Harrogate K & S Show

Why are there not 48 hours in the day and the energy of a 5 year old to go with it? I went up to Harrogate on a coach yesterday and had a great day. Fortunately I had bought the catalogue in advance so I was able to plan my day before I went and it certainly helped to have a route round the exhibition planned in advance.

I have never taken time before to look into the amazing Royal Hall that serves as a refreshment venue at the Conference Centre so I had a peak in yesterday and was blown away by the beautiful building which has been restored recently.

I am sure there will be inspiration for future work in these images.

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of the first exhibit that I really enjoyed by Louise Baldwin but if you follow the link you can see the type of work that she had on display. I was also particularly impressed by the work of Cindy Hickok and Tom Lundberg, neither of whom I knew before.

This embroidery by Cindy Hickok is entitled “Her Mother Told Her Not To Run With Scissors” and is typical of the quirky vein that runs through her work. It rang a particular bell with me as my Mum has always said the same thing :)

Next stop in my day was an enjoyable demonstration by Jan Beaney who I have never met before but she imparted a huge amount of knowledge and insight to her work in a very short 45 minutes.

Jan’s talk centred on the use of solvent supports for embroidery and the piece above has given me some ideas for the future. Mind you, I went rushing off to Barnyarns later in the day to get some Soluble Sticky and managed to buy the wrong stuff! Oh well, I will still find a use for it!

I managed to link up with Sandra for lunch which was lovely and then had to pack quite a lot into the last 2 hours before my coach left to return home.

I was pleased to be able to see “The Art of the Stitch” exhibition as I had not seen it on any of its previous outings.

Jane Kenyon’s work.

Rosie James’ work.

Pippa Caley “Twigs”

Pippa Caley Twigs detail. My photo does not do this work ( or probably the ones above either) justice as the light was not wonderful and my camera struggles a little. I’m hoping Santa might bring me a new one for Christmas (Hello DH are you listening? lol).

So what else? Oh yes, Alice Kettle of course. If you follow the link and click on New Proj. you will be able to see the work that was on display within Clay and Thread, a collaborative exhibition of work between Alice Kettle and Helen Felcey in Place Settings and Alice and Alex McErlain in Conversation Pieces. I particularly liked the combination of subtly coloured ceramics and the delicate stitching of Alice Kettle’s work.

My camera wouldn’t oblige me with a decent photograph of the Alex McErlain pieces but Alice’s website has some good images.

I had hoped to spend time watching the Artists in Action but when I got there there wasn’t much ‘action’ :o( I think they were mostly having a late lunch or working on their stands elsewhere. (Insert rude word of frustration here!) Never mind, next time.

Finally, I did manage to get most of the things on my shopping list.

There were a few other bits and bobs but they were just routine things like sewing machine needles and urea for dyeing. The books are a present from my DH who also cooked dinner when I got back. Bless!

Well, that is by no means all that was at the Show but I think I did quite well in the time allowed. Needless to say I am exhausted today and my body is reacting in its own wonderful way but it was worth it. I enjoyed the day and got lots of inspiration.

You may have noticed that I’ve got more photos than usual into this post. I’ve decided to give Live Writer a try and so far I’m impressed. It even allows me to save the post to my laptop so I will have a permanent record in case Blogger ever throws a wobbler.

Oops! Nearly forgot, here’s a photo for Sandra