A Little Progress,,,

I have stitched 4 of my 31 stitchery blocks for my quilt. With the weather being hot here for a change, I have not felt like doing much,, apart from perspiring!!!

I am using a DMC variegated thread, #4205. 1 strand for details and 2 for the main flower parts. The recipe says to make French knots at the flower heads,, but I am using Colonial knots instead, I prefer them!

I like some of the designs more than others, so I may duplicate the ones I like and leave others out.

This is the pen I am using,, it is a 'normal' erasable pen that you use to write with, but someone (????) has found out that if you mark on fabric with it,, then put a hot iron to the piece,, the marks disappear. They do not come back after washing, either!!! But if you did need the marks to reappear,, just put it in the freezer!! I have not yet tried this but I have it on good authority that it works! One of the members at my quilt group said that wouldn't the marks come back in the cold weather we have,,,,,,, I doubt it gets cold enough in my part of England for that!!(but you never know).

I went to meet my DH from work the other day,, and saw this wild plant growing in the surrounding wild growth,, any one know what it is???

It seemed to be able to collect the rain easy enough,, and there were quite a few of these plants around,, looked a bit like 'Triffids'!!!
                                                         XxX

Stripping!!

I am in a strip swap on the Popular Patchwork forum,,, and we are swapping 14 red strips of fabric. I received my strips yesterday.

The colour is a bit 'off'. It is quite hard to photograph reds! I also went to my local fabric shop on Friday and bought another 7 reds,,, all washed and pressed ready to be cut into 2.5 inch strips. I have a project in mind and will be starting it this afternoon.

There are thirtyone stitchery blocks, and threehundred and seventytwo  2.5 inch squares to cut from my strips!!! I think I have enough fabric!! And although I went shopping before I got my strips,, I have no doubles!!!!
The weather last weekend was non-stop rain,, as it was in other places! I decided to go for a little walk into the village,,,,the sun decided to come out!!

The top photo is a field,,,and the water could just get under the bridge. The day after it had gone back down to high,, not overflowing!!
I am off to get some of my stitcheries started,, looking forward to making this!
                                                                      XxX

A trip away!

I have not long been back from a trip to visit my In-Laws in Germany, with my DH. We drove,,, rather DH drove,,, all the way,,,apart from when we were on the ferry of course!! They live in the north west region near to the Teutoburger Wald, a forest/woods. And it is beautiful!!

These woods are basically on my In-Laws doorstep!!  They have a little woodland retreat,, actually in the woods,,,,

It is sooo quiet here,,, you can hear the noises of the woods,,, lovely!!!
On our return, I thought I'd better do some creating. At my quilt group, one of our members brought along a little 'Workshop bag' that she had made,,, and the rest of us wanted to make one too! Our group is only small, 12 members,, and we have christened the bag the 'Maybees' bag,, after the group!

What do you think??? The fabric is the "Quilts 1700 -2010 Liberty Art Fabrics for the V & A",, Stick Flower and Shells!
DH and I were out shopping yesterday, and he bought me this book,,,

I will  be making a quilt out of this book,,,, for those of you who have this book,, page 78,, but in reds and cream, not purple as in the sample!
                                                              XxX

A little creating,,

and not much more. It is my Boss lady's birthday on Friday,, and as the rose is the flower of the month, I thought I would stitch a little something for her.

That is all the creating I have done just lately. Haven't had the urge to do anything, really! Work is getting me down,, and no luck in winning the Lottery (big time) yet! And yes, I do buy tickets,, you have got to be in it to win it!
Remember this bag of Thread dross,,,

it has become,,,,,,

It is a bag of allsorts! There is also a bundle of white thread,, cut into lengths of about 30 inches..  it is all very useable.
And to end with, a close up of my beads and buttons from Malvern!

Love the fishy beads!!!                                          
                                                                            XxX

A New Post!

I will start this post by saying thank you to Ferret for allowing me to put up a couple of pictures of one of her wall hangings that I saw at Malvern.

I think this Dragon is Brilliant!!!!

Anyway,,, as the weather here has been too nice to stay in and create,,, DH and I went to the seaside area of Beer in Devon yesterday.

It was really nice to relax on the beach with a cuppa and a slice of cake when we first arrived. We had a little walk around then decided to walk the coastal path to Branscombe,,, just 2 miles away!!

Of course,, when you walk to somewhere you have to walk back,,,

and, we had to walk back past these big animals!! (avoiding the cow pats along the way). I thought the coastal path walk not too bad when we walked to Branscombe, but oh boy,, the walk back was worse. DH and I followed a little path to the beach on the way to Branscombe, so we didn't realise how much of a decline it was,, so going back up was hell! We could/should have followed the Hookum Hill path and gone over the cliff top!! My legs were aching when we got back to Beer . 
We went in to The Dolphin Hotel for a carvery lunch,,we deserved it. Highly recommended and very reasonable!!!
Off to finish sorting out my thread dross... I am getting through it.

                                                              XxX
PS,, must have hit something on the keyboard for all the writing to be in bold! Ooops!!

Retail Therapy!

I went to the Malvern show last weekend,, on the Sunday,, and it was really busy. Normally Sundays are pretty quiet, but this one wasn't!!
The quilts on show were brilliant especially one by Ferret,,'Dragon 1',, which won a prize! And I really liked a miniature quilt, a handstitched whole quilt, with a little trapunto. Fantastic. Sorry,, no photos!
Before I go on with other stuff, my claim to fame is having my Crazy blocks on Valeri's blog at FarneDesigns, the place I bought the kit from at the Westpoint show. I had to buy another one on Sunday,,

I am still not sure what I am going to do with the blocks,, I just love making them!!!!
Other things that I bought include

fabrics for a quillow for my GS,

beads, thread (bargain) and tea stained calico,

and some 'thread dross',, a selection of threads from Oliver Twists that need unravelling!!!

Unravelling this lot will be fun,,, but worth it!!!
                                          XxX

Success!!

My delightful Grandson has been and gone for his weekend visit with Nanny Caz!! And it went better than what I thought,, apart from when he was really tired!!! Daddy left him on Friday, and came back on Monday, and in between we (GS and Grandad and me) had fun!
On Saturday we went to Puxton Park just off the M5,, and boy,, did I have fun. There was a really long, bumpy slide and as GS is only 2, I had to go on it with him!! Weeeeeeeee!!!! No picture though,, because Grandad wasn't quick enough with the camera.

He loved all the tractors,,, took a bit of coaxing to get him off them!!

It was a beautiful weekend,, glorious sunshine most of the time,, and warm!!

On Sunday, we went to Brean Sands. A nice big, sandy beach,, with plenty of room to run around!! Not many people on the beach, so it was okay to let GS loose!!!

Within two minutes of this photo,, GS took his t-shirt off!!!
As you can see,,no creating! I have to tidy my sewing room a bit ( a lot actually) and I am going to the Malvern show on Sunday.
                                                              XxX