Hello, Hello...

At last- a return to the Blogsphere! I've missed it dreadfully, and all its wonderful inhabitants. I hope that this post finds you all well and happy

Our Singapore trip was wonderful, it seems an age ago now.

We visited sumptuous temples and high tech shopping malls; roamed places teeming with exquisite exotic flora and fauna; meandered around the Ethnic quarters soaking up atmosphere and inspiration; met wonderful warm and friendly Singaporeans; and ate so many delicious Asian cuisines. I'm afraid I took about 600 photos of this wonderful country of contrasts.

Here's a small selection for your delectation and delight.

The Merlion, emblem of Singapore. This one is on Sentosa Island. If you look hard you can see the people on the top!

Amazing dragonflies in exotic colours inhabit the pools in the Botanic Gardens.

The Iconic Raffles Hotel! The famous Sikh doorman is behind the car!

Kampong Glang, the Malay quarter, with wonderful textile shops....

From the high tech glamour of the many shopping malls on Orchard Road, (this is the ION Centre)......
To a 'wet market' in Little India... Almost worlds apart.

Stunning blooms in the Botanic Gardens.

The Sri Veramakkalian Hindu temple in Little India

Yes, this is a liner, built on top of 3 skyscrapers! There is a pool and a casino up there too. Unbelievable.
The beautiful Thiang Hock Keng Temple in Chinatown, is just stunning.

And just to prove I was industrious, I made a watercolour journal to take with me and bravely went out doing plein air sketches . Here are a few pages showing my beloved Botanical Gardens, and a few scribbles from my daily drawing book.

On the home front, I returned to such exciting news. I now have 5 participants for my first workshop in June. I was accepted by and will be running a class for the Bristol City Council Adult Learning Dept next term, and will be registered as an Adult Education Tutor with them. As part of that process I'll be attending their annual summer exhibition in July, which gives me a wonderful chance to display my dolls and talk about them to prospective attendees. Then, as a huge bonus, a very special lady has commissioned me to do a painting, which was a wonderful surprise.

As if this wasn't enough, four of my bag pattern/kits have sold already through my friend's shop - I am so delighted! And to cap it all, my Poppy Patchwork logo is now proudly emblazoned on the front of Jayne's new shop in Westbury on Trym, where she moved last week. Many congratulations to Jayne! Having helped her move twice I can say I am now an expert at lugging bolts of fabric!

The new shop venue is great - with a free car park opposite, and there will be space to run workshops upstairs, so it's a great opportunity for all the fabric lovers and quilters of Bristol. Incidentally, if any of you have local connections in the Bristol area, it would be wonderful if you could spread the word about the shop.

So, there is tons going on, and in between I've finally done a class and conquered my machine quilting embroidery phobia! I'm now addicted and cannot stop - typical of me. I still need so much practice, but at last I 'got it'.

The only slight drawback is that I used a new Bernina machine on the course, and naturally, I fell in love. My new baby arrives on Friday and I'm feeling very guilty about my little old Janome. When I bought it 3 years ago I told the salesman I just wanted a straightforward , reliable machine without any fancy things as 'I'd never use them'. Yes, I know, never say never.
All you experienced stitchers and quilters are smiling and nodding sagely, saying 'I told you so'.

It's good to be back.x