Why???

So, why when I have a squillion projects in hand, would I do this -



My lovely pile of 34 10 inch squares....



turned into 850 2 inch squares....

The plan is to make this into a nine-patch quilt.

And that would be when???

Nearly there...

Squawk! Or whatever noise a Pteranadon makes.....

Unearthed (excavated?) whilst on my tidy up. He's from a book by Ula Lenz, and is the first small step towards completing a dinsouar quilt for a nephew, although with my current rate of progress, nephew may have to settle for just this one dinosaur....

Progress on tidying up the sewing room continues slowly, as I am easily distracted by the numerous WIPs and UFOs that seem to be hiding in every drawer....

But I think the end is in sight, and I am certainly not short of things to be getting on with now. As you can see, the table is still in want of a good tidy up - I've been piling up all the things that are to get on with urgently..

Sadly Jim wants a day out tomorrow, so I think Thursday will be the first proper day of sewing (I can't believe it - that will already be a full week into my precious holiday time...).

Warm at long last!

Yeah!! At last the skies have turned blue and the warm weather has started. Over to Newark at the weekend to see a friend and her family, which is where I spotted the street above. I don't appear to have captured the full effect in my picture - but all the front doors are a different colour, yet it's been very carefully done, with the colour gradually changing, but not jarring.

And here I am, cuddling my friend's gorgeous baby, who's now all of six weeks old.

Jim decided to make the most of the hot weather - working on an essay...

We planted this hebe in March this year, and thought it would take a couple of years or so to get settled and start to grow - but it's already more than doubled in size!

Even though it's summer holiday time, I still went into work for an hour or four - I love the feeing of stillness, and the fact that at long last I can start to tackle the heap of paperwork that's built up over the year. Hopefully by September I'll be able to see a bit more of my desk....

Is summer here?

Finally the weather seems to be getting better - at last it's warm enough to think that maybe, just maybe the summer is here after all. Mind you, it's always warm enough for ice-cream.....

Day four of the school holidays - and still no quilting done. But I've done some more needlepoint, and have spent a lot of time clearing out the sewing room.

"Sewing room" is a very grandiose term for a small bedroom that I've appropriated for my own use. When we moved in, I was sure that it would be more than big enough, but in less than six months it's become obvious that there just isn't space in there for everything - there are piles of fabric everywhere, as well as the WIPs and UFOs galore.

So I've filled up a number of storage boxes - the CD ones are execllent for fat quarters - and tried to organise it all. The stack of magazines is enormous, and will probably topple over at some point - I need to go through them and sort out what's to be kept, and what can be passed on to someone else.

I have be very hardhearted now, and force myelf to keep it tidy (tidier?) and get some projects finished, instead of starting another one.

I took a small step (well, a miniscule step) yesterday when I was passing a quilt shop in Ollerton, Heath's Country Store

and managed to not go in.....which was pretty hard as I could do with some more fabric to finish off a WIP - but I know I'll be passing again in about six weeks time...

The plan for today is to go and buy a barbecue, ready for my sister's visit next weekend, and to then finish 'sorting' the sewing room, without getting too distracted by what I unearth along the way.

Strip top

And here it is. I got it finished on Sunday evening (10.30pm!!) as I was so determined to get it done by the end of the weekend - I knew that otherwise it would join the pile of UFOs in the spare room. I still need to add a border (or two...).

Of course, there's still the stage I loathe - the basting. Why does it seem to take so long?

And here it is again, with Jim holding it up in the back garden. As you can see, summer in Sheffield is proving to be rather rainy and cold - so much for July!

Today is the first day of the summer holidays -HOORAY - five and a half weeks away from school. I love teaching - but I also like having the time to do my own thing....

So today I'm going to a spa with my friend - no quilting today - but instead a chance to gossip and relax....

Finally...

..I've managed to get some blocks done:

These are made with Jelly Rolls, and the pattern is from "Strip Happy" which I picked up in Patchwork Garden. The Jelly rolls I've used (2 of them) are Hemming House by Moda. They go together incredibly quickly - these four blocks, (and one that I forgot to photograph) took me 4 hours in total, which inclues cutting and piecing, as well as time spent making cups of tea and looking out of the window......

Photographing them didn't work as well - it was very windy yesterday, hence the somewhat wonky pictures.

The plan for today was to get another 5 done, but as it's gone midday and I still haven't started, that could well be too ambitious....

Here are three of the blocks, with 2 more on the grass, fluttering about on the washing line.

Every cloud has a silver lining

So here's the thing.

When I fell on Sports Day ten days ago, I thought I'd be up and about very quickly.

Turns out I was wrong - a minimum of four weeks recovery time has been suggested, with the possibility of eight weeks.

And while I can drive, it's not comfortable, and anything beyond 20 minutes starts to get very painful.

We were supposed to be away this weekend, and had planned to go to Keswick in the Lake District - but faced with a three hour drive, I've had to cancel as I simply can't get there.

Needless to say there have been tears and tantrums, sobs and sulks over the whole thing.

But when I got home last night, Jim had taken it upon himself to bake a cake for me, which is pictured above. No big deal?? Wrong!! This is his first ever attempt, and it's the chocolate cake (of course) that I'd planned to make for the weekend. It's a chocolate orange cake, made with rather a lot of marmelade, and as it cooks, the top goes quite crisp and almost chewy as the sugar caramelises:



So while I face another day with my leg wrapped in ice and raised upon cushions, at least I can console myself with cake.....

No work again - hurrah!!

Once again, a Wednesday with no work. Last week it was Sports Day (which I'm still feeling the effects of..) and today it was a training day for First Aid. It breaks up the week, although I do feel a tad guilty at being out and about instead of at a desk.

Stopped at the supermarket on the way home to pick up some ingredients for a cake bake tomorrow - I'm planning on making the chocolate orange cake from one of Nigella Lawson's books, as we're going away for the weekend and I want to take a present for my friend - I know he likes cake - and you can't go wrong with chocolate cake!!

This however isn't chocolate cake, although it does look like a yummy chocolate chip one. We bought it in France.........

.........it's snail cake.

Yes, that's right. The little black bits are chopped up snail.

I didn't try it, as I'm a coward, but I gather it tasted like garlic bread....

Quilts Through The Pages

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I'm a big fan of the Elm Creek novels, and when I read on the SBS forum about this, and looked on Anne Ida's website http://quiltoholiker.blogspot.com/ I just had to sign up.

I've been meaning to make an SBS quilt for a while now - but it's such a massive undertaking that I just daren't start - which is a bit silly, given that it's made up of so many small blocks. reading other people's blogs and accounts has made me realise that it will be a long WIP, and not one that I can just dash off...

Pass the jam, Jim

Well, not literally.

Here is the product of 2 hours of blood sweat and tears, as I conjured up my very first jam - EVER!!!!


Okay, I know that I'm suppoed to be writing about quilting / needlepoint / embroidery - but as usual, my attention span is somewhat limited, and so rather than complete a UFO, I thought I'd deal with the gooseberries my mother gave me when I went to admire the puppy ten days or so ago.

But why, if this is gooseberry jam, is is red instead of green?

And why did I not put the elastic band on properly, I hear you ask? It wouldn't go on, that's why. They kept pinging about the kitchen until I was well and truly sick and tired of them - and so I ended up just jamming (lol) them on any old how.

Of course, if I were a truly diligent housewife / homemaker, I would now make some lovely jam pot covers, but as usual, I now want to move onto something else....

Jim has so far refused to sample it (but he will soon......). Meanwhile the garden continues to grow - and grow - and grow...

Jelly Rolls

I love these.

I don't know what it is - the neat packaging - the idea that someone else has matched all the colours together - the fun of undoing the ribbon and havng endless lengths of colour.....

But I have now accumulated too many and so it's time to start cutting into them - not always the easiest task (but one I justify to myself by the thought that I can then go and look at some more....).

The ones in the picture are by Moda and are called "Hemming House'. I bought them not only because I love the soft colours, but because I wanted to make something for a friend whose married name is Hemming. A bit silly I know - as I'm sure that the name of collections of fabric is fairly random - but then again, it seemed as good a way as any other of choosing the right colours.

I found a pattern I liked as well, based on a sampler quilt, but I made the mistake of showing it to Jim, who immediately said how much he disliked it.....

I still can't sew with the machine, as I can't get about easily, so that buys me a little more time in which to plan what I'm going to do.


So what shall I do? Stick with what I feel, or spend more time (and possibly cash) looking for something better - which may or may not be out there???


Actually, what I really need to do is to stop asking for the opinions of others, and just have the courage of my own beliefs - if I hadn't asked, I would now be well on the way with the cutting of pieces.

Sports Day

I haven't been into work today - a bizaare work related accident (okay - I fell over in a staff 200metre relay race) has meant that I've now torn a muscle in my calf and so couldn't move about easily.

And what's far worse is that neither can I do much at home - I can't walk very far, and so there's no point on doing any quilting - I simply can't manage the up and down between the sewing machine and the ironing board - so it's been a day of irritating Jim, and doing some needlepoint.

If only today had been sunny, it would have been a great day (and great excuse) to sit in the garden and lounge about......

As it is, I find that I'm limited to the kitchen (and the biscuit tin)

Puppy Love

Having heard on the family grapevine that there had been a new addition to the family, I rushed up to Yorkshire on Sunday morning to inspect the new arrival.



He's a labrador cross and absolutely adorable!!

Mrs F (my mother) has got him primarily as a companion for her current dog:


I'm now very jealous, and am wondering how I can persuade Jim to give up work and stay at home permanently, so that we too can have a puppy....

Family visit

Yesterday my brother came to visit, with his eldest son (aged 2 1/2).

When I got home from work, there appeared to have been some sort of teddy bear picnic taking place - with a variety of cuddly toys strewn across the grass - and a selection of toy food.

The visit was great - and as a childfree household we really did appreciate the smooth bedtime operation.....

Hopefully they'll be back soon - they left at midday today to catch the train back to Oxford - not a journey I would want to undertake with a toddler,but then again, if I were 2 1/2, I imagine I'd find it all wonderfully exciting!

Happy Birthday!!!

On Tuesday, Jim had a birthday:


Note the JB scribbled onto the terracotta pot.

I saw this when I got home from work, and was all ready to take it back to the garden centre, when he confessed that he had written it on himself.

It stands for 'Jim's birthday' (just so that he knows it's his, I think)- perhaps he thinks there will some sort of unseemly squabble about terracotta pots and patio roses?

I baked a cake, which is in the picture - it's a carrot and walnut one - but it came out of the oven too early, sank, and rapidly became soggy.

He still ate it though.