Origin

I had great plans to visit Origin on Friday but was a bit poorly during the night and so ended up spending a day on the sofa instead. Then I saw what a wonderful time Ali and Alice had there on Saturday and an email from Alice prompted me into going today and I was so glad I did. It was brilliant! There was so much wonderful jewellery, ceramics and textiles from a myriad of talented designers it was hard to single out favourites... but I've tried! All of the following were more than happy to chat about their work and were friendly and interesting. Do take a look at their websites if you have time.

Abigail Brown makes wonderful stitched birds - quirky, colourful and fun. She was also absolutely delightful, immediately asked me if I sew and was very interested in my degree.

Some of my favourite work was from Betty Pepper, a combination of book art and jewellery and I really wished I had a spare few hundred pounds!

There was more cut out paper from Claire Brewster who painstakingly cuts out these birds by hand from old maps.

A delightful combination of collected items, text, embroidery and books from Becky Adams who was also willing to chat to me for ages.

And last but not least there was more printing, paper cuts, books and embroidery from Sarah Morpeth. I confess I gave in to temptation and treated myself to one of Sarah's tiny books called Butterfly - mostly because I've been doing some paper cuts myself as I've researched lace and floral embroidery. You can just see a glimpse if you look carefully. There was definitely a theme to the things that caught my eye and I love the combination of paper, text, embroidery and books... the birds just happened to be a coincidence!

But now I've got some catching up to do. If the light improves tomorrow I may take some pics and add a few more of these to my Etsy shop as a day on the sofa on Friday and a couple of hours on the train today meant I got some embroidery done, but do contact me directly if you would like a particular colour (slightly cheaper that way).

Meanwhile life is busy... I'm teaching tomorrow, have to pack for a few days away in Devon with the West Country Embroiderers on Wednesday, not to mention degree work and a certain young man's 18th birthday at the weekend so I may be AWOL for a while. See you when I come back!