Scrappy Squares

I'm piecing by hand these days. It's more relaxing, after a day spent gardening.

It's easier, too, as the whole house is now in chaos - a new central heating system is being installed and carpets are up everywhere and floors being ripped up. All quite stressful and messy so I'm trying to keep out of the house if I can. There is snow again today (yesterday was our first proper snow this year!) and I'm told everything in the snug has been connected, so I returned the books to their shelves and so am holed up in there now, with some good films and an electric heater!

These squares are 6 1/2". A few more to go!

Morning surprise!

WOO -HOO! DH found this in the hen house this morning. Our first egg!


It was the tiniest egg I've ever seen, but the best. We shared it for lunch, scrambled on wholemeal toast with some salad fresh from the greenhouse ( back in october we planted rocket, endive, assorted lettuces, beetroot and turnip for a winter supply of baby leaves).

Spring is coming!

WIP Wednesday 28th February

Work continues on my 9patch (and it is a patch now - the striped blocks I showed last week have all been unpicked and transformed).



This particular block is very special - my first 9patch. I ditched my stainless steel 12inch ruler and bought a shiny new 6 by 24 inch omnigrip one and read a book about rotary cutting - and the difference is remarkable. These all fitted together like clockwork.

I'm less happy with the third fabric and am calling it the 'ugly one'.

February sunshine

The warmth of late February sunshine always surprises. Yesterday I lingered all day in the herb garden - raking away the old leaves, cutting back and dividing. And preparing the ground for this year's sowings.

I found this sleepy fellow hiding amongst old leaves.

And this new vista.

Some people have asked what I do with driftwood. I have grand plans of a driftwood-framed mirror, and lately of a driftwood summerhouse (a girl can dream, after all!). But mostly, as you can see, it just lies around in the garden 'drying out' or 'bleaching'.

Branching pieces are good for supporting floppy herbaceous plants in the summer, and lately I have been collecting pieces to make into tripods to support climbers.

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Mostly I just collect it because I love it's sculptural qualities.

High Tide

The tides have been very high the last couple of days, and driftwood pickings have been good. This is Tuesday's haul, drying in the sun yesterday.

Lunchtime yesterday the tide was so high there was no beach at all to walk on. We sat on top of the dunes, watching the waves. No wind, just big waves. You could feel the vibration of each wave crashing against the dune.

Last night I gave in and had a bath. The cold water is not yet plumbed and the hot is absolutely scalding, so we had to carry through basins of cold water, and put down a couple of planks to stand on in front of the bath. It was out of this world nontheless!

WIP Wednesday 21 Feb

This is my new raggy quilt which I started last week. The colours are a bit stronger than the last couple I have made.



I love this dark brown fabric. There is a lovely flow to the pattern and it seems quite English to me, but not in a stuffy way. It reminds me quite a lot of William Morris's willow pattern. I decided to make blocks with 3 stripes, and alternate them with plain white blocks, but now that I've made a pile of them I'm having second thoughts and may well change the plan completely.

A day on the West Coast

Little Sis was here at the weekend, and yesterday we went over to Lochinver. A spot of shopping and a walk on the beach left us both refreshed.

We found one of these...

here...

and Harvey seemed to have a good time, too.

TAST Week7- Feather Stitch

i liked the effects you get when the stitches are uniform in size and the rows placed close together - and the hearts are topical, are they not?

Surprise

Look at what my lovely friend Gay sent me today! A video showing how to make Attic Windows (I'm hoping this has Jinny Beyer on it) and chenille and a Boston sampler and more. And some fabric, one with the tiniest hearts, and a lollipop! Thank you Gay! I can't wait to watch the video. Quilting isn't a mainstream hhobby here and I can't find any quilting on TV, so I'm really looking forward to watching this.

Valentine

DH found the perfect card for me!

Tulips from Amsterdam

These really did come from Amsterdam. We bought them in Schiphol airport on our way back home and they are lasting well. I make it 19 days since purchase now.

Well, I've weathered the food poisoning and URTI that was the aftermath of our holiday. Somewhere during my fever, my parents flew over from Ireland and spent a couple of days with us, but I'm not very clear about that. I'm sure I made them some food to eat so they can't complain *s*

Now for a disaster story (trying hard to persuade myself it is not actually a disaster of any significance). I was so excited about going on holiday that I almost forgot to take my camera. DH reminded me as I was heading out the door, and I ran back in and grabbed it. Just the camera, mind you. No charger cable or even a spare battery. And when I turned it on in Italy it had 20mins of juice in it. Never mind, I thought I would be able to buy a charger cable.......no, not unless I wanted to buy a new camera with it. Well, I am too mean for that, especially as we have at least two cameras (one staying at home), and two adequate cameras on our phones and a nice fat memory card on my phone. So when the camera battery went flat I would just use my phone.

The phone took lovely photos the days we were on Tenerife and Madeira, but then suddenly it was gone. Dropped it I think. *big sigh*. All my photos of Loro Parque's penguinarium and performing sealions vanished. Just my memories left...

Here is the single best thing we saw on our travels - Gaudi's church La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Full of light and air and...the noise stonemasons make these days with heavy machinery. It's many years since I saw English cathedrals but this seemed on a scale much larger than I remember them.

I love these lizards!

We also saw a *lot* of Picassos. That man just didn't stop drawing! We gave up long before we were half way round the gallery, but I think I gained a little interest in his work.

Casablanca was full of smog. We could see little from the ship. It is a large city, with a population of about 3 million people, and nearly all the buildings we saw were painted white or off-white in colour. It was a dirty place, with seemingly little control on engine emissions. Here is the vast Hassan II mosque with its even more vast expanse of courtyard. We didn't go in.

Our taxi driver thought that, since we didn't seem impressed with the mosque, we might like the Roman Catholic church. I did quite like their stained glass, even though I don't generally much admire modern churches.

This and That

Not done a great deal of quilting, and Blogger has swallowed my last post on the subject. So here we go again. So far I have put these little stars in two of the corners of my log cabin quilt borders. It's difficult to get a good photo of the quilting. I'm thinking I'll do the same in the opposite corners, in gold thread. Need a trip to the Quilt Shop for that.

I started knitting this scarf just before we went on holiday, and have done a bit more the other evening. Someone gave my mother a 'knit your own scarf' kit at Christmas and somehow it found its way into my possession... It consisted of a pattern (for a scarf??), a pair of needles and three balls of hideously brightly coloured blue/green eyelash yarn. Much too bright for me! But I found some white eyelash in the local Wool Shop and I think this is rather fun. Needs a bit of tidying up, obviously. And I know a little girl who would just love one in red and black (ladybird colours).

Also, we have been doing some serious DIY in the house. The old en suite has GONE (and I did not take a photo of it so I could remember its hideousness for ever) and we are in the process of connecting up the new one. DH is plumber-extrodinaire as all the local tradesmen in this part of the world turned up their noses (you want to move the shower? and the bath? and the toilet? What for?) so progress is slow. But we are getting there.

TAST - Algerian Eyelet

Thought I would join in the fun with this one, and spent a cosy afternoon stitching away happily. I liked the stitch more and more as I went along. In my mind it works best to fill in areas with colour or as a border; I found it less easy to think of more organic applications.

Home Again!

We're just back from holiday. No photos yet - we're having some camera problems. I love being back home after holidays. The old routine seems fresh and all those chores I've been putting off seem new again, all urgent and exciting.

The sky was bright and clear yesterday and so I worked in the sunshine in the garden. The garden is very sleepy and peaceful, with only snowdrops flowering and masses of daffodil shoots about 3-4inches tall. I started clearing away the wind-blown leaves at the front of the house, and then when the sun moved round I spent a cosy afternoon in the greenhouse, tidying and planting tomato seed.

One of the many lessons my first real quilt has taught me is that I ought to try quilting in a frame. And while we were cruising and my fingers industriously (it seems) softening up, I came to the conclusion that I should get one of those little lap frames that swivels and pivots, so I can be comfy in my armchair by the fire while I work. So I'm off now to go shopping!

Rainy day

I've had some ideas for how to quilt the border of my red & green starry quilt. I'm almost there - just need to finish off doing around the outside of the inner border. I'm thinking the border is going to be fairly heavily quilted, in a mostly plain style as the pattern has some embroidered text - in gold to match the stars and inner border - and I haven't quite decided whether I really want to include this embroidery or not. My initial idea was to leave out the text - especially as the pattern describes the text as a 'prayer' and I do not think it is a 'prayer'. But that aside I am warming a little to the idea now I am closer to completion.

This is the effect I envisaged when I started quilting the blocks, but I found it quite dissatisfying to sew.

Here are some other effects I tried, I think I have shown these before:




And here is what Libby suggested - it won hands down!

It is easy and satisfying to sew, and I love the way it separates the contour of the quilt from the structure of the patches.

It rained heavily last night and we heard dripping while we were watching King Kong. Couldn't find any water though. Eventually DH went into the roofspace, and sure enough the gable wall was wet. It's dripping down inside the wall. And going ...... who knows where? That makes a grand total of six (6) places the roof is leaking, and the roofer won't start until the weather improves. Ugh. Who wanted to live in an old house? (me). I'm glad we're going on holiday.

I'm off now to search out a Daily Telegraph - they are giving away free Beatrix Potter books this week to celebrate the opening of the film. I have in mind an afternoon in front of the telly (read 'Gone With the Wind') and my needle. And hoping it will stop raining.

Sixes and Sevens

Not a great deal quilty going on around here...

There were various people staying with us for almost two weeks over the holidays, and somehow it is difficult to step back (or forward) into routine. Especially as we go away ourselves next week.

As for sewing projects - I had to make some curtains. Not my favourite kind of project. The people we purchased our house from ran off at the last minute with the curtains (rough count 20 pairs) which we had paid for. I've been putting off making these particular ones for ......11 and a half months now......I figure if you live in the country, so what if you don't have curtained windows in your study. But the house sitters will need to use this room (that is a long story in itself), so I kind of had to. So I just sat down yesterday and did it. We now have curtains at the front, and curtains at the back (where I sew these days as it is warm and I can see the wild garden birds up close and hear the TV in the next room) and a curtain for the door to the garden. Just like a respectable house!!

DH has noticed that I have not been using my light box (the last time was actually the weekend before Christmas). This is not a good sign, that he has noticed some change in me that I haven't seen in myself. Anyway he made me promise to use it, so here I am dutifully bathing in light in front of the computer.

I should mention some of the goodies I was so lucky to be given at Christmas. 'The River Cottage Cookbook' by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has persuaded me to venture into the garden on sunny days (I've dug half of the vegetable beds so far). The 4 disc special edition of 'Gone With the Wind' is much prized (and only half -watched - what have I been doing?), and in amongst some quilty books, 'The Secrets of Fine Hand Quilting' by Roxanne McElroy is outstanding. Instead of spending my time creatively, I read this book cover to cover. It's beautifully illustrated. In fact the quilt she made for her daughter's wedding is so awesome, front and back, that it moves me to tears. (that is, tears of envy, mostly).

Christmas rush

Aaarrgh...no time for blogging, no time for sewing. Far too much yet to do. Made a couple of blocks yesterday when I should have been doing other things Christmas-related, but couldn't help myself..fabric is just too lovely.

Little sis decided on stars for the block, and this is what we came up with.

I like the scrappier block best, but can't decide whether to go really scrappy and vary the colour placement between the blocks or not.

almost midwinter...

Not many days left now until the solstice. Here today the sky is blue, the sun is shining and it is freezing. The last sunny day was quite some time ago, and now that we do have sunshine again the angle of the light seems really low. (Honestly, we moved 2 degrees further north and I make such a big deal about it!) The chooks have just found their way into the back garden today. This part of the garden has a 6foot high fence around it and I suppose was once ornamental, but since Harvey was new to us and wandered when we first came here, we designated it our 'dog garden'...and as I was gazing through the window admiring the hens this afternoon and wondering when we will get our first eggs, and whether it might be worth putting a light in the henhouse in order to get some sooner, I noticed some of these:

We didn't live here last winter and I don't know what they are. They're too big for snowdrops, but it seems early for daffodils. I'm going to have to keep an eye on them.

And I had a bit of a scout around and found these. They're a different kind.

It's reassuring to know the garden is preparing for spring!

Meanwhile, in the house, there are some preparations for Christmas Feasting. Chiefly in the form of my special 'laughing' mince pies.
These are usually a big hit and - look, one had disappeared while I searched for the camera (wasn't me, honest!). I use my own recipe for mincemeat which includes loads of cherries and pineapple and papaya and coconut (well basically anything remotely suitable that I can find in the baking cupboard) and with spices they taste really christmassy.

Not much sewing going on. I had just about decided on the pattern for the brown quilt, and then Little Sis announced she is coming up early this week, so I will see what she thinks about the options. And I'm hoping to persuade her to sit infront of the sewing machine.

Between hand quilting the green and red quilt, grouting the tiles on the hall floor and decorating for Christmas, there hasn't been much time for new projects in this house. I found some buggy barn scraps to practice paper peicing with. This is The Eyes of March block from Quilters' Cache.


My Chocolat fabric for Little Sis's quilt arrived. I think there's more here than I will need.

Decorating for Christmas was a lot of fun. Since we have been living in limbo for the last two Christmases, and most of our stuff was in storage during that time, I have not seen most of our decorations for a long time. It was so good to take them out of their boxes again, and to go round the new house finding suitable spots for them to spend the holidays. Our lights seem to have been multiplying, too.

We booked a holiday for next month. A while ago DH and I made the decision that January is *the* time of the year for us to holiday. It's all a bit miserable in this country at this time of year - even more so now we are living so far north. Last January we went to Cyprus, and next month we will Cruise The Med. Cruising is a new thing for us, and I will need to plan my projects so I have some hand sewing to take with me.

Someone asked about haggis that I mentioned in a previous post. Haggis, eaten with neeps and tatties, is a traditional scottish delicacy. Tatties are potatoes, and neeps are turnips. In our house we usually have bashed neeps, that means they are mashed and we have them with lashings of butter and black pepper - yum! Haggis, in the olden days, was sheep offal mixed with oats and heavily spiced, enclosed in a sheep's stomach. To cook it you had to boil the whole thing a pan of water for several hours. These days I believe there are restrictions on the cuts of meat that can be included, and it usually comes wrapped in plastic which you can peel off and then microwave the haggis in less than 10 minutes. You can also get vegetarian haggis, full of lentils and beans and very tasty. These days I usually prefer the vegetarian one - here's a photo of one from a famous Edinburgh haggis maker.

When I went up to shut in the hens, I could only find the three chicks (whew, my babies survived one day in the big world!) and the ducks. Esmeralda and her brood were NOWHERE. I looked all over the garden, in the wild bit out the back, in the trees, out on the road...I thought they had flown. And by then it was almost completely dark.

And then I remembered there is no door on the garage we just use for junk. They were in there, roosting on the rafters!!!

That's enough drama for one day!