Back with the sewing bug...

After the summer break, which I have come to accept means less sewing for various reasons. I tidied my workroom. This can mean one of two things...

1. I find things that have been under my nose, under a pile of stuff, that I have been searching for for some time.
and
2. That I am put off starting anything. What IS it about a tidy workroom that dampens my sewing want?
I have no idea. So I decided to tidy, knowing that I wouldn't sew for a bit until I 'd pulled out a few things to clutter up again. At least the floor would be swept properly.
The "tidy" started because I had a Guild Regional day at the weekend there, my last officially as the Young Quilters Rep. This meant that the resources boxes that I had collected were going to be moving to their new home with the incoming Rep. (slight cheer at thought of making space for the bundles on the floor)
After 3 years of a truly fun role I chose to do a Christmas hanging. 14 YQs came to Perth from all over Scotland

(not my children so I have blurred out faces)

And so the Christmas theme continued. 

This is the back of a part of a fairly large hanging I've been doing. Appliqued pieces all button stitched down, which seemed to take ages and a lot of thread - quicker than by hand tho.

Then with the borders on. It's mostly quilted now and bound, bringing the backing to the front in this case. I have been free machining a bit around the holly and trees - and I think I might put names on the stockings. It's one for the stair wall this Christmas though - due to the fact that as usual I read very little in instruction... hence the reason for cutting the squares to 5" rather the instructed 5 1/2" . Fortunately the length of the cream piece was 40"finished, so 9 and 8 fitted (otherwise who knows).

It is with great relief that I found this post.. I typed it, I post it, I lost it into the electronic ether... what's that about?? Anyway - saved!!

New Slippers

In June one of my groups had a day trip to a beautiful town in the middle to east of Scotland, Linlithgow. It's a really lovely place actually, with a castle, lake, bountiful tea / cake shops and to top it off a Patchwork shop, an embroidery shop and a fabric shop which has really good patchwork fabric.
So needless to say a few purchases were made and stroked.
Including some FILZ-IT wool. A pattern for slippers comes inside the paper ring that holds the ball together. One ball makes one pair of slippers. I wish I had photographed them before washing because for the second but smallest size for No.2 D they were ENORMOUS... proper huge clown shoes even on me. Comfortingly it suggested washing twice if the felting wasn't small enough once first washed - but it worked!!

I also bought some anti-slip iron-on sole thingys in the shape of paw prints. How long they will last, I have no idea but safety first was in play at the start!!

P.S When I say "Even on me" it isn't because I have incredibly large feet - honest - I is tall!!

Today is the last day of summer....

Oh I've been sooo busy!! There was the .. rescuing the neighbours from a disaster waiting to happen... winning the local show with the largest home grown vegetables EVER... running in six marathons... OK OK so lying is afoot...
In truth I am thoroughly enjoying making homemade breads...

cakes for home time, as the childers returned to school two weeks ago - and I miss them! Truly do. They have been lovely to have around. Sometimes (and I 've probably said this) but it is lovely to take the time to look around and "love the place your in", some times - like sunday - I came down to spend the morning tidying, so that my afternoon could be taken up with cake, knitting and The Railway Children (movie). I found myself picking up 12- yes 12 Wii games piled high, 8 videos (we still watch a bit of video) and 3 DVDs (because we are up with the trends too!) Cups, sweetie wrappers... please don't picture "How Clean is Your House" it's not as bad as that. it's just children isn't it?
I is not commenting on my sewing room :-) That of course is VERY different. For example, if we were to entertain surprise visitors, they would NOT be ushered into a room off the kitchen which was once a garage!! They would be invited to sit next to yesterdays breakfast plates left by the good chair.
We have more than one chair..
This is going off the beaten track now... I start to type and like a councilling session it all pours out ;-)
One has been sewing don't you know..

and there has been a bit of this...

That's what I mean.. Love the place your in... this park is 10 mins down hill from Chez Hope, and after cake, it's 20 mins uphill...

Special Garden

We have recently returned from our holidays, which I've said. We drove from Scotland, down to the south coast of England, taking a ferry from Dover to Calais. (stayed overnight Dover) Then drove from Calais down to the small village of St Julien de Landes . It felt like the longest drive so we were all delighted to get there. Not with the grey drizzle that we had left in Scotland, driven through in France and which welcomed us to our home for a few weeks - we were expecting some sunshine!! Anyway, nxt day we woke up to the sunshine thank goodness. We had a really lovely holiday, very relaxing. Mr H was asked when he returned to work what the highlight had been for him. He told me, he didn't even have to think about his reply it came out so quickly... "..eating with his family every night."
I think I've moaned about this before because it gets to the girls from time to time but I hadn't thought about how it can get to him.
Anyway, the last few days of our holiday were spent in Paris, to break the long trek home. The first day we went to one of my favourite gardens. The painter Claude Monet's garden in Giverny. We were lucky enough to go there 12 years ago when we just had one little 2 year old. It was a scorching day and we had to sip alot of water and eat alot of icecream.
This time we took our brollies, and wore jumpers. The weather wasn't the best BUT it didn't spoil anything. Maybe it made it less busy, which is good thing. Hopefully it won't be 12 years before the next visit.

What a beauty...

Well i have the cable now after sending Mr H up into the attic, just can't get the computer to accept the camera when it's plugged in. I suspect it is because the camera is needing charged... such a technical whizz me!!
In the meantime... great excitement for me last week. I took possession (it's 9/10ths of the law) of my mother's old bike. I had decided not to use the car at all this summer, and have failed miserably. So last week I walked up to mum's and down in the basement rooted out this beauty...

It's from early 1990s, maybe late 80s. My mum decided she was going to take up cycling, bought the bike, used it once and then hated it. It looks brand new and now has my big basket on the front. It's truly a beauty.

Journey project.

Well, I was going to download snaps from my holidays and IF they were any good, basically in focus (or not) put a few on my blog. But I am unable to locate the cable that connects the camera to the laptop :-(
I know where it is, it's not a forgetful moment... it's in the attic. We tidied our little spare room out, making it very presentable as a room rather than a big cupboard with a window and curtains you can't reach to open or close - just to clarify - they were open, it wasn't a "How clean is your house?" room.
Anyway, the tallboy chest of drawers that houses cables is up in the attic and the wanted computer connection is in it. And the attic ladders are still living in the shed... which means step ladders to get into the attic, with a slight jump up into said attic, which is do-able. It's the slight jump back onto the step ladder that I struggle with.
So instead I will drop in a few pics of my - drum-roll - croched blanket that has kept me occupied on our last few holidays.

It began HERE when we drove to the Loire, and having done it a few times I had thought "why sit here doing nothing". So the journey began. Crochet always seemed an unreachable thing for me, couldn't hold my hands, fingers quite right but thanks to YouTube I got it. So every time I have gone away, so has the bag of crochet. The cotton came from a kindly customer in the old shop. It was one of the kindly... "my mother-in-law died and I was clearing out her knitting bag or sewing basket" and we would get bin bags handed in. We weren't a charity shop, we sold new things. What people thought we would do with sewing baskets that had been well used I don't know, but anyway, that particular day a few boxes of older Coats mercerised cotton came in and I pulled out a ball in a quiet moment. 

 100 squares later...

So now, I will have to find something else to keep me quiet on journeys. This blanket has been to France several times, Bath, Italy, North East of Scotland, Yorkshire... now it's going to live in the house. 

Been away on hols and ...

...will sit down and chat but in the mean time...

...Monet's garden in Giverny nr Paris, Derek Jarman's Dungeness garden and a little cropping from my own little veggie patch.