January is behind us now, and we can look forward to the spring - frogs (35) are very active in the pond, and bulbs are popping through the soil, with the first sign of snowdrops in flower.

We had a very successful Button Bag workshop in Bournemouth and Southampton, the pictures that follow are some of the ' in progress ' bags.

This is a picture of my button bag

Wendy Walker - Colbury

Stephanie Attenberger - Colbury

Colbury Group

Jean Turner - Bournemouth

Wendy Clayton - Bournemouth

More pictures to follow next month

I have found an interesting website to visit www.pickles.no  containing a variety of crochet patterns including flowers, free tutorials and inspiring ideas.

The Inspirations magazine (no longer available from retail outlets) is available from Manor House Magazines, Marlborough. 01672 514288.

Happy beading, stitching and knitting..... 

At last the snow has gone............although it was really lovely to snuggle down with some stitching...........and of course the dogs enjoyed it !

Spent a very enjoyable weekend at Urchfont Manor College teaching fabric books. It snowed quite hard over the weekend, and at one point we thought we may get snowed in.......I think we could have coped with that !

These are the pictures I took in the gounds of the college

At last I have finished the patchwork quilt, made from recycled fabrics. Some of the pieces were from the 1950's with tiny flower patterns in shades of pink. I have stitched several old buttons onto each piece of fabric and quilted in the ditch.

The socks, which are a presant for my daughter, were knitted with Opal self patterning sock wool from a pattern in Knitting magazine.  An excellent place to buy sock wool is www.sockyarnshop.com 

This is my fifth pair of socks.

Only finished one piece of beading this month, but really enjoyed playing with the colours and texture. This will be on display at Stitch n Craft Studio during January.

Happy stitching, beading and knitting.........

I was thinking that summer was well and truly over, and then I bought these strawberries, whch were just as delicious as those eaten in June.

I bought these lovely flowers a  few days ago in Bridport market -  made me think that spring is not far away ?

Thinking about Bridport - this was taken of the fossil in the wall of the garden in the arts centre cafe - very inspiring for a design idea.

Spent a lovely few days at the college exploring different printing techniques, inlcuding collagraph - a technique that uses collage on a card background to create a printing plate for use on paper or fabric. The above picture is one of my printing plates and some of the printed papers.

This is Mary,  who led the printing session, working on one of her projects, printing on fabric.

Rita's tidy work table !

The gardens of the college are beautiful this time of the year - have a look at the following  selection of photographs.

The following pictures are work finished or in progress...

the scralet letter needlebook

crochet flowers - ongoing...

Happy stitching, beading and knitting ......