Friend Clare had a great idea for a hen party - get your mates together for a mosaic workshop day!  So we gathered in a room in Totnes, with the rain pouring down outside, and spent several enjoyable hours with teacher/artist Jan who allowed us to play with hundreds of lovely colourful tiles, beads, pebbles, bits of glass etc.  One girl made her house number to go outside her front door, and another decorated a mirror for her new bathroom with shells, pebbles and bits of string; both turned out really well.  After a few false starts, I ended up by making a flower picture to go on the top of a little chest of drawers.  The two-hour lunch at th Kingsbridge Inn went down very well too (Sandra, your choice of creme brulee and chips was particularly admirable).  Thanks, Clare, for a greata day (and I'm sure you're missing us from your honeymoon in the jungle in Borneo!)

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Whew! Back from a very busy and exciting Craft, Hobby & Stitch Show at the NEC, Birmingham (commonly known as 'Stitches').  And I was only there for one day! Rachel, Pat, Clare and Marie were all constantly taking orders or talking to customers, and a record number of new accounts with retailers were opened. 

Authors Elizabeth Moad and Susan Briscoe did wonders with their workshops and demonstrations, and our own Marie Foster had a sell-out with her workshop for retailers on 'how to run a workshop'.  Everyone who heard about mycraftivity.com was extremely enthusiastic and thought it sounded like a fabulous idea.  It was great to see the D&C stand looking so good and so busy. 

The well-known craft products distributor Craftime is selling the David & Charles, North Light, Memory Makers and Krause craft books to their craft shop customers in a new venture, and it was gratifying to see their customers' positive reactions to the books. 

All in all, a very good show.  Here's a photo of Cheryl Brown (commissioning editor for craft books), Sara Domville, and D&C's Sales & Marketing Director Richard Dodman on the D&C stand.

Well, while our friends and colleagues are enjoying some West Coast sunshine at CHA, we are busily preparing for the UK's biggest craft trade show, Craft, Hobby & Stitch, to be held at the NEC Birmingham Sun 17th-Tues 19th February.

Here at David & Charles we are very thrilled that two of our favourite authors, Susan Briscoe and Elizabeth Moad, will be giving workshops and demonstrations for the show organisers and on our own stand (no. 9D66).   Susan is awe-inspiringly brilliant at the traditional Japanese decorative stitching technique of sashiko, and her second book on the subject Japanese Sashiko Iinspirations is published in March.    Elizabeth is author of the hugely successful Papercrafter's Bible as well as several other books for David & Charles.  She will be passing on some of her knowledge to visitors to the show this year. 

If there are any craft retailers or journalists reading this, why not come and visit us on stand no 9D66?  See you there!