A Gathering of Stitchers

In August I am attending a Stitching day in Edinburgh.  I haven't done anything like this before, and am looking forward to meeting so many ladies who are skilled at patchwork, quilting and hand-stitching.
There were only 65 available places at £95 each, which is a lot of money for me.  I really hope I get to choose the workshops that will be most useful to me and I'll be able to learn a new skill or two.  (I have a link on the right hand side bar if you are interested to know more)

We were sent a square of fabric with a printed medallion in the centre that reads Edinburgh 2013 The Stitch Gathering.  We are to embellish the fabric in any way we like and hand it in as our ticket on the day.  They are planning to create a quilt out of everybody's square and use it as a charity fundraiser, which is a nice idea.

Here's mine: I used the word gathering as my jump-off point, and chose a fabric that matched the colours of the centre circle.  I gathered a strip on the machine, then needle-turned the edges down.

We've been asked to post them onto a flickr group, but I'll wait until there are some others there before I post mine.

We have also been asked to stitch a name tag for another person going to the Stitch Gathering.  Again we are asked to post them on flickr but without the name so as to keep it secret.

I've hand appliqued a loose representation of Beinn a'Chlachair, which is a hill / mountain in Scotland.  I will now embroider the lady's name upon it and attach a brooch fixing on the back.
It's fun to think of somebody out there busy trying to think of making a personal name tag for me!
August seems like a long time away, but hopefully it will soon fly by.