Fibre Festivals

Recently I have been fortunate to attend three festivals.  The first was Thread, a sewing festival, at Farnham Maltings.

In the morning, I took a freehand machine embroidery workshop.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a lot, but need a great deal of practice! :)

In the afternoon I wandered around the festival

and took part in a drop-in workshop to make a vintage button keyring.

The next festival was Yarningham, in Birmingham, held at the Uffculme Centre.  I went with Deb and we met our friends Dani and Liz there.

We had a lovely time squishing yarn,









then had a picnic on the lawn and sat knitting and chatting for a couple of hours,

before one last look around the festival.

The third festival was Fibre East last Saturday.  I met up with friends Amanda, Nicola and Tracey.

Again there was more yarn squishing and lots of chatting! :)





We made a beeline for our friend Maya's beautiful yarn.  Some of this had to come home with me!



We also spent a fair amount of time at Teri's stall.

We spent so much time squishing and chatting, that there became quite a group of us!

Photo courtesy of Ellie @ crafthousemagic
Fibre festivals are best shared with friends and we all had a wonderful day.

The end of a very successful day! ;)

Geocaching in the Hampshire Countryside

Throughout the month of July, my husband and I took part in the Hidden Creatures challenge set by Geocaching.  The idea was to find 100 caches within a set time.  The weather was glorious, perfect for long walks in the countryside, discovering old byways and amazing vistas.

We found this field of beautiful poppies,

stretching as far as the eye could see!

Common poppies were to be seen, growing amongst the crops too.



Much of this area is chalk downland, which supports a beautiful array of wild flowers.











The corn fields were a gorgeous, golden colour.



We passed by streams

and old mills.

We found some interesting caches!

The byways were leafy and green, providing shade from the sun

and the evenings were delightfully warm.

An ingenious cache!

We love that caching takes us to interesting places, such as the Peace Garden at Greenham Common.





My husband was also away for a short time on a business trip in UAE and picked up a few points there too.  As a result we found 100 caches in time and earnt our World Turtle souvenir.




Being a fan of Terry Pratchett I wanted to complete this challenge!