What a weekend!!!

Well, I knew that the weekend was going to be eventful but I had no idea just how eventful it would be!!!! I had a heavy week teaching classes at the shop, I manned the shop myself for a few days too leaving all the packing for the big Gothic Arch class that I had planned with Leandra until Saturday morning. The class was planned for Sunday but it shouldn't have been too much of a problem as Mark was helping me and Karen had the shop covered. Well of course things did not go quite according to plan.....do the ever......I should have known. You do remember how cold it was last Saturday don't you? Also how dark and grey it was? Well, we had a power cut at about 11.30 am and it lasted all day. It was freezing cold and the shop was like the dark hole of Calcutta!!!!! I had expected it to be a busy day in the shop too as all the ladies that were travelling from all over the country to come the the arch class would want to come to the shop first. And of course they did......I felt terrible.....you couldn't see a thing in the shop. No heat, no lights, no till no credit card machine!!!!!!! We got over the problem of the credit card machine and reverted to the old fashioned manual paper slips. The till.....poor Karen had to write everything down. The heating, well I was wearing three jumpers and two coats....need I say more and finally the light....we had a miniature torch that a customer let us borrow. At 4.30, I said enough is enough and we closed the shop. My van was packed ready to go but I didn't take half of the stock with me that I had planned on as I couldn't see what I was packing!!!!

Second half of the weekend, Sunday.....much better day. It didn't start that great though, Leandra's husband Mark got a flat tyre on the way to the class and wasn't able to get it fixed properly, so they had to travel home on the spare.

42 ladies and Dan came from all over the countryto join us, that's me and Leandra, our husbands, Leandra's children (who have to be the best kids I have ever met) and Karen who helped us out by manning the till and generally on hand to help out. We started with the fabric stamping for the inside of the niche, most people chose to do a Christmas arch which was really nice, followed by lot's of metal techniques and finally UTEE beads, now known as the Leandra bead as named by Suze Weinberg. Here are a few photographs of the event.

If you think you would like to join us for one of our fun packed events next year, we have just added some extra dates, just give me a call to check on available spaces.