Owen Davies workshop

Yes, last weekend I went away to Bishop Burton agricultural college for a workshop with Owen Davies, learning how to make a 3-D embroidered garden! If you ever get the chance to go on one of his workshops ... jump at it! He is a brilliant tutor - inspiring, fun, generous, talented .. ok you get the picture .. I'm a huge fan.

For those of you who have never heard of him, this is Owen's most famous garden

It's actually even more stunning when you can see it up close - and yes, those gates really are made in wrought iron.

He had decorated the room we were working in with mood boards all around the walls and green silk covered the table on which our embroidery frames were clamped. There were huge wicker baskets filled with embroidery threads from which we could choose our colours, and a vintage suitcase filled with old embroidery magazines and books for sale.

Just a small selection of the mood boards. I chose to set my garden in autumn so chose hot shades for my flower beds.  I was thinking of dahlias, late summer daisies, berries, lilies and leaves changing colour. You get the picture from these pages taken from the journal/workbook I'm making of my garden.

This is the complete garden from which he took our design. We are working just the central motif.

Here's where I got to by the end of the weekend.

 And here's where I am now, ready to start on the topiary hedges. I'm thinking that I shall make brick walls too and put my garden inside a box.

And finally, here's a little posy for you all from my garden.

A trip to London and new cottages

Sorry I've been away for a while but I've been down to London for a few days so I'm going to begin this post with a few of the photos I took whilst I was there.

My son and I had tickets for centre court at Wimbledon - on the day that Federer left the competition. Such an exciting experience ... and another one ticked off the list of things to do whilst I still can. Do you have one of those lists? I don't call it a bucket list, though I know that some people do.

Yes, we were a long way back but actually we had a brilliant view of all the action.

I also made a visit to the William Morris Gallery. I love his designs and found lots of inspiration for embroideries whilst I was there. The gallery is situated inside a park, and as the weather was glorious I spent quite a while looking around the gardens there too.

No photos but my daughter and I went to see Swan Lake at the Royal Albert Hall - my favourite ballet (it's actually the 9th time I've seen it - all by different ballet companies) and with 127 dancers in total, including 60 swans, this production was certainly impressive!

I've also been busy with my 1/48th scale cottages. There are two in a row this time - one is tiny and the other has obviously been extended at some time as it's twice the size.

I've put false walls in the back of some of the rooms so it appears that there is at least a staircase to the upstairs level.

 This is the ground floor of the smaller cottage - complete with cooker and dresser...

... and here is the bedroom - tiny but there will be enough room for a bed and chest of drawers at least and perhaps a dressing table in front of the window.

The larger cottage now has a separate kitchen with a cooker and sink unit (I still need to put taps on the sink). Probably some wall shelves will complete this room.

Lots of space in the living room for bookshelves, sideboard and comfy armchairs.

Upstairs is a large bedroom and ...

... a tiny bathroom.

The front wall has been covered with air-drying clay with the smaller cottage being given a stonework finish while the larger cottage has plain rendered walls.

There is still lots of work to do on these but I'll show my progress over the coming week or so.