Progress

Remember the quilt I am making? Well I have finished the applique and have now added the borders to the center.  I have sourced the white 80/20 Hobbs heirloom wadding I wanted, in the size I wanted - a whole piece just the size I need , so I don't have to piece it - great! .  I bought the backing fabric - a white on white small flower design - at the Quilt Show at Sandown in June and that now needs to be pieced - quite a mammoth job and I have to feel like doing it.......! BUT the fun starts here! how do I quilt it? what designs shall I do - feathers? straight lines? in the ditch? cross hatching?  - I think I will spread the top on the spare bed and leave it there for a couple of days and wait till it tells me what it wants me to do!

Thamesiders challenge 'Add a Border' quilt.

In the mean time I have gone back to the Thamesiders challenge 'Add a Border' quilt........this next border must be 13" wide, be curved or woven in style and have a special requirement of log cabin! Help............!
I thought perhaps twisted log cabin for the corners - a block of four in each, but I can't make my mind up what to do for the sides of the border - I think log cabin all round would be too heavy a pattern, besides being an awful lot of work...... I have thought of Celtic trails, or swags, or large and small clamshells  in three colours - what do you think? 13" is such a wide inner border and I don't want to make it too fussy.........I will show you what I have done at a later date - when the brain has got it's self into gear and told me what to do.  I have just realized that this picture does not have all the borders on it that I have made - just added an updated piccie.  The Suffolk puffs (yo yo's) are only pinned in place  in case the next border was a complicated one and the top was begining to look too busy.

Third border in place - with pinned on Suffolk puffs.

A horrid day - so far!

This morning I have had to go to the dentist - I hate the dentist!  Himself  had to come with me to hold my hand - you would never believe that I am a grown up great grandmother by the way I have quaked today at just the thoughts of this visit!  I hate impressions and that is what today has been all about...........I'm such a whimp!
Thank goodness the rest of the day is a fun day - sewing with friends this afternoon and lace making with others this evening.  To morrow I will be exhausted - but at least I will not be having nightmares about a dentist chair tonight! and I can sleep in -  if Himself doesn't wake me while getting up to go Earlybird swimming at the local pool.

SewingGranny sews........

Sarah's first quilt

I have been asked to show a friend what I have been sewing lately, so here are a few photo's - sorry if they are wobbly but it is breezy today.   This is the beginnings of a quilt for my youngest daughter, she and her DH have moved at last into the new bedroom they had built onto their house last year and she wants to change her colour scheme from blue to pink.  This is going to be a big quilt to fit their king sized bed. The borders are still to be finished - as you can see there are only three here  - one more to go.......then I have to attach them to the main part and applique the corners.  Then the next lot of fun starts with the sandwiching and the quilting -I shall quilt on my Bernina of course - my hands can't cope with hand quilting any longer....and although I would love to have a frame to put my machine on to it is never going to happen - htey cost too much! so the diningroom will be taken over while I have the machine downstaires on my table in my dining room  and with the help of the ironing board I will manage to support this monster!

Photos of our holiday in Cornwall in May this year.

St Ive's on a lovely sunny day - May day               celebrations made the town very full - lots going on - a parade along the harbour wall by the scouts and girlguides and other groups all marching to a brass band.   

A trip to Mousehole is always a must for us, we find it a facinating village. Himself always like to walk over the cliffs to Lamorna and back again but this year he and only walked to Lamorna with our son-in-law and then was driven back to Moushole as he has been so very ill this last winter.

                                                                

    The gardens a Cothele are always a delight and this year was no exception, the flowers all seemed to be making it up for our hard winter and gve us a spectacular display.  The daffodils under the trees in the orchards were amazing - so many different tyoes and colours.

                                                                                     St Micheals Mount is another must for us - we have been going there for so many years that we almost know every stone up to the castle - even knowing under which one the Giant's heart is buried!          

                                                                                                    

The gardens at Trevarno were a delight this year - the flowers amazing! and the bluebell woods ! well I don't think I have ever seen so many flowers there. This peacock was displaying to anyone who would stop and watch him, be you a peahen or not

Bluebells at Trevano gardens

Quilt times

Quilt Times has a book to give away - a nice looking Christmas projects book from Martingales.  Go and have a look, you may be the lucky winner, you never know but if you are not in it, you can't win it! 

Holiday in Cornwall - part one

We have just come back from a very cold weeks holiday in Cornwall.  We find travelling all that way in one go a bit too much these days so we stopped off in Devon for a couple of nights first.  We found a delightful Bed and Breakfast place in Lydford (we never book a B&B in case we need to stop earlier and you can always find something somewhere ). This one was on a farm where they have some rare breeds and some ordinary animals but not a hugh farm with hundreds of cows and sheep.  The farmers wife ran the B&B and she was so hospitable that we are keeping her telephone number with a view to going there again.  She kept the chickens and geese and we were served fresh eggs for our breakfast - you can certainly tell hte difference from the super market ones.
While staying there we did a bit of nostalgia visiting - we used to camp in the area when the children were small and haven't visited for years, so we had to go and look at the church on the top of Brent Tor and the Cross on another Tor and of course we had to go down Lydford Gorge to see the White Lady falls.
While visiting Tavistock, a little way away I found a very nice patchwork and quilting shop near the Pannier Market and of course I bought a few things in there!
For another nostalgia trip we visited Morwhellan Quay - oh dear I wsh we hadn't - when we took the children many years ago now - it was a busy tourist attraction with the Quay working and all the assosiated trades and shops around and all the people wearing costumes of a bygone era - it is now nearly derelict - nothing working and no one there, so sad !

Cothele house and terrace garden.                                             Some of the Rhodedendrons   

Looking from the terrace over the vally gardens to the viaduct and across the moors.   

 So we went to have a look at a National  Trust property called Cothele over the border in Cornwall - it was the wrong day to be able to go in the house but the gardens were glorious! the Rhoddies and Azalias were in full bloom and looked superb! We had a nice lunch in the 'inn on the Quay' and walked round the gardens in the warm sunshine.  A great day out in the end.

catch up from April

I had the children for a few hours while Mummy worked, Emily is being the proper hostess and giving her Mummy a cup of tea when she came to collect them....I can't believe how quickly she is growing - it seems such a little while ago that she was just learning to walk, and now she has just had her fifth birthday.                                                                                                                                                                    

Joshua is showing her the airplane he made out of my very old Lego.....they always get this out when they get this out when they come to  play.   He is very clever at making up the Lego, and has even been onto the Lego website and made up things from that with the kits that he has.  Daddy has loaded pictures onto the Lego site of the things Joshua has made.