chickens

This is what I worked on yesterday. It's called 'rennende Hühner' (running chickens), and I purchased the pattern in Heidelberg, Germany, earlier this year.

For some reason it appears to have come out with a very blue tinge - the background fabric is in fact light green (perhaps taking photos late at night isn't the way to go???).

I found it really tricky at first - the templates were in centimetres, and I'm too used to working in inches, so I had to redraft some bits of it.

It's now waiting for borders, and embellishments in the form of legs / beaks etc.

And what else has been going on?

Let's recap -

1) We have no bathroom to speak of - basic facilities, yes, but no more - and I'm getting fed up of wshing in a small basin. The plumber can't come back until the plasterer has been - he's due this weekend - and then it has to dry out for a few days.

2) Because the bathroom now needs plastering, we will be left with the large hole in the bedroom ceiling until the plasterer can fit us in again - I'm keeping my fingers crossed for sometime before Christmas

3) The sewing machine shop didn't send the carrier for my Bernina 440QE yesterday - so it's getting less and less likely that it will be sorted by the end of the week.

We are therefore throwing caution and frugality to the wind .......

.......and running away for a few nights!!!!

Yeah!!!

We're only going about an hour away, but I am so looking forward to being able to have a shower / sleep in a room that doesn't have a (very cold) hole in the middle of it. The only downside is that I've been told I can only take one piece of sewing with me.

Decisions, decisions.

What will it be???

Unhappy

I am SO not happy.

My lovely new Bernina 440 QE (see 25th August for a picture of my pride and joy) has stopped working.

Yes, it's completely ground to a halt.

To be fair, I've rung up the shop where I bought it, and a carrier is going to call for it on Monday, but the fact remains that it's halfterm next wekk (Hooray!!!!) and I had promised myself two whole days of sewing.

I figured that I've been working very hard this term, what with one thing and another, and I need to crack on with my UFOs.

So it looks as though it'll be back to my reliable Bernina 770 - over 30 years old and still working like a dream.

Maybe new technology just isn't worth it.....

Where I've been...

Unsurprisingly the camera turned up - in my bag....

The remains of Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches.

The American cemetery. If you've ever seen 'Saving Private Ryan' - then this is the cemetary that you see at the start and end of the film.

Omaha beach, where some of the American landings took place.
Honfleur

Home again hurrah

I was going to post some lovely pictures of my very sunny school visit - but I appear to have left the camera somewhere.

I don't think it's lost - I think it may be in one of my many bags, which even now are littering the house. How can I have gone for only five days, two of which were spent on a coach, and still have bought more bags...let amone have filled them

I know I had it on the ferry - the crossing was due to take 1 1/4 hours, and actually took 2 1/2 instead, due to the waves being too wavy.

Oh well.

The weather in France was glorious, and the students were fabulously behaved. Sadly there was no opportunity for much fabric shopping - I briefly visited a small shop in Bayeux, but had only 5 minutes, and so bought some lovely French magazines to pore over instead.

Of course, having planned the itinary, we had to visit the Bayeux tapestry, which bizarrely isn't a tapestry at all, but instead a long piece of embroidered work on linen - it's about 70 metres long in total. You now see the tapestry fisrt of all, followed by the explanation, which to my mind is a little bit topsy turvy, but nonetheless, it seemed to be much enjoyed.

Having got back at midnight, and having had to go to work today, I've been in a very grumpy mood all day, which is a bit unfair, I suppose. There were over 300 emails waiting for me, and it took HOURS to get through them all.... I think the real issue though it that there is no time at all for sewing in the next three days - it's all hustle and bustle, meetings and deadlines.

I optimistically took some hand sewing with me for the journey - but spent most of it asleep. Why is the combination of coach and DVD so soporific?

Not a lot accomplished...

So this is what I've made this week.

Six sawtooth stars using some Kaffe Fassett scraps. I'm going to put them on point, but thought I should take a photo to monitor progress this far. I've cut out the pieces for another six, but they'll have to wait until I get back from France next week. I leave early Thursday morning with 31 teenagers, all set for a bracing week on the north French coast, near Bayeux.

Of course there's a compulsory visit to the tapestry on Friday morning (I say of course because I've devised the itinerary.....)

And this is what Jim's done this week. If you're wondering what it is - it's a hole in the bedroom ceiling, casued by him putting his foot through the plasterboard. The hole is about 50 cm across, and I think I may have to ask someone to come round and repair it - I don't think I can bodge anything together

I'm grateful that he only hurt his ego, and that it was the bedroom and not the sewing room that got covered in bits of plaster, and loft insulation, and lots and lots of filthy black bit sof who knows what - but at the same time I'm more than a little annoyed that this incident happened at about 10.00 am - and when I got in from work nine hours later, there was still dirt and grime everywhere - he claims that he 'hadn't noticed it'.

Grumble grumble.

We're having a new bathroom installed, and tonight there is a) no heating and b) no hot water. When I watch the make over shows on television, it all looks so easy!!

No more posts until I return from visits overseas. By then I hope that the bathroom is in - or at least that I can get washed and keep warm!!