Snow!

Well here it is - the first snow of the winter.......it had been -5c over night,  cold enough for me to put another quilt on the bed and have a hotwater bottle to cuddle. It was very frosty and we had to scrape the windows on the car before we could go and collect our grandaughter to take her to school.  It only started snowing half way through the morning and we didn't think it would settle - but it looks as though it may - the temperature at the moment is -1c (30f) so unless it gets warmer this afternoon we will have this stuff over night!  I  just feel sorry for a friend of mine who is moving house to day!  but I suppose it is no worse than our move in the pouring rain a few years ago.

Strange week!

What a strange week this is turning out to be!  We are having to do a school run twice a day all week this week! we haven't done that for years!  Charlotte's Mummy isn't very well so Charlotte is staying with her Daddy, who stays most of the time with his girl friend and her children (their Daddy died in a motor bike accident a few years ago).  As Stuart goes to work early to avoid the M25 traffic hold ups and Leslie needs to leave by 8:30 and her children all go to a local school, and walk there, we are picking Charlotte up at 8:20 to take her to school the other side of town. 
It seems funny to have to think about collecting her at 3pm and then having her here till Stuart picks her up again around 5:30pm.  We have told him that we will not be able to pick her up from school on Thursday as we want to go and see Joshua and Emily in there schools Nativity play.   I'm looking forward to that........
Today she asked me to wash her hair for her, she was going to the youth group attached to a local church this evening and her hair was 'greasy' she said......she has very long, very thick hair (down to her hips) and it takes ages to deal with it. I think she has trouble doing it her-self, and she likes the way I can blow dry all the waves out of it!

I think that Brian and I are going to be exhausted by the end of the week! and we don't yet know how long we are going to do this school run.........it may be till the end of term, depending on how quickly Charlotte's Mummy gets well again.

Rain!

I am fed up with the rain.......we have had so much lately and now it looks as though it's going to cost us a lot of money!  The garage roof is leaking !!  Himself has already started on the clean- up........he had our old kitchen units out there as a work bench and storage - they are in soggy bits down the dump now! and the tools and pots of paint that were stored in them have been dried off and are sitting at the other end of the garage! 
This roof has already had a 'patching' job done on it a couple of times since we moved here but it looks as though this time it will need something more drastic! and expensive!!
He is going to have a proper look later on today - now it has stopped raining for a while.........but it is soooo cold out there at the moment ,  just 2c with ground frost..............not good conditions to be climing a metal ladder - he could stick to it!
Oh well if it has to have a new roof it does but that will mean less money for our holiday to Canada next year.  We are going to Vancouver for a family members wedding and are going to ride the Rocky mountaineer train to Calgary and then fly to Montreal to see the rest of the family. 
We will be away all of August and some of September too.    Everything is booked except where we are staying in Montreal - we are hoping that the family will take care of us there........a sister and five neices should be able to have us a few days at a time don't you think?  if not we will go into the Comfort Inn nearby, the family all live fairly close together on the west side of Montreal and not far from the hotel is a fabric shop - the one that is the reason why I do P&Q.  La Maison d' Calico in Point Clare. (this site is in Canadian French but there is a button to change it to English on the site bar)

Arfur

As promised to Purple Podded Peas a picture of my red tabby..........waiting for his supper..........he has been gone a few years now but I still miss him.

He always took advantage of any body in a reclining position!

November !!!

Where has the last month gone - what with Halloween and  bonfire night and baby sitting and illnesses (not mine) and one thing and another I just have not got round to blogging!

I have been sewing - I found a panel of Christmas placemats - easy sewing - so I am getting on with them.  Also I have taken up the challenge from Thamesiders and have been busy hand sewing that.  I also decided to try out Pam and Nicky Lintotts book on Jellyrolls and make one of the quilts from there with the fabric given as a freebee when re-subscribing to one of the magazines.

I have now finished this top and it is waiting for me to put the wadding and the backing on and do the quilting.  This fabric is very 'manish'  not just because of the dark colours but also because it has golf as it's theme.  Golf balls and tee's and people playing golf and all the Argyle patterens that the men wear on their socks and sweaters.

At a day spent with some friends one weekend I made these dear little balls in Christmas fabric and they will be hung on my Christmas tree eventually!

Laundering a big quilt!

As I had marked up the patterns I wanted to stitch with white washable and blue washable pens, I knew I would have to wash the whole quilt - there was just soooo much drawing on it!

 Well, firstly 'would it go in my machine?' or 'would I have to take it to the launderette?'  best to try it and see.......it fitted my machine so there it stayed with three colour catchers just in case - ('cos I am one of those who never washes fabric first - I think it makes it harder to cut accurately and sew evenly if you have washed the stuffing out of it - and who wants to spend loads of time spraying starch while ironing it any way? - I want to start my quilt 'NOW') The catchers were hardly marked - but better safe than sorry.

I washed it on the lowest heat setting on my machine 30c - the woolies wash! and hung it in the garden to dry.  It hadn't dried by bedtime so I brought it in and humg it over the clothes airer..........big mistake!  OK - it was dry in the morning but when we spread it out on the bed it had five bumps in the middle!! I have an airer that has 'shelves' on it and the supports for the shelves have 'shoulders' .......if I hadn't been so tired I would have realised that it would cause problems! So I had to dampen it down again and rehang it in the garden........all day again!  It was still damp when I brought it in again, but this time I folded it carefully and hung it over the back of the conservatory sofa beside the large radiator and left it till the morning!   Perfect job! when laid out on the bed it was bump free.

I e-mailed my daughter to tell her it was finished and she came over expecting to take it home with her - I told her I wanted to hang on to it for another couple of weeks - she can have it at the begining of November! WHY? she asked?  I wish to take it for 'Show and Tell' at http://www.thamesidequilters.co.uk/ on Monday evening and I also want to take to a quilting day with my friends over in Yateley at the end of this month.

I have been 'lost' since I have finished this biggie.......I need to start something else - something I can hand sew on the days I go to meetings and something I can machine sew for when I am at home.   I have a lot of projects waiting to start but don't know which one's I want to do now.......I keep going into my workroom and standing and looking and coming out none the wiser!  Perhaps to dya I will be able to make up my mind.

Finished at last

Here are pictures of the finished quilt - it is 100" square - that is smaller than the original top was made at.....someone didn't want it that long after all - after I had made it and marked the quilting patterns! so I took a whole pattern block off the bottom, after detaching the borders ..........I was not a happy bunny!  It has affected how I felt about the quilt and I am sure I have not made as good a job of it  as I would have done.

Now the younger daughter has asked me for a new quilt for her bed (another kingsize) I don't know if I want to do another one yet.  She already has a blue and white one I made for her many years ago but now she is changing her colour scheme and wants a pink and white one!  Perhaps I will htink about it in the New Year .

Catching up

Gosh what a long time since I last posted! I haven't been away again - just busy at home.

I have been working on the kingsize Double Irish Chain quilt (Quilt in a day Eleanor? I don't think so! it took two days just to mark up the quilting designs!), and it is nearly finished......the rest of the binding is being sewn down today - then I shall take pictures.......

I have also had two lovely days at lacedays with my friends, so my table cloth edging is growing , slowly - unfortunately there are no more until the begining of Feb 2010, so unless I make a commitment to myself to make lace at least once a week, nothing else will be done till then!

My middle granddaughter came over one week end and spent the time going through my stash of fabric and chosing colours for the ninepatch quilt top she is making - it was going to be just red and dark blue - but- other colours are creaping in as she discovered fat quarters of gorgeous yellows and greens and purples......."oooh can I have some of that Granny?"  A lovely weekend of sewing with her left me exhausted - not just through raking through boxes and cutting 3" squares for her, (I have yet to allow her to use the rotary cutter!)  but because she never stops talking! She's worse than me!!

Thamesider Quilt group ( http://www.Thamesidequilters.co.uk/index.html ) have thrown us a challenge - we provide a block - any size , any style - for the center of a quilt and then pick an envelope from the box which will tell us what first border to put on.  We will have two months to make that border then we will pick another envelope.....till our borders measure 20".  Sounds like fun so I am going to join in......will I regret it - we will see..........
  

Stash!

OK - so QuiltSue has given us a challenge to show our stash as others have done.  I have several boxes and a couple of shelves in wall cupboards full of fabric! quite neatly I think.  I do know where everything is if I need something in a hurry.  I am not opening those cupboards - although they are tidy they are full and stuff may well fall out if I open them!

DH made the shelves the boxes sit on and hung the cupboards that house so many lovely goodies.  You can also see some of my collection of quilting and other craft books.  In the blue icecream tubs my threads are stored according to colour or type - i.e. white or cream, light coloured, dark coloured sewing threads, then the quilting threads then the fancy ones and embroidery rayon .  In the plastic boxes the fabrics are stored by colour - nothing bigger than half a meter! the large peices of fabrics are in the cupboards.  Then the baskets contain UFO's (well some of them)

Lace days and gardening

On Saturday I spent the day with my lace making friends - I am still working on the table cloth edging that I started over 3 years ago! I am nearly at the third corner - so it should only be another year or so before I finish :-))

Yesterday I spent in the garden cutting back over grown bushes and the dead heads from the Hollyhocks and red hot pokers.  I have potted up some of my white/blush pink geraniums but still have more to do - these will over winter in my spare bedroom.

I thought I would do some more sewing on the double Irish chain quilt but everything has gone wrong - I got threads caught up and the stitching went funny - so I unpicked! then the bobbin ran out and I hadn't any wound, so had stop to wind bobbins, then I didn't get the bobbin case back in properly and the machine jammed! I don't know whether to try again this afternoon or leave it till tomorrow and start afreash then. I have a lot still to do on this large quilt but I  hopr that it will be finished by the end of October.  Keep your fingers crossed for me that everything goes right tomorrow.

This and that

Since the last posting I have been away on holiday to Cornwall - we went to Bude - why haven't we found this place before? - when the children were small?.  The beach is marvellous - sandy, with a surrounding of rocks, the children would have loved fishing in the rock pools, making sandcastles and playing in the sea there.  Lots of other things to do in the town  too, some lovely individual shops lots of cafes (well you would expect that) a museum, a library and a couple of supermarkets. There is also a canal (the only canal with a sea lock - now unused) but the tow path is lovely for  walks.

This is the place we stayed in.  A place called Burn Park, and a Seasons timeshare property.  I ment to take photos of inside but never got around to it...we will certainly go there again - they staff were so friendly and the place so smart and comfortable.  The little houses were set around courtyards and arranged so that no one was overlooked.  There were several of these little courtyard complexes and they were all were a bit different.  We found lots of lovely things to do in the area but I think that one will remain in my memory for a long time.  We were making our way to Hartland Abbey to see the gardens and house there, we like to take the most awkward routes - the ones through all the back lanes, with only the room for one car at a time, when I spotted a garden sign, one of those red rose signs that indicates something of interest in the area.  We were a long way from our orignial destination but thought we would have a look at this before going on.  What a gem we found - it was an old mill, with all the right sort of water channels and river and acres and acres of densly planted gardens.....wild wood land, orchard, veggie garden, propogating area and the best borders I have seen for a long while, and then little secret places with a bench by some water so you could rest and admire the flowers and views. - |Marvelous!  Unfortunatly the mill itself is not working and looks as though a lot of money needs spending on it but you could see it all from outside and inside.  Oh - yes! and there was a an area outside the house, attached to the mill, to sit under a pergola with clemetis, passion flowers and other sweetly scented flowers climbing over it, and have something to eat and drink - we had our one and only cream tea of the holiday there - homemade scones clotted cream and home made strawberry jam.  Yummy!                                                                                                      

We were up early enough to catch the sunrise on Tuesday morning - what a sight! I just had to share it with you!

Since we come home we have been very busy tryng to get the garden tidy and things done before this lovely spell of weather breaks and we are in to autumn proper. Brian has repaired the grouting between the paving on the patio, I have cleaned the greenhouse out and disposed of the detrius that collects  in there. Washed flower pots and stacked away those I wasn't going to use this year now.  I potted up into bigger pots the seedling echinacea that will be over wintered in pots and planted out in the spring once the bulbs have flowered and gone over.  These were the seeds that came free from the SAGA magazine this spring, the other seeds have given me a wonderful display of Cosmos and Asters all summer.  hopefully we will have some seeds for next year from these plants.   This was what they looked like in July, but they have grown twice as tall and the flowers have kept coming and coming.

a bit of catching up

I have at last finished the quilt I have been making for the last ......years! It is a pattern from Paula Doyle and started in a workshop with her to try Dawn Cameron Dick's method of Invisible machine applique.  I was not very successful with it and finished the applique in my own fashion.

These are the tomatoes we have picked so far this week! lots were eaten by the hungry hoards at the weekend family  barbeque at my youngest daughter Sarah's house on Bank holiday Monday.  Those in the right hand bowl are those picked this morning.  We have had such a glut that I have frozen loads for to use for making soup during the winter. 

Bottom draw of the freezer is nearly full of tomatoes!

These are the things that I either bought or had given to me during my visit to the FoQ last month. I bought 4 yards of cream on cream for the back ground fabric for some material given me by a friend - she told me to make something with this! Not sure what to do yet but I have 'Jacobs Ladder' in my mind, but some of the fabrics are so strong in design that I am not sure yet!

 I found a great pattern by Lesley Brankin to use Japanese patchwork to make a Kimono quilt.  I needed some more of those clever pens by Clover that give you a white line on dark fabric and I needed to know how to care for an old quilt for a swimming friend of DH.  Then I was sent, via a friend, some patterns from Amy Butler, with a lovely message from her.  I attended her lecture last year at FoQ and recommended her to a friend, who did a workshop with her this year!   Then I re-newed two magazine subscriptions and recieved jelly rolls as a thankyou gift, I reckon that my subscription to those magazines was more than halved by the jelly rolls, and some threads from aurofill.

While we were staying in our caravan in Coleshill.  DH and I thought we would go and look at Coventry Cathederal again.  We had last seen it when it had just been opened to the public and was very new!  We were disappointed that the 'New Cathederal' was looking very shabby!  the stones were and windows and metal work were very dingy!  Some of the displays we had seen years ago of holograms were not to be seen anywhere! The beautiful Graham Sutherland tapestry is fading due to the sunlight coming through some of the windows.  All in all a very big disappointment.  On the other hand the Old Cathederal was very moving......there were lots of plaques of commemoration and there are services held in the sancutary every month.  

We had a great day on Bank Holiday Monday - daughter Sarah did a barbeque for the whole of the family and these three monkeys had a great time - here they are at the top of the climbing frame eating home made ice pops!

I have brought my sewing machine down to the dining room table - and with the ironing table as well, to help support it, I am attemtpting to quilt Jackies quilt!  The chairs are there to help stop the quilt from falling to far off the table!!

   

As you can see from this picture, I have done cross hatching down the 'chains' but there are now a lot of ends to sew in!  I tried  one of the designs I have drawn in the plain patches but I think I will take them out again - not sure if I like the thread I used on them. I think that the sewing machine might be on the table for some weeks - given my progress this week!

I have not been feeling well - had a dreadful cough, nothing else! and have been feeling very tired because of it!  We go away for a weeks holiday to Bude in Cornwall in a week or so amd I am not taking this quilt with me! I thought I would be far enough along with the quilting to be able to put the binding on, but I don't now  think I will be! 

quick update

Margaret is over her Op for Kidney cancer - they didn't do the 'key hole 'surgery they had thought they would do as they kidney was worse than they thought! So the poor girl has a scar all round her side and back. things didn't go as planned either - she got a chest infection nad had fluid on the lung so was put back into intensive care after being on the ward for a couple of days.
She therefor spent more time in hospital than expected. She has been home now about 5 days and is doing well - she is very upbeat about things and is coping well while her sister is with her.

Jim's funeral is planned for Friday and after that she will be on her own.......we will see how she copes - but her friends are all around and she only has to call and one of us will be with her....

I came home from Birmingham Ok but have since gone down with a cough - nothing else just a debilitating cough! and therefore am very tired (think I must be allergic to Bracknell or perhaps all the Birch trees round here!). Don't feel like doing anything much but I did manage to sandwich Jackies quilt yesterday - took me all day doing it in short bursts.........good job I bought another 100 pins as I have used them and the 200 I already have!

I bought one or two things at the show but have not taken photos - yet....perhaps I will tomorrow........then you can see whats new in my cupboard.

Sad News

Jim, my friend Margaret's husband has lost his battle with Lukemia - he was only ill for a short time and died yesterday afternoon. Margaret had her son and her sister with her at the hospital. They are such a small family, just the one son, one sister and no grandchildren. Margaret has decided that she will go ahead with the planned operation to remove her cancerous kidney tomorrow, while her son makes all the funeral arrangements. She should be in hospital about four days and should be Ok in about a week. I just feel so sad.........we have known them about 50 years and they were such a close couple, she is going to feel very lost for some time to come..........

gifts - or flower sitting!

A little while ago a friend of my eldest daughter asked me to 'baby sit' some orchids for her.

She has a house in France that she only lives in part of the year, other wise she lives with her sister or my Jackie or her boy friend.

She works for a florist (when she is not being an animal aunt and living with them) in Windsor. She 'rescued' 5 orchids from being put in the skip after they had been collected from a display in a 'prestigeous' place. There were no flowers on these plants and the florist didn't want them any more. So into the bin they were going! Sue asked me if I would mind looking after them for her - I had 3 while her sister had 2 - when she came with Jackie the other day to see the quilt top I am making, I showed her the orchids - she couldn't believe how beautiful they were and how many blooms.... she said she may bring me more as they are always throwing them out when they have finished flowering and that she doesn't want the plants back because she is sure she would kill them.

Catching up

We have now collected the caravan from the New Forest and brought the family home! they had a dreadfully wet week and the new site they chose to go on was so waterlogged they had a job not to walk the wet and mud into the van - oh my was it dirty! I think that they still managed to have a good time - crabbing on Mudiford quay, feeding the swans down at Christchurch and generally 'going to the seaside'. Stuart, Leslie and Charlotte would do it all again but the other two teenagers were not so keen!

When we got home with the van the first thing was to remove all the wet dirty rugs - they were so bad that we laid them on the patio and hosed them down with the jet washer! The same went for the awning groundsheet! and I set too on Saturday and cleaned the inside of the van so that we have a clean van to take away next week. 007 cleaned the outside of the van to get rid of all the animals (flies mostly) that we picked up on the way home



These are the first of the tomatoes to ripen - they are not the biggest in the greenhouse! they are from the Alicante plant - the flower pot is there to try and support another stem of the plant (someone was supposed to pinching out the side shoots......but this one was over looked and now is full of fruit!) I think a lot of the toms will ripen while we are away in Birmingham - so who ever comes in to water them will be allowed to take some as a thank you. It may well be Aimee as she is borrowing my car while we are away but it may be Jackie bringing her little charges in to play in the garden if the weather is nice.

Here are the pictures of Joshua and Emily's swimming lesson I said I would show you. As you can tell by the way Joshua is standing the day was not warm and neither was the water!

Emily really enjoys the water and was not behaving her self - she kept ducking herself under the water as though she was diving, so she couldn't hear what the instructor was saying to her half the time! The children were being taught how to float with our sinking as well as how to use their arms and legs in the water. Both of them are going to make good swimmers eventually.

The guy who was teaching Emily's little group finally made them all line up behind each other and they had those rolly things round their tummies and the one behind had to hold on to the one in front - he then took hold of the hands of the leader and pulled them round the pool like a train......great fun!

On Thursday I took my friend Margaret to Wexham Park hosp in Slough for her pre-op tests......... everything went OK and we were only there an hour. Her husband Jim, in the meantime, had to go to the Royal Berks in Reading for some more tests and to discuss what they wanted to do for his Lukemia. Over the weekend I heard that Jim is back in hospital - he took ill over the weekend and an ambulance was called....I am waiting to hear from Margaret - I have volunteered to drive her to the hosp anytime she wants.

Oh NO!

This morning about 9am I phoned Stuart to see if they had been OK over night........well I wasn't expecting the answer! As they were waking up one of the wardens came and asked them to move the van as we had put into a 'tents' only area! Stuart does not have a tow bracket on his firms car so we have been back to the New Forest today and moved it for them! when we arrived they had already taken the awning down and everthing was ready to move - but they were no where to be seen! they hadn't expected us so soon and had gone for a bike ride!

Everything done, and we were home again by 4:30pm but now I am absolutly shattered! I shall be in bed before 9pm I think!

Busy Weekend

Gosh what a busy weekend!! it really started on Friday when we were asked by younger daughter Sarah to take her two children to their swimming lesson - she had booked them into a lesson a day for a week and this was the last one. They went to the local school that has a prefabricated open air pool on their premises. The children had great fun, lots of little ones were haveing lessons - two teachers taking different abilities - and our two were in the pool at the same time, one with one teacher and one with the other. (I have photos and will do them later).
We took them home to our house and gave them lunch and while we did so our eldest son Kevin came in for lunch too.....we had barely finished when eldest daughter Jackie came in with her friend Sue, to see the quilt top I had made. Then of course eventually MummySarah came in from work to pick up the children.....she had a headache so after some asprin she went and had a laydown in the guest room. They all went eventually around 4pm..........we were shattered.....but I had to go and get ready to go out with ex work collegues - we were celebrating one of the girls 70th birthday.

Saturday for me was a lot calmer - I had a day of lace making with friends - lots of chat and laughter - but poor ole 007 had to pack the car and caravan to take away on Sunday.....5 chairs and a table, tent, camp beds, duvets, pillows, 5 bikes, 5 bags of clothes etc etc........

Thank goodness Sunday was a lovely bright sunny day - a good start to a holiday for three teenagers and their Mummy and my youngest son Stuart.......we took the caravan to the New Forest for them and between us we parked it and put up the awning in record time.....erected a small tent inside the awning for the two girls (Ashley and our Charlotte) to sleep in and I watched while they made up the camp beds - what a performance! the legs are sprung and they kept coming out of the holes they fitted into...but their 'little room' was ready - finally! - the lad (Tom)was sleeping inside (behind the curtain!) and was very possesive of 'his bed'. We left them about 5pm and trundled home - we decided to eat somewhere on the way home and came off the motor way and went through Chandlers Ford to find a pub.......finally found one we liked the look of when we got to Otterbourne. Then we stayed on the A roads the rest of the way home going through Winchester and Basingstoke. We saw quite a display of the 'Balloons over Basingstoke' festival as we drove through - lots of beautiful balloons still flying in a clear evening sky........lovley end to our day.

The top is finished

Jackie and I spent a great time together on Saturday - we went to Wallingford to go to Village Fabrics to choose something for the back of her quilt (this picture is a bit pink! must be the lights in my workroom today) this is a Northcott Textures fabric, it looks like cracked paint on woodwork.
The stencil is one I am thinking of using for the two purple borders, I am not sure yet what I will do with the lilac border round the chain - it is 2" wide so needs something on it - perhaps my lovely feathers here? Jackie wont like it though..... :-(

I have started to mark up the top. Just simple quilting will be all it gets.....I am going to fight this quilt under my sewing machine with out having complicated designs to do as well! So I am doing cross hatching on the diagonal crossings and a daisy design (from a stencil) in the large patches, the borders will have that simple chain. I have would liked to do feathers but Jackie turned her nose up at that.

As you can see I have had to lift the dining room table up a bit so that my back doesn't ache too much while doing the marking. I know I am only five foot tall but I was still bending over too much. I did all the center yesterday and have just the borders to do today......need to clear the table for the evening - I have three ladies who join me on a Monday night to sew and we find it easier to sit round the table.

I shall have all afternoon to play as 007 is out playing snooker with a mate, I can have the TV on and watch the quilting programs I have recorded from Rural TV - haven't you found it? it is on Sky (don't know if it is on cable) and is on Sunday mornings at 10am. Eleanor Burns giving hints on making different blocks from a wartime quilt.

I must go and start the day......breakfast first I think then ablutions and dressing! yes I'm in my Jammies! (not a pretty sight!)

Sad news

I have just had a phone call from a friend (one of the ladies I quilt with on a Wednesday afternoon) to say that the husband of one of our friends has been taken in to hospital with suspected Lukemia! his wife has just been diagnosed with a cancer on her kidney and is waiting to be called for an operation..........they are such a lovely couple and we have known them for nearly 50 years ......I have been in floods of tears.......this is the problem with getting old!

Quilt progress

Two of the Seminole strips for the ends of this quilt have been done, the side strips are in the process of being pinned prior to sewing.

Not long now and I will be marking up for the quilting......I have an idea what I want to do but it does depend on whether Jackie likes it - this is her quilt and she has to live with it and so far she has made all the desicions about it !....I have the cotton batting dip drying in the bath (I like to wash it before use) but before we make up the sandwich I have to buy some fabric for the backing as we didn't do that when we bought the main fabric for the top. 007 will have to find the fixings for making up the' big table' top for me - I will need it to sandwich this one! I have been managing to do the single bed quilts I have made lately, on just half the 'big table'.

(The 'big table' is the one he made to seat the whole family around for special dinner parties - it is made of two sheets of MDF with the corners rounded off and held together by brackets he made. It is supported by the diningroom table at one end and the garden table at the other. We can seat 20 round it if we need to!)

I think I am going to have to move the sewing machine down to the diningroom table to do the quilting - I just do not have the room around my machine in its present position. I will need all the support I can get too - so the ironing board will also have to go down stairs and brought into use as a table.

This may cause a few disruptions for a few days (or more) (grin!)

where do the years go?

We have just had another birthday in the family - this little lad was four on Sunday. This is James our first great grandson. Just where do all the years go?

Aimee (his Mummy) asked her Aunty Sarah if the party could be held in Sarah's garden, as she wanted to ask quite a few children and they wouldn't all fit into her little flat. The children had a whale of a time, as in this garden there is a trampoline , a climbing frame with swings, slide, climbing wall, commando net, and at the top of a ladder there is a little hut! plus Sarah put out the sand tray and loads of other toys for them to play on, in and with!

The afternoon stayed fine, warm and dry so hte party table was laid out doors and the children were able to sit on the grass on mats to eat their tea, which also ment no one had any clearing up to do - the plates were paper the cups plastic and food dropped would be cleared by the birds/ squirrels when the children had gone home.
I love the way Joshua (behind James) is also trying to blow out the candles.
This little one is Louey our second great grand child and he stayed most of the afternoon in the bubble car......he had his tea in there too! Funny how two year olds don't mix and play with the older children but play by them selves.

Emily tring hard to get Granddad to play with her - she won of course! 'playing' ment picking her up by her hands and lifting her off the ground - she then lifted her feet up and put them in her hands - My how he ached next day - she is not the light dainty thing she looks, she is quite solid! (I did get a picture of Granddad lifting her like this but thought better of putting the picture her in public as it shows too much underwear and bare body!)

James was very tired and overawed by all the attention he was getting and Aimee says that he went home and was in bed and asleep by 6pm - most unusual.

I shouldn't make plans.......

I thought I would be able to get on with the Irish chain quilt this week, but after a good start I have come to a standstill! I have all the pieces cut to make the seminole borders and was going to do them on Thursday - but I was not feeling 100%, very tired and very giddy, so I did nothing all day - I slept a lot though and yesterday I felt a lot better.

Brian though that a day away from home might help so we went to Pangbourne to the National Trust property there.......Baslidon Park. It is a place we go to a lot as it's only half an hour away down the M4 motorway. We had our lunch then went had had a look at the exhibition about the house being used for the last film of Pride and Predudice, what a lot of things they had to do to make this house look like Netherfield! and what a lot of precious NT stuff they had to move out incase the film crews damaged it......The day stayed dry and sunny and we had a walk round the gardens after looking through the house. I must say that I felt better for having a day out and feel more like my old self again today.

July already?

I have got on quite well with the Quilt for Jackie, and am very pleased with it so far. The colours don't show up very well here - the center patches are very lilac fossil fern fabric.

I have the border fabrics cut waiting for me to sew - there will be three more borders - two plain and one seminole. This is a big quilt for a big bed, bigger than this one here.

Now the weather has cooled down a bit I should be able to finish the top this week in comfort, I found my workroom just too hot last week.

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The garden seems to have liked the sun though and plants are growing fast - these tomotoes are in the greenhouse and have needed watering every evening. there are lots of little green toms but nothing ready to eat yet! I have a feeling that I will be having to find homes for them when they all ripen together! or putting a lot of them in the deepfreeze to use for soups during the winter.















Just thought you would like to see these little beauties! DH loves these and wants to know why I have never grown them before.......they are making a grand show of colour all round the garden.
I have popped them into any bare bit of ground and they are truely earing their keep.

I have just had a look at a blown up version of the Cosmos and have discovered that the Forget-me-nots that were removed to make way for them have dropped their seeds and they are germinating - plus a great big Danelion I didn't spot before taking the picture! Ah well!



The rain has come at last to this little bit of Berkshire - not as much as I would have liked - I might still have to water the garden with the hosepipe again this evening but at least the temperature is down from the 32c degrees we had to a much more comfortable 19c.

So many plants came into flower last week just to be cooked to a frazzle in the heat - the poor Clemetis just didn't stand a chance! poppies have gone like baked brown paper and if you touch them they just crumble.........I am losing plants with the heat now, but during the winter I lost things to the cold - the two big pots of Agapantha I have had for nearly 20 years, have both succumed to the freezing temperatures, as have the Madonna Lily and the dahlias, for years they have been fine left out over winter.
One beneift from the freeze is that there don't seem to be quite so many slugs around - I read somewhere that their eggs die in very cold winters. Hooray! perhaps the hosta will be happier!

Busy Bees

Things have been happening in our house over the weekend!

I showed 007 a 'family home' for house sparrows in the garden center during the week, with a veiw to buying one - 'not paying that for a few bits of wood' say's he! I can make one if you want one!

So make it he did, in the shade, in the garden, yesterday! It still needs finishing with a bit of roofing felt and some varnish, then it will be a 'des res' for three house sparrow families. ( Apparently they like to live next door to each other but in separate compartments. ) Clever lad - now where do we put it? under the tree on the fence ? (cats?) on the shed wall? not enough room between that and the greenhouse for them to fly out! on the house wall? that means climbing a high ladder? .........

While he was doing all this I sat in the cool of my sewing room and produced these.......yes! I have started Jackies quilt and using Eleanor Burns methods of 'assembly line' sewing these 32 blocks went together so quickly. This afternoon I will sew the next blocks, then I will be ready for sewing them altogether tomorrow. Jackie will be suprised at how much I have done - she has been away all weekend and borrowed my car to go to see her husband in Alton.......she will bring it back later today then needs to collect hers from her daughter Aimee.

Must go and do the h****w**k before it gets too hot.........22c already and its only 9:30 am.