A break, at home...

I've Felt all Christmassy!

2011-12-22T15:34:00.003Z

No patchwork or quilting:-( but I have been making good use of a vintage pure wool cream blanket I bought ages ago on E-Bay. I had a little stash of felt from years ago but pretty limited colours so went to HobbyCraft looking for more - crikey isn't 'modern' felt skimpy stuff? I was rather disappointed - so only bought a couple of sheets, my favourite being a blue polka dot felt - I should have got more. Still - E-bay to the rescue with some lovely colours and a high wool content from The Felt Fairy - delivery was super fast, just what I like. Shame the Felt Fairy is now away until Jan 2nd (must be giving Father Christmas a hand eh?!) As I would like to order some more colours, guess I'll have to wait a couple of weeks...

Snowmen Christmas ornaments, which should be winging their way to various friends:

Three snowmen for Chic Girls very stylish black Christmas tree:

Felt stars for my Sil, using some of her Mothers vintage buttons:

On the reverse of the stars, I stitched some circles to add a bit of interest.

A pale blue and MOP button star:

And of course a photo of Miss E on her little tumbler block quilt:

I know it's not much........

2011-11-15T00:34:00.002Z

But it's the best I can do at the moment. A couple of named wallhangings for two little girls.

I also made these four mug rugs using some more of the 'Bliss' jelly roll:

I'm feeling stretched a bit thin, I need to get my act together - Chr!$?*@s is fast approaching and there are so many things I want to make, but time spent with Chic girl and Miss E seems more important for now.

I cannot help but be a proud Granny and add another couple of pics of Miss E though;-)

Here she is wearing her skeleton suit having momentarily found her thumb:

Snoozing after Sunday dinner with Uncle Lanky Boy!:

She's so cute:

Granny makes Granny squares

2011-10-22T13:24:00.004+01:00

Since I am now a Granny, I thought I'd see if I could make some 'Granny 'squares. I have to say doing crochet makes my ring and little fingers ache. Must be because I'm not used to it.

How different the sizes are when you change the crochet hook size. I decided the one on the left with a 5.0 crochet hook was too big and loose. The right hand circle looked better and neater with a 3.5 crochet hook. The yarn is Debbie Bliss baby Cashmerino.

I started the squares with four chains, joined to make a circle and then twelve trebles into the middle hole. Two middles are right side up and one is turned over.

Next round is two trebles into each space

Then Three trebels into each space.

Figuring out the right amount of crochet to turn the rounds into squares was a PITA, I had lots of undoing and re doing on these blocks.

Which I was only really happy with on this 'round' when they finally became square!

I thought I would see if a lacy edge would look nice.....It does, but I cannot get it quite right.

I tried a couple of rows of 'double' stitch instead - hmmm, much better I think.

Adding to the stack - slowly but surely.

Oooh, starting to look good..... must keep going...

This is the back of the squares when they have been crocheted together.

I tried just stitching the squares together, but I thought the finished effect was rather messy, so I crocheted a double stitch picking up each stitch on each block. It took blimmin' ages to do this, but I do like the effect.

The finished article - my first crocheted blanket. I hope Chic Girl and Miss E like it!

and here she is at nine days old looking even more gorgeous.

Granny Kandy has been busy......

2011-10-12T07:00:00.003+01:00

Debbie Bliss Cashmerino striped beany hat

It's too big for Miss E at the moment, so I made a pink version, still using Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, loads of wool left over, so I made a tiny pair of mittens too.

High contrast cot quilt:

I thought this binding needed a little something

So I added some yellow cord:

The finished high contrast cot quilt.

White crib sheets:

Welcome to the world Miss E.

2011-10-11T00:12:00.003+01:00

Miss E just after she was born

Chic Girl with Miss E, who is just twenty hours old here. Aren't they both beautiful? Miss E was 8lb 6oz but her hat is still too big. I shall have to make another much smaller one for her.
Fast asleep in Grannys arms

Here she is with her eyes open, which are a beautiful shade of violet - we are all wondering if they will stay that colour.

Here she is having a word with Grandpa....

Another quilt start part 2

2011-08-25T16:30:00.000+01:00

Thanks for your lovely comments.
Now I've finished piecing the top , I think it looks fairly OK, so I'll tease you no more.
I used just six 'jelly roll' strips and six white strips to piece the centre.
Here are all the squares all pieced together:

Adding the red and white striped 1/4" finished size border:

The finished quilt top - before I've done any quilting:

I think I'll quilt a simple 'squiggle' in all the white squares and then something 'fancy' in the white 4" borders, probably my usual freeform feathers......

Another quilt start...

2011-08-25T00:59:00.000+01:00

I've started another cot quilt....
It's going to be simple 2" squares:

The fabrics have very strong colour contrasts:

Chic Girl tells me babies like this, as when they are first born they can see strong colour contrasts easily. I'm not sure I really like it at the moment, but that might be because I've been sewing such soft and pale colours for ages.

I think it might look better when I've added this tiny striped border and a big fat white border:

I'll carry on sewing it all together and if I still think it looks vaguely OK, I'll post more pictures later.

I love finishing a quilt and eating cakes:-)

2011-08-09T15:41:00.000+01:00

Hand stitching the binding - urrgghhh, the one bit of quiltmaking I don't enjoy. But it's necessary and it means the quilt is finished, so I can move on to the next thing...... Too many ideas, too little spare time!
Anyway, here is the finished quilt:

Oooh, the edges are not this wavy in reality, so must be because the quilt was laying on the uneven grass.

Himself & I went over to Chic Girl and Whizz kids house, because they wanted a bit of help to make a cupboard over their stairs. This is Himself putting in the wooden framework in their bedroom:

Whizz Kid got a bit covered in brick dust:

So while the boys knocked a hole in thebedroom wall upstairs, Chic girl wisely stayed out of the way downstairs and iced some fairy cakes......

Just adding a few sprinkles.....

Would you like one?

Scrappy hexagon update

2011-08-04T20:15:00.000+01:00

I've done a few more hexies, but still quite a way to go before this becomes anything worthwhile. Am kind of regretting making them so blimmin' small!

Seventeen and a half blocks and lots of cream borders so far.........

I have washed and blocked out the butter yellow quilt, just needs trimming and the binding to sew on now......

It is intended as a cot quilt for our Grandchild, but if it's not to Chic Girls liking, I got the impression my Mama would like it.

Quilting the borders

2011-08-01T19:00:00.002+01:00

Ive decided not to quilt any more in the blank blocks - at least until the quilt is washed and shrunk. I'll then have another look and see what if I think it needs more, but I suspect it'll look fine just as it is. I have now finished quilting the border.
Here is one corner:

How strange - this picture below is supposed to be landscape, but blogger decided it will not let me have it in that orientation, despite it being saved as 'landscape'. Anyway it's a close up of the centre border.

The whole quilt, hung out on my line, just before I washed the few remaining quilting lines out:

Here is the quilt in the bath, being given a cold shower to remove all traces of the blue marking pen before the quilt goes in the washing machine.

A spot of quilting....

2011-07-26T16:53:00.000+01:00

I've been doing a spot of quilting..........

Just simple squiggle stitching, but so useful as a 'filler' stitch and so good to do while listening to my ipod.
I have marked the outer borders with a curvy line to now sew some free form 'feathers'. The blue pen washes out with water.

Am now wondering if I need to do just a little more quilting in the blank squares......

The fabrics and wadding have not been washed as yet, because I want a vaguely vintage look to the quilt. When the binding is on I will wash it in the machine on a 60 degree wash and this will shrink everything slightly.

Butter yellow quilt.

2011-07-25T16:07:00.002+01:00

It always starts off innocently enough, I fall in love with some fabric, in this case Moda's Lily & Will in a butter yellow colourway and my favourite plain fabric - Kona 'snow' from Simply Solids.........

I just cut a few tiny slices of fabric to make some 3/4" squares.....

Just a few more bits of fabric added here and there......

And before I know it - I've got enough for a small quilt top

Add a 3/4" wide border, then a slightly wider border to do some fancy quilting in....

Better get on with it then, hadn't I?

At last......

2011-07-19T16:06:00.002+01:00

I've made* a loaf of bread that looked and tasted like 'real' bread and not something that I could have built a house with!

After spending a weekend with some very dear friends and scoffed their very successful bread machine bread, I bought the same brand of machine as theirs (£75, from John Lewis) and some ingredients from Sainsbury's. This morning we woke up to the most delicious smell coming from the kitchen.......

I cannot believe how easy it was too - the most difficult thing was measuring out all the ingredients (which reminds me, I must find a quarter of a teaspoon measure from somewhere.) I made the multi seeded white loaf. My friend did warn me that JL don't supply the recipe book - which seems uncharacteristically petty of them. I had to search online for it as oddly they don't even give a hint where to find it in the instructions or on their website.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm fresh bread;

and fresh coffee;

My one critism is that it tastes just slightly sweet - I might do just a little bit of tweeking.

* Strictly speaking, the machine made the loaf, not me - and that's probably why it's edible!

Grandmothers Flower Garden

2011-07-11T15:03:00.003+01:00

Making hexagons is quite a soothing occupation and great for doing in the evening or when catching up with programmes recorded on Sky+!
Cutting out all the foundation papers is a tedious job that needs some concentration to cut on the lines accurately.

Using a Jelly Roll strip is rather wasteful, but I do love the fabrics, so necessary.

I need to cut out an awful lot of hexagons

Pinning the foundation papers on to the fabrics

each hexagon needs tacking - this takes ages!

One layout suggestion - not sure about that plain grey fabric though....

Chic Girl says she prefers this layout and since this little quilt will probably end up at her house, I'll go with the Grandmothers Flower Garden layout.

Hand stitching the 'flowers' together.

A close up of one 'flower'.

Easy to hand stitch these together while watching TV.

But no good doing any stitching if I need to pay close attention!

Brittany Holiday - Carnac & St Malo

2011-07-09T21:34:00.001+01:00

We stayed in an appartment in this rather beautiful Chateau in Carnac: Shame it didn't serve any food

Some of the standing stones at Carnac:

Because it was summer most of the stones are closed off to the public to protect the flora and fauna, so for some groups of stones, such as the ones above, we were not able to get very close. If we go back between October and March the public are allowed to walk among all of them for the grand sum of €5 each! However so many stones were accessible all year round we didn't feel disappointed at all.

There were so many stones spread over such a large area. we had to drive between some of the groups.

We thought this one looked like someone from the Muppets - Beaker, maybe? Some stones were huge:

At St Malo we stayed at a hotel right next to the ocean - and boy it was breezy, but we had a good view from our rooms balcony:

Lovely restaurant in St Malo - used solely by locals, not a tourist in sight, we really had to use our Franglais in here:

Another lovely restaurant in St Malo:

where I had Fruits De Mere - nom nom nom:

And my dessert: Iles Flottant, I don't think I've ever seen such a huge pudding, good job it was as light as a feather!!:

P.S. - Found an amazing (huge) needlework shop on the outskirts of Rennes: 'Ecolaines' , with patchwork, dressmaking, craft and upholstery fabrics, books, magazines, embroidery threads and equipment, lampshade making stuff, ribbons, lace, braids and trimmings, wool and Bernina sewing machines. A fantastic place that I would love to go back to next time we go to Brittany and spend more time browsing and buying. They have two shops, one at 35132 Vezin le Coquet, Rennes and one at 25 Rue des Marechales, Route de Lorient. Worth seeking them out if you are in the area, although you will need to use your French as very little English was spoken.

Brittany Holiday - Rennes and Dinan

2011-06-18T18:48:00.002+01:00

Himself and I had a short break in Brittany. Firstly we stayed in Rennes - A friendly city with almost no English speaking tourists - what a refreshing change! Our hotel was lovelyand quiet although near the city centre, with a smashing receptionist who even came over while we were at dinner to see if we needed help with the menu - it was very thoughtful if him. We also went to the rather lovely Dinan, which is about an hours drive from Rennes. Both places had numerous very pretty half timbered houses and shops. Some are leaning on their neighbours due to their age! We noticed how tall they are with four or five stories. Properties of a similar age (1500's) in England tend to only be two stories high.

We had the traditional Breton gallettes complet and cider here - yum:-)

Himself loved this carved shop front selling shoes:

Here's me in one of the many cobbled streets:

Notice the 'infill' between the green building and the dull brown one!:

Not much bread left in this wonderful shop:

Dinan castle gate:

Market day in Rennes (the second largest market in France) - These are some oyster stalls in the fish section:

Lovely smiley flower seller:

An Asterix themed stag party, selling condoms and or phallic, hand carved 'megaliths' for a euro each, to finance more drinking. We bought a granite megalith for €2 - Bargain. We declined the condoms!

Kindle cover

2011-06-01T19:16:00.002+01:00

The Whizz Kid asked me if I could make him a Kindle cover as he was worried about the screen breaking as he carted it around to and from work.

It was my pleasure. First I asked him what colour he wanted "Blue please" OK, easy so far.

Dug out some of my more 'manly' blue fabrics and discovered a hole in one fabric, last used when I taught a fabric postcard class and took some of my fabrics for people to help themselves to (nothing quite like other peoples stashes to be able to dive into eh?!). Why on earth would someone do this? It's not even as if there was a motif they needed!

Anyway, I showed Whizz Kid some fabrics and asked him to pick out as many as he wanted for his cover - this threw him a bit, you could see the confusion going through his mind so Chic Girl pointed out he could choose absolutely anything as it was being created just for him.

Anyway fabric choices made, I sewed some strips together, I didn't want to do anything too 'fancy' it had to be simple. I then offered him a choice of contrast and bindings - aha, he's now caught on to the concept of 'custom made' and chose a rather 'jazzy' stripe to add some pizzaz.

If I was making this for anyone else I would have used two poppers, one on each corner but I know The Whizz Kid and just one popper is what he will actually use to keep his Kindle safe.

I made a Pellon stiffener and added three layers of cotton wadding to fit the screen exactly.
I also made a strap with a caribineer clip attached so it can be attached to his backpack/belt loop/laptop bag to save it getting lost.

I enjoyed doing quilting.

The whizz kid was pleased with the finished article:-)

I have been doing 'stuff'

2011-05-31T00:40:00.001+01:00

Honestly I have, it's just I couldn't get to sign in to upload anything......

My boss was supposed to go to New York for Christmas, but as you may remember we had a bit of snow.......

I wanted to make her a 40th Birthday present, so when I heard she re-booked for her Birthday, I figured I had better get a move on.

I started stiching on dark brown linen

Doesn't look that great yet does it?

Ah, Looks much better now it's been pressed:

The finished cushion, linen piping done and zippered back

Wrapped and ready to be given away - I hope she likes it.

An announcement

2011-04-25T19:47:00.002+01:00

I'm very happy to be able announce that Chic Girl and the Whizz Kid are expecting a baby:-) We all knew ages ago of course, but they wanted to be able to tell special friends personally before a general announcement was put out.

Mordecai Wilberthwaite Sasquatch Bubba Sargunar is due on the 2nd October, the day after their wedding anniversary! Hopefully he/she will be kind and not arrive on that particular day, although babies are not very good at paying attention to dates are they?

We are all thrilled to bits and I cannot wait to be a granny. Chic Girl has quite a lovely little bump and at 17 weeks finding not very many of her clothes fit her any more.

Chic Girl was also a bit superstitious about any baby stuff coming into the house - but now the buying and sewing frenzy can begin - Mwahahahahaha

Fast basting

2011-04-04T18:15:00.000+01:00

One of my Christmas gifts was a Sewline fabric glue pen from Jo at Villavin. I didn't do anything with it at first, not being so sure what I could use it for..... despite Jo writing me a note saying that "sometimes life is too short for pins". You know what, she is so right! It's just perfect for basting the fabric on to the papers , it's so much easier and quicker than hand basting. Thanks Jo:-)

Of course now I'm slightly concerned that I am going to run out of the glue and so I need to buy refills and sooner rather than later!

A commission....

2011-04-02T16:03:00.000+01:00

To make a "Goth and Girly but not too sugary" Name wallhanging for a one year old's birthday present.
These were the fabrics chosen from my stash:

I carefully matched the threads to the colour for each letter:

As you can see I did some very simple quilting:

And this is the finished wallhanging finished today - cute eh?

just keep sewing.......

2011-03-28T00:27:00.000+01:00

Ok - one 'flower' with another twenty five unit added:

Now I have four units added to the flower, I am starting to get a nice jumble of colours:

I'm going to have to speed up my sewing - especially so for the cream connecting strips.
I still have no idea what it's going to turn into yet!

Hexagon ideas....

2011-03-25T21:36:00.001Z

I'm really enjoying sewing these hexagons - and that's something I NEVER thought I would say!
I've made some ivory hexagons to break up the design. I've sewn the coloured hexagons into blocks of twenty five and the ivory ones in strips of five. I'm playing around with the design by pinning them onto a design wall.

I'll keep on sewing and see what happens.....

BQL 2011 Challenge March /April

2011-03-08T19:02:00.000Z

It started with a bit of quilting using a variegated thread on a gorgeous piece of batik fabric....Then went on to sewing an eye and adding a few sequins.....

Then a tail was added....Until finally I had a fish:

A slight deviation

2011-03-01T16:18:00.001Z

Ok - so I know it's more hexies, but now I have a plan.....

and I'm going to need to sew lots of hexagons.

These are just a start:

I think this might be a fairly long term project. In the meanwhile I need to do some designing in EQ7 and sew some creamy white hexagons to add to the mix. Watch this space....
Oh and if you have any idea where I can get some Liberty fabric scraps I would love to hear from you.

Hexagon love

2011-02-27T09:49:00.001Z

I'm still really enjoying making these small hexagons......
Here are some using batik fabrics:

Here are the backs, I used a black (Superior Threads - 'Masterpiece') thread on these, with such tiny stitches - the light needs to be good or no chance of seeing what I'm doing!

S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G.

2011-02-18T19:08:00.000Z

I've done a bit of shopping - Found these tins in Tesco:

This rather gorgeous and inspirational paint brochure came from Homebase,

as did this mercury glass vase:

Laura Ashley, a local cookshop and, ahem M&S:

BQL 2011 Challenge

2011-02-11T09:39:00.001Z

I've set the BQL members a challenge for this year and that's to have a series of quilt swaps called the BQL Skinny Quilt challenge.

The first swap is for January and February and we each have to make a quilt aprroximatly A3 size. Each person then has to upload a photo of their quilt on BQL and at the end of February, send me a list of their five favourites, I shall then sort it out so every particpant gets a quilt from their list. I was surprised firstly at how many folk took up the challenge and how many have already made their quilts. Only BQL members are allowed to view the quilts, but there are some really super little quilts I have already earmarked at least ten quilts I would love to own and not everyone has finished adding the quilts, I can see this is going to be hard. Hopefully someone will put my quilt on their list, or I don't get a chance to swap. Here is my quilt and a close up:

Finally, a new post!

2011-02-10T18:28:00.001Z

Ahem, yes, sorry it's been so long.......
I have been busy..... although I must admit sewing has not played a very big part in my life for a few months:-( But I'm over my 'dry patch' now and raring to go. I bought a Jelly Roll (Bliss - by Bonnie & Camille.)

I decided to do a few small* hexagons, never having made any before, I printed off a couple of sheets of printed hexagons, here's what I made:

Then a few more:

These are the 'rejects' I didn't like them in the mix:

* each flat side is just under an inch long

I have no idea what to do with all the hexagons, but I do enjoy making them and have continued to sew more as they are nice to do in the evenings while watching TV, the piles of patches are growing.
Erm, I could do with some ideas of what to do with them please....

I'll stay at home then....

2010-09-07T17:16:00.000+01:00

Gah, no car today as it's having another head gasket fitted. The head gasket went and was replaced by a garage up in Norwich, but apparently the silly boys forgot to 'skim the head' so the engine smoked like a good 'un and we were pouring oil in, which promptly leaked all over the floor - bad times:-( The Norwich garage said we could take it to our local garage to have a new head gasket done and they would reimburse us since this will cost another £300 plus, I do hope they stump up the cash.
Last night Himself and I went for a walk through the fields next to our house, usually it's just the two of us, but on this occasion Bagel decided to follow us. We were convinced he would give up after a few metres as he's not a cat who like exercise, but we were astonished that he just kept up with us - only stopping occasionally to look around and miaow loudly as if to say "I don't recognise this bit - lets stop now and go home" we carried on walking fully expecting him to either make his own way home or stop and have a rest, but he kept running and doing his level best to keep up with us (we did keep stopping to give him a chance). We decided we wouldn't go into the field where the cows were as that might completely freak him out. so we kept walking for well over a mile making the most of the mild evening. When we got home, poor Bagel flopped on the rug in front of the TV and barely moved for the rest of the evening, I bet he slept like a log last night!

So today I was going to do a few errands on foot, but this is what greeted me:

I thought I might make a new ironing board cover instead. Two layers of 100% cotton wadding, steamed to shrink before cutting to size. The top fabric was a spare bit of jolly yellow fabric washed on a very hot white wash to make sure the colour doesn't run and it's finished shrinking.I used the old cover as a template and re-used the gathering cord. Using a zig zag stitch and the cording foot, I attach the cord to the raw edge (no need to hem) Gather up the cord smoothing the cover over the wadding layers. My sleeve board was made in the same way. Next I caught up on all the mending - boring but necessary

More Button Hearts

2010-08-27T10:07:00.001+01:00

My Sister In Law saw my button heart and fancied one for herself, I offered to make her one if she trawled through her Mum's button tin and pulled out the ones she liked. My Niece asked me if she could have one too - so Himself, Chic Girl and Niece chose the red, purple and pink buttons.

I have just finished making the hearts:

Here's how I did them:

Find a heart shape approximately 5" - 6" high and draw around the shape not forgetting to leave a space for turning the heart the right way around!

Fold up approximately 14" narrow ribbon and pin the folds but leave the ends free (this makes it much less likely to get caught in the seamsPlace the ribbon ends so that they sit in the dip of the heartpin in place

Sew around the heart shape using a tiny stitch length - but don't forget to leave the turning gap. Snip all the curves very carefullyTurn the heart out - remembering the pin in the hanging ribbon is still in there. Carefully push out the seams, stuff very firmly (I use a light polyester stuffing from Dunelm.) Do not use your scissors to push the stuffing in the point, I find a spoon handle or large wooden knitting needle works for me. Find a nice long but fine needle (mine is for doll making) and some strong thread sew on the buttons.

Sorry about the photos being all over the place, I can't seem to move them:-(

Sad times

2010-07-26T19:30:00.000+01:00

My lovely Mother-in-Law, has been in Norwich hospital for three weeks and on Thursday she passed away aged 89. We will all miss her.

Look what I managed to grow.....

2010-07-19T19:48:00.003+01:00

Every year I try and grow something to eat - some years I have better success than others - I usually do well with cucumbers but both last year and this year have been disastrous. Chillies are usually a doddle for me to grow (which is a laugh when I barely use them at all!) and I can usually manage to grow a tomato or two, courgettes last year didn't grow any sizable fruits they just rotted at the tips when they were only a few centimetres long - so it was a huge surprise to me when I spotted these fabulous babies growing on two different yellow courgette plants - though I don't know why two of them from the same plant have pointed tips? Please does anyone know why this should be. There are a couple more yellow courgettes to come too - so I'm really pleased, although I don't think I'm going to get hundreds of courgettes. My yellow tomato plant has yet to produce a flower, never mind a fruit, so I'm not at all impressed with that. I think we also might get more than two figs from our fig tree this year, although I've probably jinxed that now!

Useful gifts

2010-07-19T00:27:00.001+01:00

I made a couple of things for Chic Girl...
A stuffed button heart covered with vintage mother-of-pearl buttons from both of her Grandmothers button boxes:

An oversized pencil case made with some of the Liberty fabric I was given on Mothers day

here is the bee fabric lining:
A large make -up bag, with a fish themed lining:

and finally, a passport cover:

Glastonbury 2010 part two

2010-07-13T00:08:00.001+01:00

Ran out of time the other day, so here are some more Glasto photos:

Orange patchwork flags

Pink flags each one a patchwork quilt top!

Below: Pinwheel block flags

A Above: pond made just for Glasto in Green Futures

Below: Seth Lakeman in the Croissant Neuf tent - it was so bright the colour is a little washed out here - but in reality this was vibrant red, yellow and orange.

Below: The tower in The Park, we had intended to climb up the steps, but each time we looked there was a huge queue and we didn't fancy waiting! Maybe next year......

Twighlight in Arcadia, time to go as it all gets very very busy and incredibly noisy after dark.

The Edge with Muse performing Where The Streets Have No Name. Superb.

Glastonbury 2010

2010-07-11T10:17:00.001+01:00

Apologies for leaving it soooo long in between posts - Life/work just got in the way.

We went to Glastonbury again this year and for the very first time since I've been going it didn't rain at all! Huzzah:-) Actually, if I'm honest it was probably too hot - but hey, better heat than mud we say.
Here is the Whizz Kid, Champagne and Himself checking that our tent is all OK beforehand.

Happy 40th Birthday Glastonbury!

Patchwork '40' sign above the Park.

I was slightly worried about the ahem, facilities in all the heat, but clearly Mr Eavis had thought about it too and the emptying and cleaning was far better with small armies of blue t-shirted cleaners (poor souls, I do hope they got paid properly) I didn't gag once. Things are improving and about time too. There was also far more pathways, covered in a type of hogging, small stone type of stuff which I imagine in the (more usual) wet weather will be less likely to turn into the knee deep sticky quagmire we have experienced before. Of course the grit wasn't needed this year, in fact they had trucks sprinkling the pathways with water to try to keep the dust down! We even saw a few people trying to make some mud, presumably just so they could say they have truly been to Glasto (they must have been first timers!) The Whizz Kid and Chic Girl were kind enough to take our tent and pitch it for us on Wednesday morning as we couldn't get there until the Thursday. Just as well they did as the camping fields were all packed - seems virtually everyone arrived early so they could watch the England football game on the Pyramid stage on Wednesday afternoon. Apparently the audience was a hundred thousand strong, so it was the biggest ever TV audience in one place.

Above: The BBC Studios - they were just to the left of the Pyramid Stage.

Above: White flags at West Holts stage.

Above: Stripy flags at the Pyramid Stage. Below: Faithless amongst all the flags

: People carry flags and stand right in front of the stage, it then makes it very difficult for the rest of us to actually see anything on the stages, I had to take so many photos to try and get a decent shot of anyone performing, and still wasn't really happy, it's not as if Glastonbury wasn't decorated enough already!Above: Wicker woman and flowers near the Green Fields. Below: Follow That Snail!

Himself and I with huge carved pine cones in Green Futures

Huge patchwork covered letters near the boundry fence above The Park Keane playing in the Acoustic tent.

Below: Kylie with The Scissor Sisters

Above: Lunch at Henrys Beard Cafe - our favourite eateryMetal machines in Arcadia

Muse - who were rather good:-)

I heart EQ

2010-05-05T00:45:00.001+01:00

These are for K-A

Happy Star Wars Day! & Mirrors

2010-05-04T18:52:00.001+01:00

May the Forth be with you - he he he - sorry, couldn't resist.

We went up to Cheltenham to see two programmes of 'I'm Sorry I haven't A Clue' being recorded over the weekend. This photo shows Graham Garden, Tim Brooke Taylor and Barry Cryer, (Jeremy Hardy was the other panellist). Himself likes to listen to this comedy programme on Radio 4 when he's driving home from work, it's been going since 1972 and is now hosted by Jack Dee - who gives the impression of being a miserable so and so, but off air, in fact is really sweet and quite smiley (not to mention a perfectionist, but in a nice way). I must admit going to this was a treat for Himself, because there where lots of 'in' jokes which only listeners to the programmes would understand, but Himself and the other 2,498 audience members were howling with laughter.
I bought the tickets a couple of weeks ago and when I went back not even two hours later to get a couple more for friends they had completly sold out! Wow, almost like Glasto tickets - I tell you, this here internet makes ticket purchasing both easier and harder. Seems you need to be 'in the know' and have both your mouse and credit card poised or you stand no chance these days.

I've done some more painting, and with this ghastly (but typical) bank holiday weather it's handy to have a conservatory to do it in too!

This time painting a mirror frame that had a very treacly and orange varnish. Sanding this beast took ages. I think this mirror will probably end up in our bedroom.

These are the mirrors we have hanging on our stairway - I really like how they bounce the light back and forth. These are all from the 40's, 50's and 60's. A couple are from my Mother In Law's house but the rest came from junk shops, charity shops, car boot sales and E-bay, they were each around the ten pounds mark. I remove the clips and give them a good wash, it's easy to tell which mirrors have been in homes where they smoked - ugghh! I paint the backing board (usually plywood) taking especial care on the edges, as that's all that gets seen. I polish up the mirrors and fix them back onto the backing boards with the clips. Then Himself hangs them up - using two heavy duty picture hooks per mirror. The wooden letters were a gift from Chic Girl. I still cannot decide where I want them to be placed, so they rest on the ledge and look rather good. Eventually we want the stairway walls covered in old mirrors. I have another two waiting to be cleaned and hung up.

New books

2010-04-26T20:51:00.001+01:00

I ordered some books from The Book Depository - to be honest the Whoopie Pies and Macaron books are probably more to drool over than actually do anything with! To make any Whoopie pies, apparently I need some Crisco - errrrrr Whaaaat?

To make macarons, I mostly need patience as lots can and probably will go wrong - still, I might give them a go as I really do love eating them.

Renovations and improvements

2010-04-25T15:43:00.002+01:00

I've done a bit of tarting up on my blog and also some table renovations.
Earlier in the year, I ~~won~~ bought a gorgeous solid wood coffee table on e-Bay*. Chic Girl and I collected it from Bristol and it's been sat here waiting for me to tart it up ever since. Miraculously there's nothing wrong with the top (I suspect they had kept it covered), but the rest was just a little scruffy.
Here is the table 'Before':

After a sanding and the undercoat:

The drawers showing the tarnished brass back plates, which I have removed now:

The finished article:

Another e-Bay buy - A Laura Ashley side table that had some serious water marking on the top and was filthy:

After a good sanding, but before painting:

The finished table:

* Hint - you often can buy stuff for a better price and with fewer bidders, if you can find 'collect only' furniture local to you.
Oh and we finally went to see Alice In Wonderland, in 3D, no less. The chap at our local cinema was very excited to tell us that 'they' only got 3D installed a couple of weeks ago, but he was then most apologetic about the fact that we had to pay an extra 80p each for our 3D glasses, we were expecting a couple of cardboard pairs, but surprisingly we got these:

Which we can keep apparently - errrr, woo hoo I think..... but we mustn't use them as sunglasses!
Himself didn't think it was as good a film as Avatar for the 'FX' and I can see his point. But I still enjoyed it. Helena Bonham-Carter stole the show as the red queen, The Mad hatter was OK, but I found the white queens bushy eyebrows and dark lips extremely distracting. I think it's another one of those films that when the DVD comes out, I will enjoy looking at the textures in more detail.

Birthday weekend (2)

2010-04-21T00:21:00.007+01:00

Sorry folks, that was a long time coming and I'm not especially sure it will be worth the wait either!
Here are lots more photos:
Cafe Uno - The whole building was covered in tiles with an Egyptian theme:

Cycling skeleton in Libertys pharmacy - a comment on models these days perhaps?

Himself had booked tickets for 'The Infidel' with Omid Djalili (bloke from the MoneySupermarket.com ads), Richard Schiff (Toby in The West Wing) and Matt Lucas playing a Rabbi at the Empire Leicester Square cinema - somewhere we used to (easily and quickly) drive to and park just around the corner, on the street, for free, before we were married - We would nip into 'town' for the Saturday midnight movie - the seats reclined and it was rather nice after the then somewhat scruffy provincial Ealing or Wembley cinemas.

Considering the price of our tickets I would have expected more, true we were on the back row with plenty of leg room and true the seats still reclined, but since the seats in front also reclined, Himself and I had a couple who insisted on bouncing back and forth on their chair backs throughout the entire film - thus spoiling our comfort value by 99.9%, looking around other tall people suffered the same way. However the film was both enjoyable and funny, just a shame about the cinema seats.

Inside Libertys (Oh how I love this shop):

We went to the V&A as we had tickets for the Quilt show. Sadly no photos allowed, so I've scanned in some of the postcards I bought afterwards, (experience has taught me that to buy the accompanying book is pointless as I so rarely look at it again!) I enjoyed the exhibition much more than I thought I would. The old quilts really did steal the show and the opportunity to see them up close was great. The 'Changi quilt' bought a lump to my throat and I felt for the 'convict' women stitching the 'Rajah quilt' on the ship to Australia (sorry no postcards of those) I agree with many other quilters views in that I too think the curators missed a trick with the choice contemporary quilts. What a shame they didn't choose quilts from the many fine quilters we have in this country. I gave most of them no more than a passing glance - I thought it was sad that they chose to exhibit modern work by a group of prisoners from Wandsworth and yet the work by so many ordinary (and extraordinary) women was completly ignored. One of the few contemporary quilts I liked (and stupidly I didn't note down who made it,) was made of 38,000 x 1cm squares of plain newspaper, to represent the number of civilians and 100 x 1cm square photos to represent military personell who had died (up to that point in time) in the Iraqi war. I found it very moving.

I'm sure I've either seen this quilt before or something similar to this idea before....... Liberty Jack by Janey Forgan:

Small Cot quilt - Welsh wool -1860's Red diamonds in the centre are satin and the hearts are a fine knitted fabric, they may have once been stockings.

Patchwork by Elisabeth Chapman - 1829. Unfinished, all the tacking threads and paper backings were still in place - we were allowed to see portions of the back showing the papers, many with beautiful copperplate writing.

Birthday weekend (1)

2010-04-14T12:55:00.002+01:00

Woah, what a jam packed weekend! So here are lots of photos - but not too much waffle.....
I'd never been to the National Gallery before: One of my gifts were tickets to a special exhibition of Paul Delaroche paintings. Himself also bought us the audio guides (well worth the two quid extra, as you get so much more from the exhibition) so off we set plugged into our machines. Wow what an exhibition. Many huge paintings that seeing photos in a book (or a blog!) can never convey the size, texture or richness of the real thing. Each time we go to a gallery or museum, I forget how much I enjoy looking at the real thing. This was one of my favourites in the Delaroche exhibition, The Excecution of Lady Jane Grey (246cm x297cm:The Two Princes in The Tower (181cm x 215cm):
We spent hours looking at the 13th - 15th century paintings and then started getting Art fatigue (I know, aren't we phillistines?!) so decided to make a point of seeking out the more famous18th -20th Century ones on this, our first visit: Sunflowers by Van Gogh, The Suerats, Constables, Turners, Gainsboroughs, Stubbs, Hogarth etc. Some bigger and some smaller than I imagined, but all so much better in the flesh and we were able to get within a foot to see them too. Splendid. We are definately coming back here again.
As the weather was so pleasant we also did quite a bit of walking around outside taking photos like a couple of tourists (oh, hang on, we *were* tourists!)
Night time trees in Leicester Square:
Iron Lampost:Trafalger Square: Me standing in front of some London buses in Trafalger Square:

Ginger hair (yes really!) coming out of a window in Beak Street (no, we didn't why know either):
Himself in Trafalger Square:
Carnaby Street:
A Duck (DUKW WW2 amphibious vehicle) tours bus complete with tourists quacking loudly on their duck whistles:
Egyptian design tiling all over this building:
The closest us mere mortals can get to 10 Downing Street nowadays:
A Coldstream guard, on his own just before another eager tourist stood next to him for a photo:and no I wasn't one of the ones who wanted my photo stood next to a guard.
Typical Whitehall view:Me, standing on the edge of Trafalger Square with Big Ben in the background:
Waiting for Big Ben to chime:

Goodies in the post.......

2010-04-13T13:05:00.008+01:00

These gorgeous goodies arrived in the post on Saturday:
A gift from Karol-Ann, thank you so much KA:-). A handmade card, a super little coin purse (perfect for holidays), Some very pretty fabric squares (these will make lovely tiny log cabin blocks), and some weighty table cloth clips - everything in my favourite colours - what a thoughtful friend.

I had just about time to unwrap them before I found out that Himself and I were going on a long weekend in London to celebrate my Birthday. Lanky Boy and the Whizz Kid came over with a huge bouquet of flowers, cards and gifts. Then via a (crackly) Skype we talked to Chic Girl over in Spain. More gifts were given to me including a big mirrored trinket box containing tickets to the cinema and to see various exhibitions. Chic Girl then told me to look under my keyboard where the Whizz Kid had hidden details for a hotel reservation at The Hoxton Hotel (an uber chic, 'urban lodge'). I then had a short while to pack my bag......
The hotel proved to be just our sort of place - very informal, yet luxurious where it mattered. The staff were all wonderful, relaxed and yet efficient. We knew we had arrived much too early to check in, so we expected to only drop off our suitcase, but were pleasantly surprised when we were given our room immediately. And very comfy it was too - flat screen tv, power shower, blackout curtains, room controlled air con/heating, free wifi, an hours complimentary phone calls, a mini bar with fresh milk and bottles of water, both complimentary (booze and sweeties were available in the 24 hour reception at supermarket prices rather than hotel prices) complimentary daily and evening newspapers, Aveda toiletries, duck down duvet, fresh coffee as well as various teas to brew up and they deliver a complimentary Pret a Manger mini breakfast to your room in the morning when you want it. All included in the room price. Superb. At the end of our stay we could not find a single fault with them. We will use them again.
The lounge area:
Subtly etched wall art in our room:Huge cushions on our bed:And finally, an invitation to take the soap home! (We didn't):

Layering the logs......

2010-04-08T23:55:00.006+01:00

All put together and borders added - now on to the layering and quilting, but that will have to wait for a couple of days. Not sure what quilting I'm going to do around the blocks at the moment, I'll have a think about it.

The wadding will be an unwashed 'Soft and White' and an unwashed W.O.W. fabric. I want the overall effect to look vaguely vintage and so after I've quilted the top I will put the whole thing in the washing machine on a hot white wash to make the backing fabric and the wadding shrink, this will give me the look I'm after.

More logs....

2010-04-07T18:43:00.006+01:00

It's slow work, but I do love the effect of the tiny strips:
All the logs are now made, four strips to each side, I think any more and the middle block will look slightly lost as it's so small.
I'm just putting all sixty four blocks together now. I've tried two slightly different settings...
A: B:

It's so nice to see you again ....

2010-04-03T23:56:00.009+01:00

I sewed some more of the little log cabin blocks yesterday:
Although the originals have three 'rounds' of logs,I think I will do at least one extra round on each one.

I managed to do some sewing just before Chic Girl and the Whizz Kid arrived from Stanstead airport looking absolutly shattered due to leaving the house at 3am. Poor Chic Girl missed her plane back to Spain yesterday because her 15k luggage allowance was a measly 1kg over (which would have cost her an extra £20) she removed a couple of items from her case and queued up again at the same desk, only to be told it was the wrong queue, so she went to join another queue , eventually got to the desk and was then told by a bored and unhelpful young man that she had missed boarding her flight by 9 minutes. She has another flight booked (at extra cost of course) for 8am, tomorrow (Easter Sunday) - lets hope she doesn't miss this one (Actually, that's not true, I wouldn't be in the least bit upset!). Sadly for her though, this is the only UK airline to fly to Santiago De Compostela, so if she wants to get to work, she has no choice but to use Ryanair.

Got back from a lovely day out at my Parents house at 6.19 this evening and we virtually ran down the path to see the new Doctor Who on BBC1 tonight at 6.20pm! It was a good start to the series.Matt Smith is pretty impressive, I mean he's no David Tennant, but I think we will all get used to him and like him very quickly - he seems to be very believable as the next Time Lord. The Dr Who Confidential programmes on BBC3 are excellent and well worth watching if you are a fan/nerd:-)

I must be mad.....

2010-03-31T18:32:00.001+01:00

Cutting strips of fabrics in white cotton: and quite a few in aqua, pale lime, pink and pale blue:to make little log cabins:
I want to make a replacement of this quilt: which has been hanging in our hallway since we moved in. So nearly a whole can of spray starch and about a bazillion strips of fabrics later: Hmmm, considering each strip is only 1/4" wide, finished sizeThis may take a while......

A quilty word puzzle

2010-03-23T18:24:00.003Z

Here's a bit of fun for you:

V R F A A B K Y B Y M D V F A
H E M J T D E N O T F O Z R B
H T A P S D R A K N U R D F O
G T M D E N P Q I Z G Q G A B
U U T N W O H S T L I U Q B B
F C R B I T O H I O S T A R I
V Y A V N T H L O G C A B I N
B R P B G O D S X F I C Z C C
L A U S M C R N G I S E D N F
O T N T A R E I T Y S L Q B X
C O T S C R A P S H O D U P O
K R O W H C T A P V R E I J G
R F L Y I N G G E E S E F G T
Y F K A N D Y G W I C N A B U
K Z U S E F T D B E I P I D B

Can you find all the following words in the square?

BAG
BLOCK
BOBBIN
BQL
COTTON
DESIGN
DRUNKARDS PATH
FABRIC
FLYING GEESE
IRON
LOG CABIN
MODA
NEEDLE
OHIO STAR
PATCHWORK
PIECE
PINS
QUILT
QUILT SHOW
ROTARY CUTTER
SCISSORS
SCRAPS
SEWING MACHINE
THREAD
TRAPUNTO

As one thing finishes......

2010-03-23T07:10:00.004Z

This is what the sky looks like at 6.30 in the morning - I don't often see it this early!

Finished, the left hand 'Steam punk' cushion:Huzzah.

I do miss my sewing room - especially after visiting a fellow BQL member who lived quite near to our friends (thank goodness for the Sat Nav!).

A.W. treated me to a personal quilt show. Wow, what a prolific and competant lady. Of course no visit to a quilter is complete without a peek at their sewing area too. After viewing the WIP on her design wall, I'm quite inspired to have a go at some 'skinny inserts' after seeing how good they look in the flesh. A.W. got the idea from both Dianne Hire and Alison Schwabe. I have the Dianne Hire book - Quilters Playtime - so will have to dig it out and give it a go.

In the meanwhile, I've been fooling around with some left over windmill blocks and seeing what different alternate blocks might look like:I wondered if this red check fabric:might be better toned down slightly with a thin white cotton overlay:
or:What do you think?

Thread success

2010-03-22T18:40:00.001Z

Huzzah - today I've cracked the problem with the 'misbehaving' Hemingworth thread.
My first job whenever the stitching isn't perfect on any machine is to change the needle. They are so cheap compared to almost everything else and it's so often overlooked. I buy them in boxes of a hundred at a time. I find I'm not so 'precious' about them when I have plenty in stock.
Well since it already had a new needle (I use a new one for each new project) that couldn't be the problem.
I changed the machine speed from 'normal/fast' to 'snail'. I re-threaded the machine (just in case). I fooled about with the tension and finally, I heavily starched the backing fabric and voilaSuccess:-)

Spring is almost sprung.....

2010-03-22T16:46:00.018Z

The Whizz Kid flew to Spain to be with Chic Girl for a week - they are going to look for an apartment in Pontavedra and the Whizz Kid will be looking for a job in Spain. Chic Girl says she also needs to look for some high necked cotton tops as she has been advised not to flash any flesh!
Meanwhile, we had a lovely weekend with our friends L&M,
L made a lovely pudding for Sunday lunch:Pavlova base, whipped cream, bananas, grapes, kiwi fruit and chocolate minstrals. Himself didn't get to eat the whole thing!:
As Sunday was such a gorgeous day we went for a walk after lunch.....No sign of any bluebell flowers yet:Lots of moss though: Tall saplings with fat juicy buds: Plenty of lovely views: Looking over at Latimer:
Chess Bridge:Detail of a couple of chess pieces:And catkins:Spring is finally on it's way - Hurrah:-)

Mothers day fabric

2010-03-17T09:52:00.014Z

I was sent a lovely gift for Mothers day, these beautiful fabrics from the V&A quilt collection:
Chic Girl has dropped some heavy hints about how she would love something made from the brown and blue shell fabric:
If I had to pick one, this is my favourite:
But these two are extremely pretty too:
I will have to think carefully what to make with them - the quality is fabulous, so soft and yet with a good, high thread count. It is a lovely gift and I didn't even know the fabric existed.
I also received some gorgeous lilies and pale lime chrysanthemums:
I'm currently doing a little stitchery on some more of the pale duck egg linen, for a couple of 18" cushions. First I mark the design out, using a light box and a washable pen:
Then I just sit down and stitch:This design is quite large and it seems to be taking a few days to finish. I then have another matching cushion to stitch.

We Start Partys EP Launch

2010-03-16T18:55:00.010Z

On Sunday evening we went to Joe Publics in Bristol to see The Whizz Kids younger Brother, Elys, play with his band We Start Partys. It was a lovely friendly gig with plenty of other family members there to see their boys do well.

I think the most unexpected sight of the night had to be a very elegantly dressed 'middle class' Mama, sashay her way to the front to see her boy perform with his band called Poster Boys. The band started up, the main vocalist started singing and then her son all dressed in black with more than a touch of Noel Fielding about him started, errrr, growling/roaring menacingly, actually I'm not sure what it's called, but it sounded fierce. The Mama bopped away, clearly having the time of her life - and good on her too!

Himself tried to hide at the back: no way was he getting squashed with everyone else!

We Start Partys (yes, that is their way of spelling it) launched their EP on Sunday. I hope it does well for them, because the music sounds great. All three tunes on the EP are very catchy - so catchy in fact that I couldn't sleep properly that night because I had the words to Frontin' going around my head - argghhh.

I took lots of photos both of the band and also the audience and uploaded them all on to Facebook, I didn't realise that being the 'owner' of the photos would mean I had to 'allow' everyone to 'tag' themselves and their friends in the photos - so my inbox has been chock-a-block with requests. The Whizz Kid (the black arrow points him out) recorded the whole set for Chic Girl as she couldn't be there - she was missed by us all.

After the WSP gig finished, Jagermeister freebies were being handed out by a couple of pneumatic, smiley young women wearing tight orange dresses that I swear would have been snug on just one of my thighs! I was given first a bandanna/scarf and then each of the girls put a lei around my neck:imagine my surprise that the scarf is 100% cotton...... I'll have to try and think of something inventive to do with it. Which given the colour and design will be challenging. When the smiling girls then came around offering lurid orange test tubes filled with some alcoholic liquid, I gracefully declined - I'll stick to Joe Public G&T's with lime quarters - mmmm, very refreshing:-)
We oldies took over one of the booths

This is a low....

2010-03-13T00:50:00.007Z

We were all hoping to see Chic Girl this weekend, but she didn't fly home as she has been offered a teaching job at the University in Pontevedra, Spain. She hits the ground running when she starts on Monday morning, so she had to pack up her suitcase yesterday, catch the train to Vigo and then another to Pontevedra, where she then had to find a hotel and plan her lessons. I expect the poor mite will also try and catch up on some sleep at some point.

Buttons and cushions

2010-03-09T15:31:00.007Z

In 1994 my Mother gave me lots of Mother Of Pearl buttons, some of which were from her Mama. I've kept them in a little labelled pot ever since, adding a few more when my Mother In Law, gave me her sewing box four or five years ago. I came across them recently and realised how decorative they all are and I would like to see them all the time. So I made a little stuffed heart yesterday and last night while watching TV, I sewed on lots of buttons. I finished sewing this morning, grateful that no corresponding buttonholes were needed! The stuffed heart weighs a flippin' ton! Who knew a few buttons could be so heavy? London's Pearly Kings and Queens have my admiration, they must have incredible stamina.
P.C. kindly sent me a photo of her little wallhanging so I am able to share it here: I do enjoy making these little wallhangings, the stitchery is just enough to complete in an evening.

I've also been practicing my piping skills...... This is the cushion that went horribly wrong with the Hemingworth threads. Here it is just after I finished the stitching the letters: And here is the finished article: I'm really pleased with it now

Thread addict

2010-03-08T16:18:00.000Z

These are the threads that are giving me trouble:I bought them at the Festival Of Quilts. I tried them out a couple of times, but since they haven't been well behaved I've kind of ignored them and gone back to one of my more reliable threads.
Here's what went wrong: Not good is it?

Call me naive but if I'm paying full whack for threads, I expect them to behave with very little tweaking or fooling around. Especially when they are only poly for goodness sakes. I know that metallics need a special needle and I am prepared to sew at snail speed for them. I am prepared to do the same with my Indian Natesh rayon threads, although I now prefer the softer tones of Madeira Polyneon. Same lovely sheen, same delicious range colours and they work with only a slight loosening of the tension.

Hmmm, I really ought to get rid of the Natesh threadsAnyone want to make me an offer?

So wrong and so right

2010-03-06T23:28:00.008Z

It's been a funny old week what with one thing and another......

I started doing some trapunto which I love doing, all was going well and I carefully cut out wadding on the reverse of the intricate design. When it came to the quilting, the test bit of stitching worked fine, but when I came to actually free machine quilt around my design, the thread would start occasionally misbehaving. But I carried on anyway - biiiiig mistake. I hated the result and spent hours carefully picking out the tiny stitching. I want to fall love with 'Hemingworth' threads, the colours I have are so beautiful, and they have a lovely sheen which I know will look fab when stitched, but every time I've tried to use the stuff, it breaks or knots up and goes loopy on me. I think I need to sit down and give it a stiff talking too and figure out why we cannot work together and soon.

Isn't finishing UFO's satisfying? This one I've had hanging around for ages, I just couldn't seem to get the beading how I wanted..... But I'm very happy with the results now. This has now been given to someone far far away.

I've also made another of my little matryoshka quilts and posted it off to a friend as a little gift. Stupidly I forgot to take a photo of it before I wrapped it up:Doh!

a lovely surprise

2010-02-25T00:44:00.006Z

Look what arrived today from a kind friend: How sweet of her to send me some fabric pieces to make flower centres from and such lovely colours too. I'm very partial to the aqua, lilac and mint circles on the white background, mmmm. Wow, and she made an 'ATC' card too (2.5" x 3.5"), cleverly incorporating some colour catcher sheet pieces. I love how they look like suede when they are ironed. I have loads of these in various shades of bleuuch grey that I should do something with.....

Himself left this for me on the conservatory door :so I would see it as I left for work this morning in the rain. Aaaaah, I think he's a keeper;-p

flowers and fabric

2010-02-23T18:59:00.005Z

Just to show I have been in my sewing room - I've cut out some flowers: Actually I cut most of them out ages ago, so it was mostly some more leaves I cut and then arranged everything on my display wall. I still need to cut out lots more flowers, but also need to buy more 'Steam A Seam' to put on the back of the fabrics.
I've been buying fabric: A couple of orange colours to add to my tiny orange stash, I got these fabrics for a very good price from here, I shall use this online shop again.

I've also ordered some fabrics from FabricWorm on Etsy, but a fortnight later, they are still not here. I hate waiting for stuff in the post*. I'm collecting a few grey and orange fabrics to put with plain white. Undecided yet what I'm going to do with them.... Updated: the parcel arrived today while I was at work.
*I ordered the Glee CD too last Monday, but that hasn't arrived either:-((

I've also been designing some more bags.....

I consider myself ....

2010-02-23T17:27:00.016Z

Told off:-(
By Chic Girl:-(
For not updating my blog for a week. Tch, I suppose she has a point.
So I thought I would share a photo with you of Chic Girls new hair do. She had about five inches cut off the bottom and some blond foils put in today. She looks fabulous. She's off to Madrid for her new job on Sunday morning, sob sob, it's a two week trial. Half of me wants her to hate it there, but the proud Mother part of me wants her to be a roaring success and to love it. Ack.

Fortunatly no one took a photo of my hair, which has super big curls at the moment. I can flick them around in a L'Oreal, 'because you're worth it' stylee!

Himself and I have been over to Bristol for the past two weekends to do some more DIY on the Money Pit. The Chic Girl removed their death trap of a carpet on the stairs before we arrived and then she and I set to removing all the nails, screws and staples that for reasons unknown were embedded into the wood (WTF?) before painting them with a black undercoat: Yes every other stair is painted until the first lot dry because there is only one loo in the Money Pit and we need to answer the call of nature!

Himself and the Whizz Kid tackled the wiring in the kitchen as more sockets are needed and Himself is gradually replacing all the strange wiring arrangements into a standard vertical and horizontal form:We are all astonished/appalled at the eccentric wiring in the walls I mean who but an idiot/cheapskate channels wiring diagonally across a kitchen wall? I don't know why it came as such a surprise to us, everything in that house so far has been peculiar. It is a terraced, 'two up, two down', built in the late 1800's on the cheap, probably a labourer or factory workers cottage and it looks like every homeowner since has continued to cut corners and avoid doing anything properly. Shame as it could be a very nice little starter home. But it does need some serious money spent on it.

This weekend The Whizz Kid was drilling a series of holes (as shown just to the right of the socket in this photo): in order to knock out the next socket, when he suddenly shouted at the top of his voice "WATER". (I didn't take a photo of him plugging the hole with his hand like the Dutch boy in the dyke as it would have seemed heartless) Himself ran over, took the still whirring drill from his hand, switched off the power and then turned the water off at the mains. All the while cursing as all his plumbing stuff was left back at home. So a trip to the other side of Bristol was needed to buy new fittings and again we wondered why lead pipe should be running diagonally up the wall from the corner of the room and then presumably over somehow to the taps and boiler in the other corner. Some time later the lead pipe was all bypassed and some new 15mm copper pipes were put in over to the boiler and taps. What a drama and a time waster. Chic Girl and her Dad were shuddering, thinking about other holes that had been made by nails and screws as shelves, pictures etc. had been put up and missed the wiring and pipes by inches, The Whizz Kid said he was just very glad the leak had happened while Himself was in the house. Meanwhile The Chic Girl and I painted two coats of chocolate brown floor paint on the stairs. The idea is that next weekend we will wallpaper the risers. I think it will make the stairs very noisy with no carpets on the treads but we will see what they think after they have been up and down them a few times.

Back to today. The Whizz Kid makes a wonderful chicken fried rice that I've tried to replicate many times, but it never tastes quite the same - sigh. So since he was here today, I asked him to make some for our dinner........
Yum, yum yum.

LOTR Prequels

2010-02-16T19:44:00.008Z

Ring image from here

If you are a fan of Lord Of The Rings you may well like these two free films. Made by fans, for fans....

They take a while to download (especially the first one), but are well worth watching - it's just amazing what can be done with three thousand pounds, which is all 'Hunt For Gollum' cost! Lovely to also see they were filmed in various locations in the UK
Born Of Hope
Hunt For Gollum

I hope they make more films and get some recognition for their splendid film making.

busy,busy, busy.

2010-02-08T11:59:00.014Z

Gah, and I thought February would be nice and quiet. Stupidly busy at work, which is a good thing.
I've finished painting the downstairs loo:What d'ya think? Actually it looks a bit bland in the photos and I haven't made a blind or curtain yet - although here is the fabric, all bleached, washed and ironed:I have been pedal to the metal on this: doing lots of this: and here's a small part of a little something that's a gift: I've put the sashing on this, but have got no further.
I am fairly pleased with my dying results (using a packet of Dylon machine dye) on my two unloved fabrics, which refused to bleach nicely, although in real life there is no where near as much contrast as the photos would have you believe. On both fabrics I shall use the back, rather than the front, as one has a slight green cast:and the other a more pronounced brown cast: I also dyed two pieces of white linen, they both came out pitch black:Very nice.

Articles by Bill Bryson......

2010-02-02T15:55:00.004Z

I have long enjoyed reading all the Bill Bryson books and so when I came across these articles online from (American) Traditional Homes magazine, I spent a happy time reading through them. In them he writes about what we are like as a people. I didn't realise non-Brits find us so confusing....

Bleaching fabrics and decorating

2010-01-30T22:39:00.008Z

I have been having a little sort out of my fabric stash - seems I have some fabrics that I look at now and think, why did I buy that? Mostly because of the colour combinations. So I thought I would try bleaching some fabrics to see what happened.... Well if the best/worst came to it, I would have plain white fabric yardage - which is always useful to me. So I soaked some fabric samples in a strong bleach solution to see what would happen. I went back to check again a couple of hours later - One fabric was a pale blue chambray, which I did like the colour, but it was faded in parts - while in the bleach solution it had bleached pure white - result:-) The other three fabrics? Hmmm, no change. Left the samples for a few more hours and just a slight change to two of them. Left them soaking overnight and wondered if the fabrics would simply disintegrate, but no, it appears not. One fabric refused to bleach at all, how weird. This one lost some of it's colour, all the black background has turned into a peach colour with sand and black:It now looks like a line drawing but, I'm not sure I like it any better, so won't bother to bleach any more of it.
This one I do like very much - Original on the left and bleached version on the right: Interesting how the spotty coral coloured background has changed from positive to negative, yet the three shades of turquoise haven't changed colour at all. I like the white in the fabric as it now seems a 'fresher' design. One of the shades of turquoise is exactly the same shade as I am about to paint our downstairs loo* - so I will bleach some more of the fabric and use it for something to go up at the window...... Doesn't need to be proper curtains, just something to 'finish' the room off.

*Was going to be Farrow and Ball 'Blue Ground', but when I tried out the tester pot, Himself and I both thought it was much too bright for us to live with. So we went back to Homebase and got a Dulux Colour Mixing tin of paint in a much paler version.

Chic cookie monster.........

2010-01-30T18:54:00.017Z

Someone I know seems to be very fond of choc chip cookies................. Extremely fond of them......Especially when they are fresh out of the oven - even though we have all stuffed ourselves with moules marinières. Someone still had plenty of room in her pudding tummy....
Had I realised, I would have made more.................Then having eaten hers, she would not have had to eye up her Dad's cookie quite so intentlyAnd she wouldn't have nibbled mine (though I did say she could have a bite)
Meanwhile the Whizz Kid was was working on my computer, building my new website. He left his cookie unattended........ But it remained unmolested - Chic Girl showed great restraint.

Hand dyed heaven

2010-01-28T23:12:00.000Z

I was lucky enough to be given a fabulous set of of hand dyed fat quarters quite a while ago and I've been hording them ever since, almost scared of cutting into them - what if I spoil the fabrics? Ah, what the heck, I decided, if I don't use them, I'll never know - so I put some together to see how they looked...... Mmmmm, quite nice. Then it was back to EQ6 to design some blocks that wouldn't use more than a fat quarter. I wanted something fairly simple that I could do lots of machine quilting on. Practice, practice, practice and all that!
I starched the fabrics and then decided that with the turquoise included it looked a bit 'South Western' (USA), hmm, not the look I wanted at all. So put that colour aside, figuring I could always come back to it if I felt the quilt needed it. I cut and sewed the blocks together and then had another look - crikey, it was getting huge.I then changed direction slightly and found a rather lovely lime green, which preferred to the red, which looked great on EQ6 (truth is, I hadn't chosen the colour of the real fabric exactly), so in real life I didn't like it. The green strips are a quarter of an inch wide and applique on each block by machine. The white sashing between the blocks is to be sewn on next......

Sister Act and Liberty's of London....

2010-01-19T11:33:00.001Z

Saturday was a fun day - we drove to Ruislip to have lunch with our favourite Rellies - not just lunch it turns out, but sherry and nibbles and then a three course meal with wine - I could have done with an afternoon snooze, which was unfortunate as along with The Rellies oldest Daughter, The Willowy Dr., her partner B and his two delightful offspring A & H, we were off to the underground to catch the tube to Oxford Circus where we had to dash to get to the London Palladium in time to see the matinee performance of Sister Act. Great show it was too, all the actors were fantastic. So good to see Ian Lavender as the priest and Sheila Hancock as the Mother Superior. The stage mechanics were just amazing, with various bits of the stage floor moving around in ever decreasing circles. I took this photo as the show ended. It shows the stained glass windows and the statue of the Viurgin Mary that got bigger and shinier as the show progressed. Here is a shot of the rather intricate ceiling:When the show finished we came out of the theatre and saw Liberty's immediately to our left, but as we only had ten minutes before it closed it was always going to be a struggle to actually do any shopping there. Well, what do you know, 6pm came and went and no one threw us out, so we carried on looking. This is the beautiful entrance, it would have been so easy to have bought up armfuls of flowers I picked up a beautiful silk scarf in the sale and hastily put it down again even though it was reduced to a mere £275! I was so shocked I didn't even register what the full price was. The fabric and habby is on the third floor and it's astonishing how fast one can sprint up stairs when the clock is against one! Hmmm, much reduced in size from last time I was in here, but I had heard as much from others so it didn't come as a total surprise. But there still seemed plenty to look at. I drooled over a few shelves of fabrics, but was not tempted enough to buy, I needed more time to choose. To me, the braids and trims were more interesting at this point. I would like to have spent longer looking but will save it for another day when it's just Himself and me. I did buy some stripey braid that will probably form part of a bag. So hardly a big spender, but if I'd had more time, dear reader...............They still hadn't called time when we left the shop at nearly 6.30, so goodness knows what happened to closing time on that particular day. We briefly glimpsed at Carnaby Street, but that did all seem to be closing, so with reluctance we turned away and headed back to the tube. Where a huge supper awaited our return - we chatted to our Rellies way into the eveing and finally got home at 1.45am on Sunday morning!

Birthday Boy

2010-01-12T16:42:00.004Z

Ha, how things conspire. Time just slips through my fingers like water.
Well I did finish this cushion:Which I'm rather pleased with, my piping looks pretty good, even though I do say so myself!

It was Lanky Boys Birthday at the weekendWe went to Nando's in Bristol. Where they seem to put chillies in everything.
Himself, Lanky Boy and the Whizz Kid are very keen on the hot chilli sauces, but the Chic Girl and I have more respect for our insides (not really, the sauces are just too hot for us). We had the most miserable serving waitress you could imagine, I would have taken a photo of her constant scowl, but she looked as if she might not like being 'papped' and since I love my camera.......... However we did have a fun time.

I found a free, first issue of a new needlecraft magazine on the web called' Needle' from the hand embroidery network - it makes a very interesting read.

Driving with idiots and then sewing squares

2010-01-08T23:19:00.012Z

n Back to work today and a very scary, slooooow drive it was too. Oh, the main roads were fine, but getting the car off our sloping drive and down our snowbound road and out of our village - ugh, just horrible. What shocked me was the number of F*%$!wits that insisted on driving not ten* centimetres from my back bumper. Presumably they felt the traffic wasn't going quite fast enough for them because they were driving in their 4x4's. Wasn't just me who noticed this either, as both Himself and my boss said they had had the same experience. My boss even had one bloke who overtook her when it wouldn't have been safe without any snow, let alone in todays conditions. Tch, cretins.

*Ok - I know, I know, you've told me a million times not to exaggerate, so maybe it was only twenty centimetres from my bumper then!

Yesterday I had great fun sorting through my 'Japanese' fabrics, well only one or two are genuinely Japanese (slightly different 'feel' and weave to them,) the rest are American but with a 'Japanese' design. Anyway, I wanted to make a cushion cover and so started cutting lots of one and a half inch strips and then squares. Sewed them all together: backed them with some 80/20 white wadding and quilted the black squares with a squiggle design, using Superior Threads black bobbinfil in the bobbin and Superiors Rainbow 844/Midnight Shadows on top. Hmmm, I promise I have quilted these squares Look, here's the back so you can see:The squiggly slightly messy bottom left bit, is my 'tester' piece, which is cut off later when I square up my rectangle - ha ha ha, that makes perfect sense doesn't it? I shall finish this cushion tomorrow - more pics then.

Brrrrrrrrrrr

2010-01-06T17:32:00.021Z

No going out work today for either Himself or me, because of the snow that fell all yesterday evening and overnight.
What a difference from yesterday. At 10.55am, I heard a now sadly all too familiar, loud low pitched drone and so dashed inside to find my camera, it was another plane bringing back dead soldiers to RAF Lynham and then the drive through Wootten Bassett, which is very close to us,The streets will be again be lined with people, paying their respects. It's very sad that it has to happen at all, but I'm glad the boys were bought home yesterday rather than today, because of the many hundreds that now attend each repatriation, all the traffic is in chaos for hours afterwards. Adding snow to the equation would have made it ghastly for everyone.

I was really grateful to get a phone call from my boss this morning telling me not to come in today, I did not fancy driving in all this snow. I notice that no one else around here has taken a car out either, but quite a few dog walkers have gone past the house.Love this snow doughnut:
Champagne doesn't think much of the snow either, but refuses the indignity of the litter tray!:This Mahonia bush is fairly protected by our outside boiler:

Himself worked from home and I did some BQL 'management' and then some sewing - Hurrah, I finished a UFO destined for our sofa - supposedly for Christmas: Hmm not bad, it's only three weeks late!
To help me through the cold, I also some ate more of our Christmas chocolates he he:-p Now I have a very sweet tooth, but my word these M&S ones are very sweet, even for me:(Oh don't worry, they'll still all get eaten trust me!) These posh Marc De Champagne are really, really delicious:but so rich I can only eat a maximum of two at a time! Pretty box no? These are rather nice too:but again quite rich.

The last of the decorations came down today - ah, shame. I've just got to pack them all away now, urgghh.

Used up the last of the smoked salmon and Philly cheese for supper - this is a lovely, quick and easy to make dish. Should be ready to eat in about fifteen minutes.
Cook pasta shapes, but please do not add any salt to the water. (these usually take about 12 minutes or so to cook)
Chop half an onion and a clove of garlic, and fry in another saucepan in a tablespoon of olive oil until the onion is opaque. Add a large roughly chopped courgette, some torn up fresh basil leaves and some freshly ground black pepper.
You could also add some frozen peas to make the dish go further if you want.
This all takes about 10 minutes.
Then add approximately half to two thirds of a 200gm tub of Philadelphia cream cheese (although mascarpone or creme fraiche works too) stir into veggies.
Stir in roughly torn up chunks of sliced smoked salmon. (Roughly chopped up Bernard Mathews turkey ham is good too)
Taste mixture and add more black pepper if you want - now do you see why you don't need any extra salt?
Drain off pasta
If your pan is big enough stir the pasta into the sauce, but if not tip the sauce over the pasta.

Gah, now if I'd been clever I would have saved a couple of basil leaves for decoration and called it a 'serving suggestion'...... but I'm not.

Party, party, party

2010-01-04T19:41:00.017Z

On New Years Day we went over to Bristol because Chic Girl and the Whizz Kid were having a party. It was a Zombie party, but we totally forgot we were supposed to dress up - doh! Never mind, Himself and I were still allowed in. We hoped we could watch David Tennant do his last Dr Who. (Boo hoo.) Chic Girl wanted to watch it too, so we sat down together in one room with the TV, while other people made party preparations in the rest of the house.
Chic girl as the Cheerleader in Heroes: Even zombies have to eat:
The Whizz kid was a pirate zombie, with his brother as a Smurf and his beautiful sister as a spider woman!:
Do you think maybe he should think about switching to de-caff after lunch?
That huge tarantula only wants a Bacardi & coke:

The food was superb, my favourite being a whole salmon cooked over a welcome barbecue. A tall zombie king had made a delicious 'guts' dip which was mainly beetroot - there was also 'brains' which was a garlic-y horseradish dip. Yum.

Chic Girl lost her pom poms to this party girl who clearly had paying close attention to how it was done, she danced in time to the music very well indeed.

Before it got too late in the evening, we all walked over to a local playing fields to set off some fireworks. After a few drinkies this seemed like a 'very good idea' - however, standing in the freezing pitch black with something akin to the 1812 overture going off in front of us - we did discuss what we would do if the police came. Some wag thought we should aim for a 'super ASBO' between us, but a few people pointed out that their jobs might be at risk, so some settled on a fictitious local address's and everyone else decided that scattering in all directions to anywhere except the Whizz Kid and Chic Girls house was the best course of evasion from the law. As each car drove past, we all looked around nervously and tried not to look suspicious, which looking back on it now, considering 95% of us were dressed as zombies was probably rather optimistic. Fortunately the boys in blue did not turn up, so we carefully (it was very icy) made a hasty retreat back to the house. Later on we went into the back garden where the fire was heating up nicely and let off some sky lanternsSomeone suggested that it would be a good idea if the air inside was warmed over the fire and they were far easier to light and float up, unlike the ones we launched on Christmas day.

Busted

2010-01-04T19:37:00.004Z

Good grief, that Lanky Boy does like a good bit of custard with his apple crumble, doesn't he?

Happy New Year

2010-01-03T19:12:00.016Z

Wow, I didn't realise that I hadn't posted for a while. The time over Christmas and New Year just kind of disappears doesn't it?.
We drove up to Norwich to visit my Mother in Law:and also to call in my Brother in Law, his lovely wife H and our Niece and Nephew. Much hilarity after supper when the dressing up box came out and various wigs were tried on:

Is this Billie Piper?:
No of course not, it's Ginger Spice:

K with his Brian May look:
118 118 man, it's a bit chilly for the shorts though:
Chic girlseems to be liking this bubbly blond look.......
Himself finding his inner Elvis:
Chic girl posing with a feather boa and another blond wig - hmmmmmmm......

Oh My.....

2009-12-27T13:29:00.029Z

It's over already? :-(

I hope you all had a great Christmas.
Thank goodness Lanky Boy and Chic Girl aren't small anymore and no longer wake up at 5.30 on Christmas morning eager to see what Father Christmas has put in their stockings. They rise at a far more civilised hour now and it's more likely that I am up before them!While we were all eagerly waiting for my parents to arrive, Himself and Lanky Boy tried heating the milk in the microwave for our coffee only to find it wouldn't work:-( Arrgghhh, don't these things pick their moments? So they had to heat the milk the 'old fashioned' way. After Christmas I did a little online searching and it seems the Magnatron has broken and it will cost about £150 to buy a new one for our Neff model - and that doesn't include fitting. Well good grief, I just know a new microwave will not cost anywhere near that amount. Seems it's far cheaper to buy a new one (but, made in China) than it is to fix the old (UK made) one. What a shame, but since the new one (from Tesco) was £39.99 - it just doesn't make sense to spend four times as much - especially since we only use it for heating milk, making porridge and starting off jacket potatoes.

Christmas Day is my Papa's birthday and this year was a special one, so he had Happy Birthday candles to blow out.

Himself cooks our Christmas dinner - roast goose, roasted vegetables, still crunchy sprouts (yum) and broccolli, two stuffings (which I made) and other bits and bobs. Everything was just cooked to perfection and we stuffed ourselves, much like the rest of the UK does!

Chocolates..... so many chocolates......

Reliving my youth with this triple CDsome excellent songs, but oooh, I didn't half listen to some rubbish too! Scarily enough I knew the words to almost everything.

Himself bought me just the camera I wanted but in a fabulous red colour. I've had great fun with it already.
These pretty fabrics folded to look like a tree came from P. Ack, I'm torn between wanting to open up the fabrics and keeping the tree - ooh the dilemma:
Karol-Ann sent me these lovely gel pens and a useful covered notebook last monthand also very kindly made me a cosmetic bag, which I am using as a swish camera case instead:
the camera, battery and memory cards all fit in it nicely and it's so much prettier than my old camera's case and padded too.
These came from Wah:
One of my gifts from The Chic Girl and The Whizz Kid was this book with exquisite illustrations:

So many gorgeous gifts, thank you to everyone, you are very kind.
When it was getting dark, we all donned boots, coats and gloves and gingerly set off down the icy footpath in front of our house to the field, where the plan was to light a whole load of sky Lanterns, however we decided it must have been a little too windy and probably too cold, as they were reluctant to catch fire properly, so we only lit three of them, before going back indoors: Sorry the picture is so rubbish - didn't put my new camera to the right setting - Oops! But you can just about make out The Whizz Kid in the inky blackness of the freezing countryside, him and Lanky boy having just launched the second lantern. Lanky boy is even further down the field. If you have good eyesight, you might just about see the dot of an orange glow of the first one to the left. It isn't it half dark in the country without any street lamps!

Going to the flicks....

2009-12-23T23:27:00.010Z

We have just returned from the cinema where we saw 'Avatar' in 3D.
Wow - what a film. Fab-u-lous. It's a real visual feast (OK, am going to commit possible heresy here) It was visually, as good as, if not better than the LOTR films and boy did I love all the intricate detail in those films. Roll on the DVD! If you get a chance to see Avatar, please do try. Oh and I strongly recommend you see it in 3D too, even if it means not going to your normal cinema coz they don't show any 3D films there grrrrr. I thought the story was good and although the film was long - there was so much to look at, I didn't even sneak a look at my watch at any point, I was too enthralled. If you saw Fern Gully (which I only really remember for the lovely flora and fauna) it had a similar feel, but more (ha ha ha) 'realistic' looking.

It was raining when we arrived and continued to rain while we were in the cinema, so when we came out, all the snow had gone, however driving nearer and nearer to our village, it became clear that the rain didn't get over to us - as all the snow was still all around with the roads very glittery, which means they would be getting icy overnight. Not good.

Here is a shot of our tree this year before the presents went underneath (only so I could show off about the tree skirt!) I went for a white colour scheme (again) with a touch of blue/turquoise this time. White decorations have been easy to find this year. Although since I already had a good selection, I didn't need any more, but trying to find a few more pale blue or turquoise ones has been impossible.

I also finished the two little cushions I have been making I am loving the quilting design so it's going to be hard parting with them. Blast, I have accidentally just deleted the photo of the other cushion, so cannot show a picture of that one. I'll take another photo tomorrow and upload it then.
Edit: Whoops - I've wrapped and given the other cushion away without taking a photo.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2009-12-21T12:57:00.019Z

Well, with all the snow everywhere we woke up to this morning it's more like the Hollywood version than the usual grey damp version that they never sing about. I do realise that our couple of inches looks rather pathetic compared to elswhere in the country, but I still think it looks pretty. One of the downsides of living on top of a hill and on a private and unmade (North facing) road, is that it gets extremly icy and because the houses cause big shadows, the sun however weak doesn't get to melt the ice or snow. So the road is treacherous. Fortunatly I don't need to go out in it at all if I don't want to, so apart from picking up a beast to roast, we have everything here (Ido love, love, love my huge American fridge).

We were due to visit my MIL in Norwich, but that has now been delayed until next week when hopefully things will not look so white outside.Himself volunteered to salt and sweep all our paths and steps on the promise of croissants and coffee afterwards (he's sooo easy to bribe). I think he was a little worried about our lovely postie going A. over T. on our front steps.I put up all the decorations yesterday - phew, I don't know why on earth I think it'll only take an hour or two, when every year it takes virtually all blimmin' day. Of course, Himself suggesting us 'nipping out' to Dobbies for a 'spot of lunch' was always going to hold up proceedings. And another Father Christmas just jumped into our basket and came home with us. Not this one below, he's been around for a while I suggested a pair of fl ashing Reindeer headbands for each of us to wear to greet our guests on Christmas day, but the from the withering look I got in reply, I guessed the answer was no - he's no fun.

This little Christmas scene serves two purposes - 1) it looks quite pretty and 2) it hides a multitude of sins underneath a linen sheet!I think it looks especially nice when it's all lit up.
Oh dear - this photo is really blurry - the anti wobble setting on my camera seems to have stopped working.

Going to put a note in my diary now to set aside a whole day for decorating next year. Leaving things so late meant I didn't like the look of any of the scrappy looking fresh trees and although Himself suggested getting a new artificial tree (because of course they were all reduced) we couldn't agree on which one we liked best, so came away with no tree! Still, compared to many of the rather sparse looking new artificial trees we saw in both Homebase and B&Q, our (expensive at the time) twenty year old tree from Williams and Griffin department store in Colchester still looks pretty good, so it'll do nicely for another year. I wonder which is the 'greener' option? Keeping a good quality fake tree for two decades plus or buying a new real tree each year, and then having to cart it off to the tree re-cycling depot in January (although you can then also buy sacks of tree* mulch for the garden at the same time). Hmm, I honestly don't know.....

* I wonder if the pine chippings would make our very chalky soil slightly more acidic or at least veering towards 'neutral'.....
I made these Father Christmases a few years ago - they stand up on their own and are weighted with rice

Didn't pick any holly or ivy yesterday, figuring I'd wait until Wednesday or Thursday to keep it fresh in the central heating. Ack, that may have been a bad idea.Wow, LED lights do not photograph well at all on the auto setting......

Himself has come over all hunter gatherer and ventured out, to get his hair cut and get the goose for Friday, then phoned me to find out if there was anything else I wanted while he was out! Tch,was he thinking I'd suddenly come over all domestic goddess and found I need half a dozen things as I was baking while he was out? Pfff, as if! If he's lucky Chic Girl will bake a dozen mince pies for him (now she is a domestic goddess in the kitchen.) I've done some sewing, checked my e-mails and sat reading other peoples blogs with a bag of Kettle Chips - No added salt crisps and a cup of chai - all I need now is to grab a couple of Mr Kiplings - Frosty Fancies and my afternoon will be perfect:-) I feel so sorry for anyone who has to venture out against their will. I'm using up the taking the last of my annual leave, I don't have to go back to work until 6th January, nice.

No tree yet, but I got the skirt.....

2009-12-17T17:08:00.010Z

Tada! I've finished the tree skirt. I love the colours, the quilting, the ric rac and the shape. Shame it's going to be too big, never mind, it'll do.

I embroidered these cream on cream Christmas doves earlier in the year, using some of my vintage Irish linen (washed many times) I've just added some borders and going to have some fun quilting them and make them into small cushions.

Also thinking about making a hottie cover - Coz, boy do my feet get cold. I'd better get a move on eh, it's freezing out there.

Look who I found pottering around the landing windowsill this morning - a two spot ladybirdhe was heading towards this guysilly boy, he'll get very lonely, snowmen are not known for their social skills. Two spot is now with all of his other mates in the wardrobe.

Never did hear back from the ladybird experts - don't know what to do, we are pretty sure there are quite a few large Harlequin ladybirds mixed in with the smaller natives - ack, do we pick 'em out and commit Harlequin genocide?

Julian, Julian, Julian.....

2009-12-16T18:03:00.010Z

said a disappointed Chief thief to one of the other thirty nine thieves on Saturday evening when Himself, Chic Girl, the Whizz Kid and the Whizz Kids Mama and I, all went to the Tobacco Factory Theatre in Bristol. We went to see Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
Now the Tobacco Factory is a very small theatre so I was intrigued as to how they were going to get all these people on the small stage. I needn't have worried. The whole play consisted of three men and two women who were the entire cast. The rest of the 'thieves' were Action Men and Barbie dolls strapped in grenade holders around the three or four actors who played the rest of the robber band. I know it sounds weird but although they had very few props, the few that they had were used so imaginatively it completly worked. It was everything a good show should be. Another most entertaining Christmas show for children and adults alike. During the interval we noticed the bar seating area was decorated with metres of sparkly lace fabric draped across the ceiling with some beautiful middle eastern lanterns hanging here and there, forty individually decorated faces were festooned across the walls, so clearly there had been a childrens workshop at some stage and their splendid efforts were displayed for us all to see.

We have been to see a few productions at this theatre and we've really enjoyed every single one. The Tobacco Factory has an intimate friendly atmosphere, where you don't book any seats as such, you just buy your tickets and then choose where to sit when you get there. It's a nice relaxed way of doing things. The stage is a square in the middle of the room with tiered seats on all four sides, so everyone can hear everything and get a really good view of the action. Sometimes that action can get very close as we found when we sat on the front row for a production of Hamlet last April, Whizz Kid and I had a huge sword thrust inches away from us during a fight scene - very exciting stuff.

If you live anywhere near travelling distance to Bristol, you might like to consider going to one of their shows (they do two Shakespeare productions each year). I'm looking forward to the next show already.

Christmas tree skirt, nearly finished

2009-12-15T12:34:00.008Z

I got the original idea for my tree skirt from the Moda Bakehouse blog but I needed mine to be much bigger - which is why my maths is all over the place (that and the fact that I'm just rubbish at it). As it turns out, now the skirt too big, plus I don't like the way that the stripes have worked out....
I've really enjoyed quilting this though. Started out with doing a squiggle design on the first white stripe, then stopped myself and thought I might as well practice those free hand feathers again - I'm loving the design. So I chopped off the outer stripe and made it part of the outside edge binding. Just the ties and binding the 'neck' to do and then it's finished. Just as well our decorations aren't up yet.

Here there and everywhere....

2009-12-15T11:45:00.005Z

I wonder what the collective noun for a group of Father Christmas' is/are?I've been collecting these boys for a few years - just buying one or two each year.
They do like to nestle themselves in amongst the other bit's 'n' pieces......Yes that is a Father Christmas from Hawaii - Hey if you can't have a bit of tat at Christmas, when can you?

Can you guess what it is yet?

2009-12-08T15:52:00.003Z

It's me making a mess of maths is what it is! Tch and sadly not for the first time either.....

I do wish I wasn't so arithmetically challenged... My Mama says my writing isn't that hot either, but we will gloss over that for the moment.

It should have worked - I wrote it all down, used the calculator an' everything.... But still I need to make more strips..... Doh. I was hoping to get this at least quilted this afternoon.Never mind, it'll have to wait until Thursday now because I'm at work tomorrow.

In the meanwhile you might like to feast your eyes on the goodies on this extraordinary website Chic Girl found..... As she says: "just goes to show: more is....err..... more...."
Mmmm. Indeed it is.

Dear Father Christmas.......

2009-12-05T20:38:00.005Z

Ummm, I have been a fairly good girl this year......
So, you know that this SLR digital camera is on my wish list?
The thing is, I might have changed my mind....

After trying out a similar SLR with the lens extended, taking a few pics and chatting to the lovely G, who is it's current owner. I've realised that it's just too heavy and with all of it's bulk, I will not 'pop' it into my bag and carry it around. So since I don't have some poor lackey to follow me around all day carrying my stuff. I'm thinking this cute little camera will suit me much better. So thank you to the lovely G for pointing me in the right direction and helping me/Himself to save a fortune by not buying the wrong camera. It was also the lovely G that suggested the Panasonic Lumix TZ7 would be a good one to get.
So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Father Christmas reads this blog!

It's all over now

2009-12-02T17:45:00.004Z

This year BQL members have been making perpetual calender quilts. Here are mine:
January: Each month is a new little quilt.
February: Hopefully showing someone who is particpating a new quilting skill or a different way of doing a block.
March: If nothing else it's great looking at all the colour combinations and variations in arrangements.
April:

I have enjoyed designing the blocks.
May: I have enjoyed writing each little tutorial.
June: I have greatly enjoyed looking at the photos that everyone has uploaded.
July: What I have not enjoyed is all the other stuff that goes with it.
August: So next year I am taking a break - I think I have earned it.
September: Maybe later on next year I will be eager to design another challenge.
October: Next year I intend to concentrate on learning how to do more with my camera and Paint Shop Pro.
November: I also want to try and make some more quilts!
December:

It's the First of December

2009-12-01T16:43:00.003Z

So the 'boys' start making an appearance.
First one Father Christmas appears and then they all take their cue and start popping up all over the house. Although they tend to start little clusters after a while - there's safety in numbers.

Shopping in the Underworld

2009-12-01T11:41:00.008Z

A new supermarket has opened in Swindon, and as we had to go to B&Q anyway, Himself thought it might be fun* to do our weekly shop in Lidl after buying our paint.

Now 'fun' is not a word I would use to describe any supermarket shopping, it's like the ironing and getting waxed - it's something that has to be done, so lets just get on with it.

So get on with it we did. We put our bags in one of the trolleys that required a pound coin to free it from the rest of the pack and went inside.

It was eerily quiet..... And fairly empty for a Friday evening.....

Meh, I thought we had entered the underworld - not in an exciting 'Pans Labyrinth' kind of way. Oh nooo, much more of a Mordor or 'Shaun of the Dead', 'zombie' kind of way, but without any of the charisma. Or colour.

Grey, careworn families dragged sullen children around, picking over the unrecognised labels to find bargain tins of vegetables. Washed out young men shuffled around the store, clutching baskets whilst trying to find something of sustenance to brighten their weekends. Himself and I looked at each other, gulped, then hastily aimed our trolley down the first aisle. To be fair the vegetables were pretty fresh and very keenly priced (they are all fine). Himself said he didn't like the look of any of the cold meats or cheeses, so we gave those a miss. They didn't sell free range large eggs. The bread looked pretty uninspiring. We didn't see milk, although it must have been there. I did pick up some Greek yoghurt (it's delicious), butter (it tastes fine) and sweeties (yum, although 'Percy Pigs' still win). We decided we'd had enough and headed for the checkouts, where a checkout girl with soulless eyes informed me they "don't take credit cards", or "give cashback" with debit cards. Hrrrumph. We swiftly packed our two bags of shopping in the boot, claimed the pound coin back from the trolley pack and drove off to Sainsbury's.

We both have decided Lidl will not be part of our shopping experience again. Unless we are desperate. Very, very desperate.

* I know what you are thinking, he needs to get a life right?

I love it when I finish something.

2009-11-26T14:39:00.007Z

I've just finished sewing all the binding on my Paris Squares quilt. I am pleased with the outer border quilting.Here it is before it goes in the washing machine:I like to wash my quilts (on a 60 degree, white wash) as soon as they are finished for a number of reasons, the main one being I like the crinkled 'old' look that the quilt takes on as the wadding shrinks. I use an unwashed (mainly) cotton or alpaca wadding both of which shrink when washed for the first time. Depending on what style quilt or wallhanging, I either wash the wadding first or I use a firm needled polyester wadding. 'Soft and Bright'* is my favourite one for wallhangings, but it's not very good for cuddly quilts as it doesn't really 'drape'.

Washing is also good because it washes away any quilt markings, spray baste and of course all traces of starch.

When the quilt comes out of the machine, I will lay it flat on some towels to dry out and if it looks distorted I will need to block it.

*I buy my waddings from either Doughtys or Asding - both offer good prices, and are fast with their deliveries.

The demon drink......

2009-11-26T11:06:00.009Z

Himself, Chic Girl, The Wizz Kid and I went to an Averys wine tasting at Bristol Grammar school on Saturday evening. Oooh how innocent that sounds! I didn't know what to expect...

Firstly we went through two, thick, oak, double height doors, we were following everyone else up a sweeping staircase, which then opened into a big hall. There we saw huge oak beams with lots of carvings, wooden dark oak panelling and built in seating half way up the walls with lots of heraldic shields above the panelling. It was as if we had stepped straight into a Harry Potter film! (Oh how I wish I had taken my camera.) Before us were tables laden with polished, empty, wine glasses. We were invited to take a glass each, enjoy ourselves and sample the wines. We were then given a small goody bag with pen and notes. I must admit my bag got discarded pretty quickly.

Around the room were at least twenty five long tables, each with a snowy white tablecloth, a jug of water, a plate of water biscuits and anything from six to ten bottles of wine on each from all the different wine regions. An eager member of staff stood behind each table, keen both to pour us a glass and talk about their wines. Readers, we (and quite a few other people) went for it! It was busy and buzzing, but never overcrowded. We also noticed big black bins by each table with sawdust in the base, where people could rinse out their glasses and dotted around the rooms were a few waist high stainless steel 'spittoons', although we observed most people swallowed!

We spotted a cheese counter in one corner offering tastings of some delicious locally made cheeses and promptly bought some both to eat now and some to take home. My own favourites were a creamy goats cheese and a Caerphilly that was a revelation - The stuff from Sainsburys will just not taste the same anymore.

Himself and Chic Girl then paired up and went off with purpose, notes in hand and were clearly 'going to do this properly'. The Whizz Kid and I were, erm, not. I spotted the champagne tables almost immediately, but though I might peak too soon if I started the evening with a glass of Bollinger, so with huge (and almost unheard of) restraint and a small sigh, I turned away and we went over to one of the other tables. We asked for something white and 'fruity' to start. Mmmmm, it was lovely. So just in case it was a flash in the pan, I had another glass. Mmmmm - yes, still lovely. But with so many more to try, we had to move on. Turns out the Whizz Kid and I liked the same wines throughout the evening.

We met up with the other two every now and again and discussed our findings. After a while the Whizz Kid suggested the champagne tables might need our presence, so it would be rude to ignore them wouldn't it? We admitted to each other that we were feeling more than a little squiffy, but a drop or three of champagne would buck us up. It would have done too, had we stopped at one glass, but as we liked the white, we were encouraged to try a rose champagne - mmm that was very nice too, "well in that case try these" and so on, well, it would have been churlish to refuse wouldn't it? Mmmm, also all very nice. The Whizz Kid then spotted a bottle of white liquid with a very intricate and pretty design etched on to the glass and pointed it out to me, where upon I quoted "I've been told one should never buy a wine because it had a pretty label" a beaming chap in a white pinny agreed with me and said "it was a good maxim, but this was a premium vodka, so it didn't count - and would we like to try some?" Now it'll come as no shock to anyone who knows either of us, but we do like to try different things, so we said "yes please". I normally couldn't drink neat Smirnoff, thinking it akin to swallowing petrol (although vodka with a taming, tonic water, is lovely) but this vodka was delicious, goodness knows what it was called, but I could happily drink more. I didn't, because we were then offered a glass of Cognac, the Whizz Kid said "it was very, very smooth and slipped down a treat". I didn't dare touch it, because I knew I was at the point of slipping down a treat myself and figured I might not get invited out again if I collapsed in a heap on the floor. After a reviving glass of water, we moved on.

Himself and Chic Girl had discovered a table with Beaujolais and a very knowledgable and chatty wine pourer who was very gently flirting with Chic Girl, although once she made it known that the Whizz Kid was her beau, the wine pourer all but stopped the flirting, but carried on chatting. Sadly the wine evening eventually came to an end and after placing an order for some of our favourite wine*, we collected our coats and headed off into the rain in search of some food - which we found in the shape of a lovely South Indian (I know, I know. What a cliche, but at least it wasn't a kebab from a van, eh?) restaurant called Krishna's Inn . The food was very different to the usual fayre. Lots of fish and vegetables, much 'lighter' sauces and very sparse with the oil and ghee. I especially loved the dosas we had as a starter, mmmm, feeling peckish just thinking about them:-) It was a really delicious meal and I was surprised at just how hungry I was, although after eating a such good supper, even my 'pudding' tummy was so full up, that I couldn't manage a kulfi or even a cup of chai. We will have to go back there and eat again.

I slept like a baby that night and no hangover on Sunday morning either, so that's a Brucie bonus:-)

* No, no - despite what you are thinking, I promise I wasn't so pickled that I couldn't decide which wine I liked best.

What a busy week!

2009-11-24T18:47:00.012Z

Wooosh. That was last week flying by.

Last Monday, four of us from the UK sewing list got together at AR's house, had a delicious lunch and talked all day. We all felt slightly guilty, because not one of us had done any dressmaking for ages. Oh well, lets discuss other things then.... AR has been card making and how - wow, she has made some really beautiful cards.

During the afternoon, one of AR's neighbours brought her a brace of pheasants and the three of us were like giddy school girls, never having seen pheasants up so close. We are such townies! Who knew pheasant feathers were so beautiful and so varied?Honestly the colours easily rivalled any exotic jungle bird. So naturally, I came over all 'Japanese tourist' and whipped my camera out: AR suggested we plucked the birds for her before she popped them in the freezer. We declined. Although we did take out one or two feathers for study purposes. Actually, it felt very weird pulling feathers from a bird - not something I've ever done before.

Tuesday I spent the entire day moving furniture, rugs etc. away from all the windows, then clearing/cleaning all the window cills and finding temporary homes for all my plants, not easy when our conservatory resembles Kew gardens. Anyway I managed, which is just as well as on Wednesday at 7.45am the double glazing guys arrived - hey, what happened to the 9am start boys? Fortunatly, because my brother phoned me from Hawaii at 6am, (he always phones at stupid o'clock in the morning, good job I love him!) Himself and I were both up and dressed and ready for them, phew. Himself and I went to work for the next three days while the double glazing was being done, it was interesting coming home each evening to more cozyness and lovely new windows and a then a new front door as they worked their way through the house. Apparently they loved Bagel, although/because he was a complete tart, 'talking' to them as they worked and helping them to eat their cheese and onion hula hoops. Tch, so much for Bagel's diet then! The boys finished everything at about 7.30pm on Friday evening. Himself and I are very pleased with the double glazing company. From start to finish they have been great. I'm so glad we decided to go with a local independent company - rather than one of the 'big boys'. Our new front door - white on the inside, 'oak' on the outside.

Update - The ladybirds have settled down nicely in their jar, inside the wardrobe and are sleeping. There are just a few bugs bumbling sleepily around, but on the whole they look to be OK. No word yet from the Ladybird experts.

They are taking over the world......

2009-11-15T18:40:00.012Z

Argghhh. We've been invaded by ladybirds! Hundreds of 'em, all hibernating inside the workings of a venetian blind. We have had to take down all the curtains and blinds as the double glazing people are coming to fit new windows all over the house. When Himself removed the blind he 'spotted' (ha ha) this lot:It was a sunny day, so loads of them started waking up, and crawled away from their nest. They can really get a shift on when they want! We figured that a small artists paint brush and a little cup were the safest things to catch them with. Trouble is they were getting quiet lively and what with us disturbing their sleeping spots and it being warm, more and more were waking up, as fast as we collected them, they crawled out of the cup! Now we had both remarked in the summer about the number of ladybirds we seemed to get in this room, but put it down to the fact that we have the windows open a lot and it is a very sunny room. How naive! Little did we know they were nesting and planning on taking over. The thing is, are they British ladybirds or are they the 'dreaded' Harlequin ones, that like the grey squirrels are busy wiping out our native breed? Neither of us could tell and after much trawling the web, we were still unsure, so we took photos and filled in a form here , we await their verdict. In the meanwhile, Himself valiantly struggled to get them all unharmed into a large jar, it's a bit like herding cats (cats that can fly) and it took him over three hours to get well over two hundred ladybirds into that big jar and not leave any on the loose: we covered the top of the jar with a sheet of kitchen roll and waited until they all settled back down to sleep. The jar is now inside a cool, dark wardrobe until we hear more from the ladybird research group. What fun eh?

EDIT: 11.45pm - Himself has just spotted two wandering across the ceiling,. They can stay there.

Fun with feathers on Paris Squares

2009-11-15T00:56:00.004Z

Ooh that title sounds rather dodgy, Himself raised an eyebrow when he saw the title on the DVD, but knew better than to ask if I had been buying mucky films!

The last bit of quilting is done, I'm loving the puffy effect of the feathers. I've now trimmed all the edges too - but next I've got to do the bit I really dislike doing - the binding. Urrgghhh. Miffed to realise I will not have enough fabric in any of the colours to do the binding, it will have to be in the white cotton.

Good Times -Bad Times

2009-11-10T10:07:00.001Z

My computer appears to have stopped crashing . The Whizz Kid really is a whizz and did all sorts of tech-y things last night, while I was here and he was in Bristol. I have a 'Log Me In' facility - so useful as it means he can do diagnostics from his computer and 'take over' my computer, even though we are miles apart, he used to tease me by fooling around with my mouse, which was weird until I got used to him doing it - it's not so much fun for him now though, coz I don't squeal! We communicate on screen by using 'notepad'. So he tells me my main disc at 465gb (BigBoy*) is fine, hasn't been corrupted and still has plenty of room. My smaller disc (Dave*) however has come to the end of his usefulness, at 12gb he's just not man enough for the job anymore. Such a shame, as he's the only original bit of my computer from the year 2000, when I was told by the cocky salesman at PC World that the disc was HUGE and I'd never fill it. Ha ha ha ha. Wrong, wrong, diddly wrong! Although to be fair to him, I don't suppose he expected just how much computers play a part in our lives now, with so much software, digital photos, videos, i-Tunes etc. all needing disc space. So am going to get a new disc drive. But, what to call it....... Any ideas? I'll send a prize if anyone comes up with a really good name.

*Names carefully chosen by Lanky boy and Whizz Kid - bless 'em.
p.s. So not putting BigBoy as a 'label' as I suspect that could get me into all sorts of trouble...

EDIT: Gah - spoke too soon, it's crashed twice this afternoon already - very irritating when trying to watch a film to help relieve the tedium of the ever present ironing. Hmmm, trying to find the scene that you haven't watched yet is quite elusive......

Banana Muffins

2009-11-09T17:20:00.008Z

Made these
Here's how:
Switch oven on to 200c
Get twelve paper* muffin cases or twelve silicon* muffin cases ready, in a muffin (deep) pan although a bun tin will do at a pinch.
1 x mug, sugar - any.
1/2 x mug, vegetable/sunflower oil.
2 x eggs (I use large, but med will do.)
3 ripe bananas. - although one extra or one less doesn't matter too much.
3 x tablespoons, milk - for dairy intolerant folk: goats milk/slightly watered down sheep(greek) yogurt works too.
1 x teaspoon, baking powder.
2 x mugs, self raising flour - sorry haven't yet tried out a gluten free version.
Nutmeg or ginger or cinnamon - optional.

With electric mix beat sugar and oil.

Add the eggs, beat them in thoroughly.

Add roughly broken up banana, allow mixer to break up banana until completely mashed in.

In a separate bowl /cup dissolve the baking powder in the milk, it will go very frothy.

Still using electric mixer, slowly add milk mixture to banana mixture. Sift the flour into the mixture and grate some nutmeg over the top.

With a large spoon, gently fold in the flour - do not be tempted to over mix or you will have concrete muffins, you want to stir just enough to get all the flour mixed in and no more.

Using a spoon and a small bowl scraper or even a knife, spoon the mixture into the muffin cases, you should get twelve good sized muffins from this recipe. (if you want to be posh you can sprinkle demerera sugar on top.)

Bake in the oven for twenty five minutes.Eat as soon as they have started to cool.

If they haven't all been scoffed on the first day, they do microwave nicely - twelve seconds on high - any more than fifteen seconds and you will burn your mouth. Any more than twenty and they turn into missiles!

* I bought some beautiful pastel coloured muffin cases - Tch, complete waste of time, on the right, you can see the supposedly yellow paper one, on the left the silicon case. I'll stick to silicon in the future and just use the pastel paper ones for 'decoration purposes' only.