The Big List of Sewing Blogs is growing longer and longer, so I was wondering about how to format it? I thought the best thing to do is to ask the people who use it - so what do you want me to do?

Keep it as one long list?

Move it into pages - if so how many blogs per page?

I have a huge backlog of blogs to add - so if you’re waiting to hear back or you’re waiting for your Technorati rank to be updated, then please be patient - I’ll get there!

I will also write up a few posts that I’ve had on the back burner - if I tell you about them I have to writ them up :

How I taught myself to knit using the internet

A tutorial on transferring patterns to fabric for embroidery

and pretty pictures from a recent course in silk shading at the Royal School of Needlework and of a workshop in Blackwork embroidery.

I can finally blog about the project I worked on through the summer.

Very good friends of ours got married in September, Duncan was best man and as they have both always been supportive of my embroidery I wanted to give them something special.

It’s from an Anchor kit called Cheng Yang. Which by-the-by was bought from sewandso a site I’ve bought from a few times now and have had great service..

I know it has the size on the description, but it didn’t really compute until I opened the pack It was certainly the biggest piece I’ve ever done and it was pretty intense sewing between our wedding in June and Will and Heather’s in September.. but it was great fun to do, with the outline drawn it felt a bit like colouring in - it’s mainly long and short or satin stitch with a bit of stem stitch.

There are other kits available in a similar style, which are quite tempting..

Tomorrow I’ll be starting on a new project. A few months ago I offered to make a batch of cards as an offering in an auction of promises to raise money for the Light Opera group I’m a member of. I took along a few photos of cards already featured on the blog and my lot sold 3 times over.. Two girls wanted cards but the guy I’m meeting tomorrow wanted a piece of artwork, so tomorrow evening we’re meeting to decide what he would like! I’m very nervous as my designs have tended to be quite small but I’ll take a bunch of books along and see what style he likes..

We were driving along the bumpiest road known to man. The route took us from Lake Manyara, up past the Ngorogoro Crater and on to our lodge in the Serengeti National park. About 10 minutes after leaving the check point to pay for entrance to the Serengeti our driver got a call on his radio about two cheetahs that were just sat by the side of a small road we were about to drive past. (How anyone spotted some of the animals we saw I will never know!) We turned off and sure enough there were two brothers relaxing in the sun. The had obviously only just eaten, their bellies were enormous and they still had blood around their mouths. We spent a good 15 minutes just sat in the van admiring them.

Duncan had already found a place that did canvas prints - CanvasRus. We went for a canvas with gallery wrap which looks amazing. The print came within a week and we are both chuffed, I’d definitely recommend you give them a go.

Cheetah canvas print from CanvasRus

The honeymoon was amazing and having this picture around will bring back all the memories. We are going to put it up in our hallway.

I’ve been back for a couple of weeks but laundry and life have gotten in the way of my blogging!

I returned to 800 unread blog posts, around 70 blog submissions for the big list and a huge pile of work at my day job.. So apologies to those waiting to get added to the list - you’re all on the database now, just waiting for me to republish the list.. but that’s not working at the moment, so while you’re being even more patient here are some photos from Tanzania:

It’s quite strange - who would have thought I use ‘Just Lovely’ quite so often!

Last Sunday Duncan and I packed some sandwiches and headed off to Hampton Court. It was the annual exhibition of work by the apprentices of the Royal School of Needlework. The apprenticeship is 3 years, the first two learning different embroidery techniques and the final year is more business based with work placements in the RSN’s studio as well as externally..

This year’s exhibition was a little disappointing in 2 ways, as the course is being phased out, there was only work from the final year students - so it was smaller than when we’ve been before and probably because of this it was in a room outside the palace, when we went before it was in the Queen’s chambers - a big imposing room with wooden panelling - just the kind of room where you’d imagine some of the techniques were developed..

The work we did see was by no means disappointing - I’ve said it before, but there are some very clever women out there.. Unfortunately not all the graduates had websites, but this one showcases one of my favourite pieces of the exhibition this lily in silk shading. There was also an amazing dragon in goldwork, but photography wasn’t allowed and I can’t find any photographs..

This afternoon we went into Wimbledon to buy silly hats and other necessities for our honeymoon. I can’t believe it’s only 2 weeks away! We’re going on a safari in Tanzania, hence the silly hats, I have a feeling there will be quite a lot of khaki!

Thank you so much to Lisa at The Hem Line for this award!

The rules of the award mean I have to nominate a further 7 blogs, so congratulations guys (in no particular order): angry chicken, Bella Dia, Feeling stitchy, U-handblog, I have to say…, Blissed out and Kimono Reincarnate.

Here’s what the winners need to do:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog

2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you

3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs

4) Add links to those blogs on your blog

5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

Exciting news over on U-handblog, Amy butler is in London next week. She’ll be at Liberty on tuesday. I’m hoping I can move some meetings at work, though at the moment the people involved are still on holiday..

Check out this giveaway over at Funky and Delightful, congratulations on 100 posts!!

It’s weird how easy it is to get out of the habit of blogging and sewing in fact and how difiicult it is to get back in the habit again! I’ve been waiting for something earth shattering to blog about and then I realised this week, one of the things I like to read is the more personal stuff - the details not just what people are making but how they fit it in around the rest of their lives.. Lisa has a good post over on Craftboom about how she lays out her day, she’s lucky enough to do this for a living, so has all day to play with (around the admin of course!) - how do the rest of you find the time and the energy??

Most particular, from my sister of who it could previously have been said wouldn’t know how to thread a needle! She sewed every stitch herself and I am so pleased with it!

From my mother-in-law and one of my sisters-in-law another beautiful sampler - I love the colours in the piece!

My husband’s employee Leonie not only designed our invitations, but also made us this book, it’s embroidered with our initials: DM on the front and SM on the back

Another of Duncan’s employees, Emily is a very clever artist, she gave us this lovely screen print. My photo doesn’t do it justice, I couldn’t get rid of the reflection - there’s some stitch work on this as well..

We also got some lovely homemade cards - I was using a borrowed camera and not all the photos turned out well, but here’s a photo of most of the cards - there are more out of shot..

and in particular ones from my old flat mate Hannah: hannah.jpg

and last but not in the least least a card from my parent’s neighbour, Christine - this is a waterfall card. I hadn’t come across one before, but I’ve just had a quick google and found a tutorial for how to make this type of card.

So many thanks to all!!

A photo that not only shows my lovely new husband, my beautiful dress (I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say that but I loved my dress!) and THE cake! My mum made the cake for us - the flowers and everything.. I’m so proud of her, I have to admit she took some persuading and really didn’t want the responsibility but I knew she’d do such a wonderful job and it means so much more.. in fact here’s another photo of the cake!

There are more photos over on flickr, so I won’t post any more here - until the official ones come through

We just had the best day - our friends sang beautifully in church, they were really amazing and if I’d known whether the mascara I was wearing was waterproof I’d have been in floods throughout!! Just thinking now I keep thinking of all the little things that happened to make it so special, I guess the main thing was sharing it with friends and family who were just so lovely and supportive.

We also got an amazing selection of homemade gifts and cards which I will be photographing and blogging about - including a surprise sampler from my sister who we jokingly say can’t sew on a button - she certainly proved us all wrong!

Last week we had a few days in the Peak District at a lovely Inn, which did great pub food, lots of good beers and was really well placed for me to go check out a sewing shop in Bakewell They have an online store, Wye needlecraft which I haven’t checked out yet, but if it’s anything like the shop it should be pretty good - they had a great selection of embroidery threads.

Followed by a few days in Madrid, in another lovely hotel right by the Retiro Park.. which is well worth a visit if you’re in Madrid.

Unfortunately, I came home with an ear infection - so normal service won’t resume quite so quickly, I know I have a backlog of blogs built up to add to the list, but I’ll get there eventually!

I hope you all had a happy month of June,

Suzi Morris