Another Coincidence!

It's been a very bitty week this week ,taken up with what seemed to be one long hospital appointment - 2 for me and one check-up for DH! The good news is that my lung function tests were OK, but the (not too) bad news is that they need to look a little further into a possible sleep/breathing disorder which might be causing my lack of energy and constant tiredness , so I am off to the local hospital next week to spend some time in the 'Sleep Clinic'. This is one that made me smile - as who can ever sleep in hospital !!!

As a result very little has been achieved on the sewing side of life other than a little more progress on the Holiday Swap mini, which I can't show yet. I did however get to the LQS yesterday and found this on their sale table for half price !



I haven't had a really good look at it yet, but like what I have seen so far , and there's certainly a good story behind it all ! Then look what arrived in today's post , all this lovely reproduction fabric !

Now, don't you think someone is try to tell me something !!!

Finishes

November is well on the way to becoming a very full month (and we're not even there yet!!) with hospital check-ups, Christmas 'workshops', visits to and from friends, birthdays, wedding anniversary (!) etc, etc . Last week was been spent trying to get some of my commitments for October and November finished, so - ALQS2 mini wrapped and ready to post tomorrow, no photo yet until it arrives at ...?? October FPC for Brigitte also going off tomorrow and Miniature Booty Holiday Swap mini well under way, just a little tweaking to be done, so the pressure is off that too!



One other finish, early this time (!) is my third and final Nature Challenge journal quilt, not due until November, but at least now I won't be panicking about being late! The final theme is 'Nature Close Up' and I've chosen to use the chestnut tree . Brittany has a profusion of trees and certainly the sweet chestnut is one of the more common hardwoods in my area !



At the bottom of our garden this morning - chestnut trees








another chestnut tree

and just for a bit of variety, a chestnut tree and an old bread oven (now renovated!)

So my JQ for November is - a chestnut leaf !!!

I played with transfer paints for the background fabric, and as normal, didn't quite know what would appear when I removed the papers, but it has worked quite well . Not a lot of quilting, just some outlining of the 'leaf' & 'cloud' shapes that I could see in the colours, and I am not sure about binding it, but overall , (IMHO !!) the effect is that of autumnal day showing the kind of skies that we've been seeing lately thanks to our late Indian Summer.

I've really enjoyed taking part in this , it's allowed me to try a couple of techniques that I probably would still be 'thinking' about, so a big 'Thank You' to Suzanne for coming up with the idea for the challenge and also for letting me play along !!

Apology!

I feel I owe an apology to Kathie for not remembering that it was her beautiful Tumbler quilt that inspired me to make mine. Well, I did know , but you know how it is sometimes when you are convinced of something but no matter what you do, you can't confirm it - well, that's what happened to me this time !

Not only does Kathie make incredible 'antique' quilts ,which I admire immensely, but she was also very supportive to me when I was struggling along with my Civil War Diary blocks (really need to get back to them !!!) and I am very embarrassed that I couldn't remember her Blog's name , even though I have it bookmarked - beat that for a senior moment !!

Kathie, thank you for stopping by , leaving a comment and solving the mystery for me !!!

Scrap Happy !

I really love scrappy quilts! I am constantly amazed at the way that fabric 'allsorts' come together to make something useful and pleasing to the eye! I have several other reasons for this addiction not the least being that scrappies are just so forgiving about all my mistakes (not that quilters make mistakes, we just 'experiment' don't we !!) The other big reason is that most of my fabric is bought on line and with the best will in the world, when it arrives it is not always what I'd envisaged - so for me scrappy is great for using up all these unfortunate buys !!



Having said all that, it'll come as no big surpise that I am a big fan of Bonnie Hunter and her quilts, not to mention her generosity in sharing her knowledge & talent so freely, so once again I
have started one of Bonnie's quilts .

Just a couple of finished blocks, but already the top is taking shape-well, it would be if Blogger stopped turning the photos !!!

As well as a 'start' I also have a 'finish' to show - my Tumbler Block quilt !!





I saw this quilt on a blog (can't remember who's unfortuately, but it was lovely!) and thought it was something I'd like to try. It has taken a little while :-) but finished it is - at last !!



Our weather continues to be glorious,lots of sunshine and blue skies, albeit a little cool after very frosty mornings, but this sunshine will surely help to shorten our Winter, which is looming on the horizon ! I am keeping my fingers crossed that it stays dry & fine at least until Friday, as we are off to Jersey on a day trip to do some 'British' shopping for all the bits and pieces that we can't buy in France (isn't it strange how we cling to some things !!) and guess what - St Hellier's actually boasts 2 quilting shops, so not prizes for guessing where I'll be spending my time!!!!! The downside is that the ferry leaves early in the moning and as we have to be at the ferry port 1 hour before departure, it's going to be a morning when we are up BEFORE the chickens !!!

Nature Journal Quilt Challenge - Month 2

This month's challenge is 'your favourite season' and for me its just got to be Spring !!!


After all the gloom of Winter I don't think there is anything better to lift your spirits than a bunch of golden daffodils, but perhaps I am biased being a Welsh'man' !! I love all the Spring flowers from the dainty snowdrops, which are usually the first visitors of the season ,to the very showy azaleas that bring a burst of flashy colour to the flower beds later on . A couple more of my personnal favourites are primroses and cowslips, both of which peep out in the shadier depths of my garden . So , as I said, no contest as to what is my favourite season, as for me Spring means a fresh, new start filled with bright and cheerful colours !






I 've been wanting to try out Tonya's letters for a while now, and this seemed like a good project to start on , and I must say I'm quite pleased with it! Admittedly the letters are a bit squashy, but it was difficult trying to get them to fit onto a JQ ! What I should have done (isn't hindsight a wonderful gift !) was photograph the letters before I chopped them down as they looked better then. DH is very taken with the stemless daffodils, ( praise indeed !) ,and I haven't the heart to tell him that there wasn't enough room for stems !!


My ALQS2 quilt is finished and ready to to go to its new home once I've managed to find some 'goodies' to send with it - here's a little corner of it !



October birthday block is also finished and ready to post tomorrow, so that only leaves me with a FPC for Brigitte to complete and that'll be me done with swaps for this month! Perhaps now I can find the time to quilt a couple of the UFOs lurking around the place !!

Coincidences ?

Have you ever wondered about the way things happen sometimes ? I was really dreading Saturday morning and was winding myself up into a terrible tizz about things when DH appeared in the doorway clutching several packages from the Postie - now I knew that a couple of items were en route but what were the chances of three arriving on the same day ?

In no particular order (!)

From Linda in Canada, probably my 'oldest' cyber friend , a really fine tote bag from her Quilt Guild's last show plus a couple of pins. A lovely gift and the pins are my very first !! Thank You Linda !

From Annette in the UK a set of Patsy Thompson free motion quilting DVDs she'd picked up for me - no more excuses for not trying something other than stippling now! Thank You Annette!

Finally, from Brigitte here in Angers , a wonderful little quilt! Merci beaucoup, Brigitte !

So thanks to these three lovely ladies from various parts of the world , and whom I have never met , my day turned around completely ! Isn't life is full of nice ,as well as nasty, surprises !!

There is a story behind my quilt from Brigitte, which I must tell you as it demonstrates to me , yet again, the limitless generousity of all the quilters who have touched my life !

If you haven't visited Brigitte's Flickr site, then you are in for a treat when you do, as she really is a talented seamstress .Well, I was having a peep to see what she'd been up to when I spied the little quilt, which captured my fancy straight away as it represents the 4 national emblems of the British Isles !

I wrote and asked Brigitte if she could tell me where she'd got the pattern from, but unfortunately it turned out that the pattern was no more, but she would send it along to me for me to see close up, and maybe I could work from there. That offer in itself was generous, but you can imagine my surprise and utter delight when it arrived and I found a note from Brigitte saying that there was no need to return it as she would like me to accept it as a gift from her ! I wish you could see the real thing - it is a little gem and the hand quilting is amazing , I really don't know how she could bear to part with it, but I will certainly treasure it!!

Thank You!

Just a very short message to say 'Thank You' to the wonderful people who have either left comments on the Blog or e-mailed me privately after my last post. I very much appreciate your kind thoughts , they have been a great comfort to me - Thank You all again !

A Very Sad Day

This is the day I have been dreading for some while now - my lovely mare Megan is no longer with me. At 26, old age has unfortunately taken its course, and today I had to make a very difficult decision.

To say that I will miss her doesn't begin to describe how I feel, she has been my friend and a big part of my life for over 15 years.

Don't think you'll hear much from me for a little while , but I am sure you'll understand

It's Magic!

Do you believe in magic ? Well, I didn't until today - at least 'magic' is the only word I can think of at the moment for what has happened !

Continuing the story of our 'card fraud', today we received our replacement cards from A Bank
with an instruction to contact them ASAP to activate the account. I was connect to a very helpful young lady, who handled the call very efficiently and with the minimum of fuss AND no buzz words or OK phrases!!

Whilst talking to her I asked her if she would check our last account and tell me if there had been any more unauthorised activity , as I had been having nightmares about more spending that we would have to prove wasn't ours. She asked that I tell her which transactions I thought were unauthorised so - I listed the information we had been given a week ago concerning the 3 debits


Now remember the whole performance we had , zillions of phone calls over 2 days, cards & account frozen, threats of accountability unless we could prove otherwise, the inconvenience of no credit card waiting for the replacement (not long I know, but inconvenient nevertheless), worrying ourselves silly that this could maybe end up as a bigger problem, etc, etc.

You can imagine how I felt then when I was told that the account was clear, there were NO unauthorised transaction on the account !! Speechless is not the word to describe it, and certainly not something that happens to me very often!! When I recovered myself (!!) I asked where the debits had gone, who had removed them, why hadn't we been told !!!!!


Obviously she didn't have that information and said she would get the card fraud people to contact us urgently to tell us what was going on - that was 7 hours ago and we still don't have a clue what has been happening to OUR account!!

So you see MAGIC is the only explanation I can come up with !!

In this age of easy and virtually instant communication, I do feel a quick phone call or e-mail to put us at ease would not have gone amiss - so now, as well as believing in magic I want to believe in dreams coming true!!