November 2011 - start of a new membership year

We have just formed a new committee  with several new members and myself, Martin Blundell returning as chairman after a three year break, having been involved with Royal Manor Workshops since the early 1980s

We are busy planning what we hope will be a challenging and exciting 12 months We are keen to introduce some new activities for members to try as well maintaining our popular main activities of Stained Glass, Beading, Patchwork, Quilting, Lacemaking, Embroidery Cross stitch , Knitting and Spinning.

We have small but enthusiastic art group who are planning great things for 2012 and they are eager to attract new members, skilled or novice.

I retired  a year later than expected due to work activities and now find that I seem to have even less time!! My main craft interest is stained glass and glass fusion using a kiln to melt and shape glass, although I have also done woodturning..

On the right is  my retirement present  from work - a flight over Barnstaple and the North Devon Coast in a Tiger Moth 2 year older than me!! All kitted out like Biggles and somewhere to go.

We did a loop the loop over the airfield - the pilot said "we have to go into steep dive to get enough speed up to get over the top of the loop - it will pull about 3G" - it was absolutely brilliant and I didn't need the brown paper sick bag!

Interests outside of RMW (is there life outside of the Royal Manor Workshops?) are Archaeology (Secretary of the local archaeology group, as well as being their dig site supervisor) and being a Managing Trustee of the Island of Portland Heritage Trust.

A large garden is also quite demanding and I have a list of garden jobs that need doing before next year (well maybe - what is the saying? - never do today what you can put off until tomorrow).  To say nothing of the decorating etc.

Anyway  I digress -
Forthcoming events for Royal Manor Workshops already scheduled are:-

Needlefelting on 3rd December from 10 - 4 see website album for photos from last workshop earlier in year

Fabric Collage Workshop on 12th November from 1 - 4pm (St Georges Centre)

Our very popular Craft Fair on 26th November from 10 til 1 at the Easton Methodist Hall in Easton Square. Come along for a browse through lots of different craft items for that special present. Have a chat and cup of coffee and a slice of cake. Crafts there will be hand made cards, hand spun and knitted goods, beadwork, embroidered and other fabric crafts, also glass items. There will also be a raffle.

On January 23rd Machine Embroidery with water soluble fabric from 10 -4 - you do not need a fancy swing machine, an ordinary straight stitch machine will be fine.


Finally for now - here is something I made earlier!!

Let me know what you think of the idea of the blog.

Martin