One of Jayne's crazy fish Apologies for the delay in updating the blog - life and family have got in the way. I am way behind with what I would like to share with you - I hope to catch up over the next couple of weeks. We had the first weekend of the Christmas Open Houses, it was great fun and we had loads of visitors. It always takes longer than you think to set up the house and we just managed to be ready for ten o'clock when we opened. It is great to be home for a few weeks and see so many of my friends.   We have 2 new exhibitors in the house this year - John Culligan - who turns wood - and Ria Wilson who makes fabulous jewellery. The rest of the team is in place - Ember Vincent who creates beautiful raku ceramics and Jose Heasman who makes wonderful stained glass pieces . . . . . . . and Mary's Lamb who makes beautiful hats, scarves and great little teddy bears.  . . . .  and Jayne Routely

  Hand cut leather embellished with felt, beads, machine and hand stitch. I am alternating posts between The Knitting and Stitching Show in Dublin and my last two workshops that were both newspaper based. Even you, dear reader, can only take sooo much newspaper! The work that I have selected to show you is what either fascinated and inspired me, or just tickled my fancy. There were some fabulous artists exhibiting at the show but I can only show you so much - so this is my choice. The work of the Irish graduates was a delight and two of them are featured here - the other - a graduate from the U.K. is also featured.  Amy Brannigan's work is very intricate and is based on lace patterns and the Irish Coastline. Leather is either cut by hand or a laser cutter to create beautiful layers and voided areas - a beautiful lace.    The work is reminiscent of seaweed washed up on the beach with all kinds of encrustations.   Laser cut leather encrusted with silk fibres,

 Torn newspaper layered with painted Bondaweb. I am going to alternate writing up my workshops with the Dublin show. I will show you some of the graduate work from Dublin in the next post. I have taught A New Starting Point twice in the past three days. A treat for me but could be monotonous for you, hence the alternation. The first workshop was with the ladies of Basingstoke Embroiderers Guild on Thursday 7th November. We got off to a flying start painting up the Bondaweb then getting down to business with the 'backgrounds' and 'pretties'. The tearing and layering process is a simple one but can be difficult to get to grips with at the start.  I love this workshop - it is my favourite, the results are always fabulous. Just by layering newspaper with painted Bondaweb and all kind of sparkles.           The ladies getting on down with their sparkles.        After the tearing and layering the ladies played with printing blocks on sheets of