Exchange gift arrived

Been very busy here this week as its the annual Village Show at the weekend. (I'm secretary, so there is a lot of paperwork to do for entries in the week or so before it)

This means there has not been too much time for stitching lately, but the exchange gift I sent to Clare has arrived so I can post pictures of that now.

This is a free design from Blackbird Designs finished as a standup scissor/thread keep.

I just love the sampler fabric I found to back it with, I ended up buying a full yard, so expect to see much more of it in the future ;)

Flowers, a carnival and a very late challenge

We've had a busy weekend here. First it was the Chapel Flower Festival. The theme was "AGood Read", and I chose a book about the kitchen garden at Heligan

Then it was off to Tintagel for the Carnival. A beautiful evening, a fabulous carnival, and Naomi won the cup for Best Queen.

Finally here (embarassingly late) is my finish for the Stitch and stash July Challenge. We did a penguin design from The Workbasket. The reason he took me so long is that I stitched him over 1 on 32 count, he's done in a single shade of very dark purple overdyed thread, and finished as a Christmas ornament, backed with the fabric in the picture.

A Gift Recieved and Another Carnival

Look at this beautiful exchange gift I recieved from Donna (no blog). 
How pretty is that?
Those strawberries look so real you could almost pick them!


And nestled inside the tin was the lovely mother of pearl strawberry thread keep.

There was another carnival on Saturday night. This one was at St Teath. The weather was a touch drizzly, but nevertheless a good time was had by all, and the girls came home with armfuls of trophies.

Some pictures from the Carnival

Another carnival has come and gone, but here are some photos to prove that it happened:-

Warning: Dr Who reference ahead

"I'm the bloody Queen, and basically I rule"

The Queen with her attendants

and on the float waiting for the parade to begin

Let the Carnival begin!

Its official! Carnival week has started. Since this is the 10th Carnival since it restarted in 2001 they kicked off with a birthday party, and what birthday party is complete without a birthday cake?

As I may have droned on about interminably mentioned, Naomi is Queen this year, and to our surprise here she is immortalised in cake!!! You have no idea how hard it was to stop her from eating this entire slab of icing (and slipping into a sugar induced coma) before I got this photo

now she has taken the photo I'm eating it mwahahaha haha   ha Naomi :)

Prom!

Here is Eloise all dressed up for her prom in Newquay on Friday night

A close up of her headgear (no tiaras for my fashion victim princess of cool)

and finally her high class transport ;D

Prom dress finished, carnival dresses to go. No rest for the wicked...

Funky footwear

Inspired by this tutorial I found online I decided to have a go at jazzing up a pair of very cheap, plain flip flops. This is what they looked like before:-

I cut up lots of old fabric scraps and machined them together as described in the tutorial, (I found it very traumatic when the instructions called for "messy stitching" as every fibre of my being screamed at me to stitch in nice straight lines, but I persevered!), and used the resultant material to cover the plastic straps and hey presto:-

The whole process took less than 2 hours start to finish and now I think they look like an expensive designer surf brand. I'm so pleased with them I'm thinking of making another pair in a different colour.