A finished quilt and an amazing co-incidence!

I sat indoors this morning while the rain pounded on the windows and sewed round the last bit of binding on this strippy quilt...feet up on the table with the quilt on my lap. When the rain stopped I ran out to the garden to take a picture while it was dry! I need a record of this one as I want to sell it to try and raise some funds to help my daughter pay for a trip she wants to go on next August to Calcutta to work with the street children there.

I think it would do for a child maybe, it's a bit on the bright side for some people maybe! It's virtually all done by hand, pieced and quilted by hand, just used the machine to join the blocks and sew the binding on.

After the rain had stopped I walked Wrecks the dog, down through the woods which were criss crossed with little channels made by the heavy rain that we have had over the past few days, the autumn storms are upon us. As I walked I could hear the sound of chain saw's where people were cutting up trees that had come down and making branches safe. Thankfully all we have suffered is a bit of fence damage, we have been lucky, in Cumbria they have had flood water in their homes.
This old grainy photo was taken in the early 70's of a house I lived in with my parents in a village about 70 miles away from where I now live and my parents have long since moved on. The amazing thing is that my son and his girlfriend were invited to dinner with one of her colleagues last week and yes...it was this house! How amazing is that! It was wonderful to hear how it looks now, we moved in when I was 12 when the house was brand new in 1969....I can hear all your brain cells working now to work my age out!

This is our towns poor effort of a Christmas tree this year, it's really a bit dull I think. I think they should plant a real tree in the middle of the square and let it grow and decorate it every year, I'm sure it would be cheaper in the long run and certainly would be more attractive to look at. Sorry...bit of a moan there!

November break in Wales.

We have just spent a lovely long weekend in the cottage called Lliety again in North Wales, tiny and cosy and very quiet. We had some family stuff to do up in Snowdonia and some family visiting too.

In the evenings we lit the fire...I don't know why I didn't take a picture when it was lit! Plenty of time to finish quilting a strippy quilt and finish an embroidery of a lavender field...I will take some pictures of them soon.

The light over the reedbed in the Conwy RSPB reserve, actually a storm was on the way but we managed to hide in a bird hide from the rain before hurtling back to the safety of the visitor centre and a nice warm cup of tea.

The little church at Beddgelert, the countryside looks so different at this time of year but every bit as beautiful as it was in the summer.

Walk by the River Glaslyn and you will feel renewed and at peace. Hardly any walkers or tourists about......heavenly!

A quilt in the making and leaf people

This is the start of a quilt top that I am making for my Mother for Christmas this year. She has asked for another quilt as they have moved into a flat this year and the colours are greenish/blue in their new bedroom. She hasn't seen the fabrics I have chosen and wants it to be a surprise on Christmas day ( luckily she doesn't look on blogs and doesn't know I blog so it should be a secret).
The idea for this top came from a Kaffe Fassett book I bought a few weeks ago and I have used a few Rowan fabric in it too. The fabric with lace bobbins on it is to denote my Mums love of lace making and the fairies because she loves them too!

These little leaf people are an idea from someones else's blog ( if anyone has seen something similar please let me know so that I can credit them for their work). Unfortunately I don't remember whose it was. Anyway I went for a walk and picked up the leaves to make these little people...fun aren't they!

Pretty Pumpkins

I'm not a great fan of Halloween or pumpkins and we ignore it in our home, but this afternoon we went for a walk at Kingston Lacey and in a little dell in the garden we came across these pumpkins and gourds which had been laid out along the edges of the path. They were cleverly and attractively positioned, gourds were hanging from the trees, pumpkins by the paths, looking all the more pretty because of the autumnal shades of the leaves lying about.Oranges in 'nests' in the woodland floor, with gourds on the ground behind them.I love this pumpkin!This was growing in a container near the tea room ..... we declined their lovely cakes because we knew that at home there was a birthday cake...for my husbands birthday today.

Born again naturalist......even Spiders!!

I picked this little book up in a charity shop and have been inspired to look at my garden differently. Now I know alot of you who read this are ahead of me here, but I am guilty of noticing the fancy stuff (birds, mammals, dragonfly's, butterfly's) in the garden but ignoring the less glamorous stuff (beetles, spiders,bugs). I know that without them the creatures higher in the food chain wouldn't be here, but I do ignore them....well not any more! I have decided to try to record everything in the garden for the next year and see what I find, it was interesting to read that the so called "wildlife-friendly" plants are just as good as other stuff...have a read of this website www.bugs.group.shef.ac/uk about the BUGS projectof gardens in Sheffield. So, I'm off to find a notebook......

Now anyone who knows me knows that this is a brave photo! I don't do spiders! In fact on night shift a couple of weeks ago another nurse and I found a HUGE one in the ward, neither of us like them so we shut the door to the empty room and even thought about running sellotape along the bottom of the door so it wouldn't come out! Debra and I really shouldn't work together on nights at this time of year as neither of us can remove them!

The ivy was humming with bee's yesterday filling up on a good pre winter feast. Painted Lady butterfly's and Red Admirals filling up too. My husband hates the ivy and would tear it out tomorrow but I plead with him to leave it!
In the evening my daughter and I went to walk the dog and watched this amazing sunset...it really was this colour!

What came home with me from the Knitting & Stitching show..and what's this insect?

Does anyone know what this little insect is? It was on our car yesterday and I can't remember what it is although I have seen one before I'm sure.

As promised here are the bits I bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show last week..........Rowan fabric, I've got 2 quilts to make, one for my mother for Christmas, she has asked for another lap quilt, and one for our Pastor and his wife who are expecting their first baby in January.

More wool than you would know what to do with! I just bought this one but could have got really carried away.

A Rowandean kit of a lavender field, it doesn't look very colourful in the picture but I saw one made up at the show and it was very bright. My friend bought two kits!

Some scraps that I don't know what I will use them for yet but probably to embellish a landscape patchwork.
This is really good silk waste which will embellish a sea scene I think

A book to inspire me, I love Sally Holman's stuff anyway.

There is no special reason to buy a Kaffe Fassett book...but I can't resist his stuff.

That should be enough to keep me busy over the winter months!

A field of poppies...in October!

Last week my better half saw this field of poppies as he went past on his motorbike, so took me off to see it yesterday. It is up on Fontmell Down near Melbury Abbas in north Dorset. It's a very big area and is a huge scarlet splash across the hillside.

They had it on the news this week as of course they shouldn't be flowering in mid October. It seems the farmer ploughed up a field that hadn't been ploughed for years and the latent poppy seeds were given the chance to put on a show. It's a bit like the poppy fields in France in the 1st World War, the ground was suddenly churned up where the trenches were and the poppy's popped up.
Afterwards we went across to the little airfield at Compton Abbas and enjoyed a baguette and a mug of tea and watched the little planes taking off.

If you live near enough do go up and see this field...but be quick, they'll be gone soon! It's a gift when things like this show up, and half an hour sat looking at them is a tonic for the stress filled life!

Knitting and Stitching in London

In a random way my friend Suzie ( and Goaty, seen here on a blue post outside)and I decided to go to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace yesterday. We had never been before but as Susie grew up in the road just behind the Palace she was keen to see the exhibition and to catch up with her Uncle who she hadn't seen for 20 years!
I need to say that the goat in the picture is a member of the team on the Palliative Care unit where Suzie and I work and often goes with staff on their holidays or on days out!...and of course always likes a picture of the occasion. I think this is his first time in cyberspace too!
I left home at 05.20 am and made it to the exhibition at midday, we spent ages in a traffic jam on the M25 all because a lorry driver had forgotten to fill his truck up with diesel and so caused a huge jam, our National Express coach was very delayed because of it. It was a shame as we missed 2 hours and hence didn't get around all the rooms.
Alexandra Palace is a beautiful old building and has plenty of inspiration of it's own. It was worth the hassle to get there.


This life size boat was knitted and all the creatures in the next picture were around it, all knitted too.

See Nemo at the back!What about these colours...I could have seriously overspent......maybe I did!

This is not a drawing but done in thin black thread.

Ohhhhhh, wonderful colours.

But this has to be the most inspiring window, I think I may try to recreate it in patchwork sometime.

Next time I will put some pictures on of what tempted me!

Salem and hidden things in the picture.

This is a very famous Welsh painting called"Salem" painted by Sidney Curnow Vosper in 1908. It hangs on our wall here at home and before that it hung on my Welsh Mother-In-Laws wall as a reminder of her Welsh heritage. It was painted in the tiny Baptist Chapel called Salem in Cefncymera, Llanbedr, near Harlech in North Wales. While we were up in Wales we drove up into the hills to see it.
It is said that you can see the devils face in her shawl ( the nose is the sitting lady's hands) and if you look closely there is a hint of a little girl looking through the window. Click on the picture to get a better look!

When you open the door it is exactly as the painting, the only thing missing is Sian Owen who was the lady standing in the foreground. All the people in the painting were real people except for the seated lady in the red shawl just behind Sian who was a tailors dummy and the head is again Sian Owen in profile! Apparently the little boy, Evan Edward Lloyd was frightened of the dummy and would not go near it.

This is the Chapel from outside, completely unspoilt, no charge to go in, no shop, no tat. What a refreshing change! They used to baptise folk in the pool in the river that runs just below the chapel.


This is another painting by the same artist which also hangs on our wall of the same Sian Owen getting home from market in her kitchen.

Recycling from slate

Really!!!!!

This is beautiful landscape in North Wales but if you look closer you will see all the discarded waste of the slate mines and the long forgotten homes of the workers. As you walk through this place it is eerily quiet, no birds calling or insects humming. 100 years ago it would have been all noise, men shouting, explosions as they blasted the rock, horses and wheels turning.
Anyway, the day before we had been to Penrhyn Castle and as we looked around the servants hall I saw a wonderful pastry board made of local slate, polished and cold. Pastry is so much better when made on cold stone rather than plastic worktops! I really wanted to buy one to take home but couldn't get one for love nor money, we were offered a sign for Nearly £50 which we could use the reverse of...however while walking through all this waste we found a piece that will do just right...for free! It's not polished or beautiful but today I intend to make pastry on it.

D gamely staggered back to the car with the slate muttering about hernias and tyre pressures on the car!

This is a picture of the Ffestiniog train, I just like the way the steam looks in the evening light.