold kid on the sides of the silk.

and I used one of the last pieces of this beautiful embroidered fabric from an "Uchikake" or wedding kimono.
Finally after finishing those pieces, I started to make cushions for an exhibition that I'm having on the weekend of the 15th, 16th, and 17th of July. (If you'd like an invite, email me and I'll let you know where to come ..... exocush@hotmail.com)
More of that stunning pastel embroidery.
so thick you could eat it.