And the prize at the end of Week One ?

Although Week One of my 'holiday' didn't exactly go according to plan I did accomplish quite a lot and as a reward spent today at the Embroiderers Regional Day.

There was a large crowd of women there and a large display of work from the 11 different guilds in the region.  

Can you see the Guild Banners hanging behind - they look lovely all hung together.
I love seeing what others have been stitching and came away with some clever ideas which I will transfer to my little notebook and eventually stitch.

One Guild had done a wonderful combined effort of our native pohutukawa flower -  don't you love the idea of each member doing one jigsaw piece and yet they all fit together beautifully.

Another member from the Far North produced this exquisite sampler.  While I know that I could never reproduce this I was certainly intrigued.

I am currently stitching a Christmas Ornament (from this years JCS Ornament Issue) but using threads and fabric from my stash.   This will become a box lid.  Don't you wish you were the recipient of the box and could see what will be hidden inside?

Yesterday I completed a new shoulder bag for the HD3QBEM -  I had promised here a new one for her birthday in September, but better late than never.   She is really pleased.   It is black heavy homespun furnishing weight linen lined with some cream shower curtain fabric so is semi-waterproof.   When I bought the shower curtain it was far too long and I had to chop off the bottom and am pleased to have found a use for the scraps :-)  I did a Sashiko design on the outside and sewed a heavy duty black zipper as the opener.   The small white dangle you can see on the zip pull is from my friend in Kagoshima-  seemed appropriate since Sashiko is a Japanese technique.
I'm off to cook dinner now and hopefully stitch more hexagons.