Grandmothers Flower Garden

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

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

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

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:-)