Shopping and Links

A few years ago I took a sewing course, it was a bit disappointing but the one thing that came out of it was that I joined the Fabric Guild. At the time it was £5 for a life membership, I don't know if this price has changed. Anyway, it is a warehouse in Leicester that stocks all manner of sewing goodies. Originally it was all things related to patchwork but recently they've expanded their range to include other stitching and crafts. It's one of those places where you always spend too much. Luckily you have to wait for them to send you an invitation to visit, about every three months. The majority of my fabric stash is from here. An example of the prices is that a fat-quarter from normal shops would cost me about £2.50 but from here it could only cost less than £1. It's great. Unfortunately they don't do mail order and they don't have a website but if you want to know their address leave a comment and I'll let you have it.

A Few Useful Links

A favourite pastime of mine (and a lot of other people's) is surfing the web looking for stitching related sites. It amazes me how generous stitching people are and I've found some fantastically useful pattern sites. These are just a few I've found recently:

http://www.casamiainitalia.com/hp/information.htm I love this one, her work is beautiful, so artistic and interesting.

http://www.xstitchhappy.com/ An extremely generous blogger, if you like making needlecases etc and stitching on evenweave you'll love this one.

http://www.glorybeestitch.com/free.shtml Loads of very nice small designs for every occasion.

http://www.rainbowgallery.com/freechart.cfm Cross-stitch, needlepoint, blackwork, plastic canvas and hardanger charts here, very useful and generous.

http://uk.geocities.com/tanglecrafts/index.html It's not very often that we get someone from England offering free patterns. If you know any different I'd love to be contradicted!!! The canvaswork patterns here are beautiful, this is a very talented lady.

http://tts-tutorials.blogspot.com/ A lovely blog for tutorials, good instructions and pictures.

http://www.twdesignworks.com/Free/index.html I was amazed at how generous Teresa Wentzler is on her website. She designs the most gorgeous patterns, I have several of her designs stitched in my house. I didn't stitch them though, my DH is a fantastic stitcher and produces a huge amount of amazing work and not tiny stuff like I do, he stitches the big stuff!

Well, that's it for today, I'll add more as I find them.