I'm in Embroidery magazine

I get a mention in the July/August 2012 edition of Embroidery magazine!

OK, so it's about two inches at the bottom of a column in the news round-up, but still - Embroidery is very prestigious, so I'm thrilled to be in it at all.

Even more exciting, yesterday I was interviewed by a journalist from North East Life magazine, who want to do a feature on me!  All being well, this should appear later in the year, so I'll keep you posted.

Also exciting in a way, though a lot less fun, I was caught up in the flash floods following the freak storm that hit the region on Thursday.  My house is fine, happily, but it took me five and half hours to get home from work, including wading along a flooded road.

This was the view from Heworth bus station:

Can you spot the tops of the cars in the pub car park? To the right was a row of flooded houses, and the emergency services were evacuating people in dingies. I was very lucky and was only inconvenienced (and a bit wet), but some people will have suffered a great deal of damage.  I hope things get sorted out for them soon.

Vote for me!

No, I'm not going to be standing in the general election, but you can still vote for me in the craft&design magazine Selected awards, to find the best designer-makers in the UK and Ireland in a variety of categories, including textiles. The public vote is open until 30 April, so if you'd like to vote for me, go to www.craftmaker.co.uk/rutholeary/ and follow the link at the bottom of the page. Given the incredible standard of the work in Selected I don't think I'll win, but I suppose you never know!

In a round-up of other news, Kate's Crow has been stretched onto a board and finished off neatly with a plain black backing; I'll be packing it off to Brian the blacksmith tomorrow. I've been working on designs for the centre of my proposed exhibition and am a lot happier with the way things are now working, and should have something to show you soon. That's the good news, though - the venue where I'd been hoping to hold the exhibition (I've had work there before, as part of an exhibition of textile artists in North East England) is either shutting or has already gone. This is a blow; I'm now going to have to try and find somewhere else. I've got a couple of places I thought I'd try, so I'll just have to see what they say and go on from there.