Owls When I helped out at my local Brownies I was known as Little Owl, which was fine in the church hall on a Monday night - but not so fun when accosted on a Saturday afternoon out shopping with my mates! When the farm down the road from my parents converted the barns into houses, my Dad put what looks like a big dog kennel up a tree behind the house to give the owls somewhere to go. After quite a few years it has finally paid off and there are now owls up there! I can’t wait to go visit and see!!

Neuroendocrinology The subject of my PhD. People are always a little surprised that after 4 years of research, long hours and little holiday, I now want to sew. But to me it kind of makes sense apart from the lots of effort for very little reward aspect sewing also involves:

concept project design gathering materials execution of the project producing a final product (research/conference paper or brooch/card…)

A bit tenuous maybe but you get the idea..

The map that changed the world This is a long term project that I haven’t really planned out yet.. My Dad has requested - more than once - that I do a copy of William Smith’s geological map of England. I haven’t really worked out what will be involved yet. I believe its under copyright at the Geological Society.. It’s on the list of things to do - but so are two wedding samplers!

Morris My surname to be! Today we finally confirmed that we’re having a BBQ for our wedding breakfast - I’m very excited about it

Leaf

This leaf is my first stumpwork leaf. I put together a tutorial when my wrist’s a bit better. This was something we did at the guild and being mainly buttonhole stitch it was really quick to pick up. The leaf can be detached from the calico now and then I still have to decide what to do with it - suggestions would be good!

I’ve been a bit erratic with blog posts this week as we’ve had a friend from Uni visiting from the states. We’ve been having loads of fun entertaining her! On Saturday night we ended up in a Burlesque themed bar in Soho. We had a lovely BBQ on Sunday and yesterday we went for afternoon tea at Clarridge’s. I can’t recommend the experience highly enough! Not only were we treated to amazing tea, sandwiches, scones and cake - such amazing food - we also saw a host of celebrities on their way out for various parties. We followed the tea with a champagne cocktail in Selfridge’s and sat on the next table to Cat Deeley and Edith Bowman .. so a celebrity packed day with just the best food, drink and surroundings!

Kingfisher In the woods by my parents house there’s the River Dove. My Dad has seen numerous kingfishers down there over the years and I don’t think my Mum has seen a single one (in about 30 years!). I love the colours of these birds and it’s one of the reasons I want to learn silk painting!

Jacobean crewel work - Rather specific I know, but this is the pieces I started earlier in the summer at a 3 day Jacobean course with the Royal School of Needlework.

My mum and I have taken courses there for the last two summers and they have both been excellent! The design for this was done by Helen Stevens - unfortunately I haven’t been able to track down a blog/website for her, but as well as being an RSN apprenticeship graduate she also makes stunning jewelry! and gets to do it all as a day job!

I’m hoping to finish this in the next few weeks! - My arm has been steadily improving all week and I’m typing this with both hands and no pain relief

Injury My final push to start this blog was hurting my arm, which mean I haven’t been able to sew for 3 weeks! (Unheard of for me!). I’m pleased to say that after a lovely long weekend here in the UK, my arm is a lot better. I’m not pain free or back to full strength yet, but there’s improvement

In a minute ago A great resource for ideas and links to other crafters and a wonderful teacher! Sharon also has a really great stitch dictionary.

Also, we have a friend from the States literally in the air on her way to visit right now! We lived in Halls together at Uni and I haven’t seen her since we visited Boston 6 years ago!! .. Blimey! So m writing might be a little erratic for the next few days..

Suzi

Hog roast I get married in just 10 months .. eek! and we’re having a hog roast buffet as the wedding breakfast - I’m very excited about it!

Hearth Growing up we always had an open fire in the winter and I still love curling up in front of the fire! We recently stayed in a cottage in Wales - my parents and sister stayed there for a week and we went just for a weekend and slept in front of the fire in the living room..

In other news Sharon Boggon’s In a minute ago blog has moved to here so update your feed reader! Suzi

Ginger I guess this is the first thing most people think of when asked to describe me! and we ginger people are quite rare - or so I thought, until I started working in the same unit as 2 other girls with red curly hair!! Considering less that 1% of the human population has red hair, 3 in a team of 16’s not bad going!!

Goldwork

I did this piece of Gold work on a two day course at the Royal School of Needlework last summer. It was a really amazing course - the setting itself is just incredible.. they’re based at Hampton Court Palace and the workroom we were based in over looked the gardens .. This was my first real use of metal threads so I’m quite pleased with the result - though it could have been neater! One of the best lessons I learned was that mistakes can be covered - see the extra swirl of pearl purl at the bottom on the stem! - and it really doesn’t matter what the back looks like as long as it doesn’t show on the front - a great relief!!

GLOC this is getting to be a long post, but I couldn’t do G without mentioning Grosvenor Light Opera Company - I’ve been singing with them for 6 years now (I think) and the standard just keeps getting higher, which is great as we’re learning more and more each year. I met my fiance and many good friends through the company and I can’t wait to get back to rehearsals in a couple of weeks time! Something I can do without using my hand!

Friends Both the real kind and the series! I am addicted to reruns of Friends on E4 - they’ve just come full circle back to the early episodes again! Obviously the real kind are much better which leads me on to..

Facebook A great way of keeping up with the friends I don’t tend to see as often as I might!

Fish I have this lovely fish in my bathroom.

I just love the colours. I really love the idea of using this as inspiration for a piece. I also adore this fish by Marci a fellow student on the Sumptuous Surfaces course. She posted the link on the class forum under the title Just For Fun and you can see that it would be just a real fun piece to work!