Cornish Ice Cream

Greetings from Cornwall. Its a beautiful sunny October week as I finally get my summer holiday (and the weather is almost making us believe that it is August)

The last few weeks have been manic as usual. Apart from the usual working, college has started back up again. That's a funny one, feeling like your 16 again as your back in college and surrounded by pimply faced teenagers but studying on a PGCE course designed for adults, so feeling like a kid and teaching adults - no wonder we need lots of tea breaks.

I also taught a lovely Introduction to Embroidery class at the lovely Creative Quilting in East Molesey:

http://www.creativequilting.co.uk/

I had a lovely group of ladies in a wonderfully relaxed setting. It is so nice to have a change of pace and teach a smaller class like this one, allowing me to spend more time with people. It was also a nice back to basics for me. I've  been teaching so many in-depth classes on specific techniques that I've not had the chance to do a back to basics class in quite a while, and this is something I always love doing - showing people something new they can do, or add to their other favorite crafting techniques, and simply re-introduce them to the beauty of embroidery (especially after often disastrous experiances at school!) The ladies sped through the various stitches, showed us examples of things they had done at home, planned future projects for embroidering on their quilts (and even some redwork) and then finally, exhausted but, hopefully, re-invigorated, went home.

This is what we stitched: (Sorry, no full computer of pictures to use when in Cornwall!)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katiepirson/4288113601/

The end of September saw me pack up the car with all my pictures, kits and tactile goodies and head to Devon to the ICHF Exeter show. The four days were fantastic. Set up day is always a bit nerve wrecking for me, I never know when to stop preening and fiddling with everything so I usually gauge it by when the coffee stand has closed for business!

I have done show's with ICHF before in Birmingham, Brighton, Liverpool and Harrogate but this was the a first at Exeter and a first in the 'Quick and Handy' demo's section. This meant that for one hour of every day I took fabric, needles, threads and designs down to the communal class area and taught a hugely diverse group to 'stitch'. Some of course were expert stitchers, some had never sewn a button on, and some thought I was there to teach them to Crochet (if only I knew how!) I was lucky to have an hour, the usual order of events is 15 minute sessions, but luckily ICHF had the foresight to see that 15 minutes may mean only a few threaded needles. The sessions were wonderfully manic to do, and always caused much giggling and gossiping - which of course just goes hand in hand with stitching.

Overall the show was a success for me, I meant some wonderful people (and a few slightly crazy ones - one lady thought I was Japanese!) and have made some great contacts, including meeting my wonderful show neighbour Rachel Powell:

http://www.rachel-powell.com/

Her beautiful textiles are quite the opposite of mine and I love that. Her style is fresh and tactile, and she dyes her yarns the most beautiful colours. I admire the unplanned nature of some of her work - never knowing how something will work until its dyed or spun or woven. When I have a smidgen of free time she's promised to help my dye my own natural embroidery threads so watch this space and check out her work.

So here are a few pictures of the stand before the hordes appeared and surrounded it:



That's ME that is!



The rouge's gallery.

The Tactile Table - the sign peeking from the corner reads 'Please feel free to touch' and always gets a few giggles and encourages people to get their hands on the fabrics.

 So Exeter over, and time for holiday and relaxing time......

a hint of things to come: the Eden project and photography mania, local cider, Tintagel and Boscastle, the new holiday read which is almost finished and quilting and countryside heaven.....

(now to get ready for tomorrow - I'm off to catch me some Mackerel!)