Bits and Bobs

We don't get may quilting related functions in this part of the world, so whenever there's news of anything interesting happening its always good for a visit.

 Last week there was a sewing and patchwork 'Troc' advertised in nearby Pontivy , so off we went to have a look.  In the main the items on sale were antique Breton traditional dress items and beautiful handmade lace, so lovely to look at but well out of my budget I'm afraid!

As is usual at these very infrequent events, photos were a bit difficult because of the crowds, but I managed to snap these lovely embroidered bags

 these wonderful vintage head forms, which I would dearly love to own, but at 150 euros each - well!!

and what every well dressed woman should be wearing!

Ooh La La!!    (wish Blogger hadn't turned the pic!)

I also managed some Moda and vintage Laura Ashley FQs from the two patchwork stalls at the sale, so the afternoon wasn't totally wasted !

I'm still trying to keep up with my own target of one UFO a month to make some kind of dent in the 'drawer', and May's finish is a small  & easy, but bright and cheerful baby quilt. Made from 2 Moda Freebird charm packs plus yardage and on its way to the family's newest member, Daisy, born 22 March.  A little late I know,  but at least it'll get to her before she leaves for Uni :-)

Blogger's Quilt Festival : Spring 2011

My entry this Spring has to be the Pineapple Quilt that was finished not so long ago

All the blocks were traditionally pieced from 1 1/2 inch strips and it seemed that I spent more time cutting and pressing that I actually did sewing!

This quilt was really a case of make a few blocks then walk away until the next urge to carry on grabbed me, so it was some time in the making.  It is also the biggest quilt I've attempted to machine quilt, which again was a slow process!

But in spite of all the scorched fingers, aching shoulders and temper tantrums - I am glad that I stuck at it as I now have a lovely quilt!

Thanks to Amy for giving up her time to organise this event once again  !

Back Again .....

... from what must be the shortest break from blogging ever(!) , but how can I possibly take a break with two very important quiltie happenings this weekend ?

First,today is Sue's Christmas Quilt A Long , so why not come along and join in the fun ?

Secondly, its Blogger's Quilt Festival time again over at Amy's and no way should anyone miss this ! Under the rules I 'll have to blog about my entry in a seperate post, so not one, but two post today !

What's happening to the redecorating - well, that can wait another couple of days I'm sure :-)

Taking A Break

Life is very boring at the moment with most of my time being spent catching up on chores.  The garden is looking good now, but all this sunshine is showing up the tired paintwork so - dust covers on the Bernina and camera and time to get on with some long overdue redecorating!

Will be back when things settle back to normal I'm sure !

Been Strippin' !

String Tumblers from Mary Johnson's pattern , one more for the UFO drawer :-)

Not a brilliant photo, but it's blowing a gale at the moment and it's impossible trying to keep the top flat, and the pastel colours haven't come out too well in the sunshine - but you get the idea!

Something Quilty.....

At last!

Its been a very long time since I wrote about something sewing related, in fact, it's been a long time since I did any sewing (!) so its good to be able to show a finish

Disappearing 9 Patch all done and dusted at last and just in time for its first birthday!  This brings my total of finishes for Myra's PhD Challenge to 4 out of 6.  Don't know if I'm going to get all 6 done, as I am so far behind after the last couple of weeks' layoff, but there's still another few weeks left so who knows !

I hope you're all having as glorious an Easter holiday as we are in Brittany - the wall to wall sunshine, high temperatures and cloudless blue skies have been around for almost 2 weeks now and its just so enjoyable!

This kind of weather has meant lots of chances to spend time with friends over the Easter weekend - a picnic by the river on Friday, morning coffee under a lilac tree yesterday, BBQ in the garden today and afternoon tea planned for tomorrow - another reason my quilting is lagging behind :-)

The sunshine is bringing the garden to life at full speed now, azaleas in full bloom and peonies bowing their heads from the sheer weight of the flowers !  The clematis are full of buds and a promise of things to come and any day now we'll have delphiniums! 

Don't you just love the changing of the seasons!

First Rose

Proof indeed of our most unusually hot weather - not that I'm complaining - but we've never had roses in the garden this early in the year !

Cherry Blosom Time

In the garden

and wild cherry along the roadside !

We are having the most glorious weather with clear blue skies and temperatures in the high 20s to low 30s.  Long may it continue, but I just hope we don't have to pay for it later on :-)

Meet my Grandson...........

 who has spent most of his weekends since quite a young age doing  this

in all kinds of weather

with many endings like this

and collecting lots of these along the way!

Now almost 16, he has been 'spotted' by a well known F1 team and has been offered a place in their stable of young drivers!  A wonderful chance for him to follow a career in motor sports, which he is passionate about, and we are so very proud of him!

Well done , Bean, and may all your dreams come true !!

Ooops!

Did you notice today's deliberate mistake?  Well, I managed to post with just this photo.....

 .....instead of saving it as a draft ! Sue spotted it and luckily was kind enough to leave a comment which made me realise what I had done - thank you Sue!  That'll teach me to pay more attention when I am 'clicking' :-)

As you will have guessed, my Pineapple quilt is finished.  I'd just put the last couple of stitches into finishing the binding before the wrist kicked in so at least I have one finish for March, but that's going to be it for the rest of the month.  Getting to the end of this one has been very slow and perhaps not helped by what was building up in my wrist and maybe all the pulling and pushing during the quilting didn't help matters either, who knows!  Whatever the problems though I think its been worth the struggle.

If you have a moment pop along and have a look at Sue's blog and read about the amazing new book she has written - I promise you won't be disappointed !

Still Here!

Update on the wrist is that - wait for it - I have gout! Well, a form of gout in as much as the problem is a build up of  crystals in the joint causing restricted movement and inflammation. Caused by a build up of uric acid in the body, these crystals can apparently attack any joint, not just the feet, and can also affect the kidneys, hence kidney stones.

The good news is that the pain is now bearable, the swelling has gone down and hopefully the crystals can be dispersed with medication.  Bad news is that I can't use my hand properly without the support, and this coupled with instructions to 'rest' the joint means still no sewing, but in comparison with all the other problems happening around the world, things aren't too bad really.

Glorious Spring sunshine has meant that even though my quilting passion can't be fed at least my other favourite pastime, walking, is keeping me sane :-)

Disaster !

Seems like the pains I've been complaining about in my wrists , the left one in particular, when quilting over the last couple of weeks, were something more sinister than just the usual arthritic aches and pains .

My left wrist has been getting progressively more painful over the last 2-3 days and when I woke got this morning, after a very disturbed night,my wrist was badly swollen , my hand curled up like a claw and  I was unable to open it!

An early emergency appointment with the GP resulted in a very painful exam, what felt like at least a litre of blood samples,  a very stinging jab in the rear end (!) to help with the pain, and my left wrist strapped up in one of  these

Mine is actually quite a fetching blue, this photo is from an advert,  as  I just can't manage to snap one handed - typing is difficult enough :-)

I've spent most of the day in a drug-enduced fug, but the pain has improved a lot. X-rays first thing tomorrow morning if the swelling has gone down enough, then back to the GP for all the results. In the meantime, please keep everything crossed that it is a short term condition , as the last thing I want to hear is that I won't be able to use my hand for weeks!!

Weather Check

We have had the most glorious weather over this last week  - lovely sunny days but keeping a bit cold thanks to the North wind that's been blowing around the place.  Today though the wind has dropped and this afternoon it feels almost like Summer with temperatures around 14 C, positively T-shirt weather don't you think :-)

All around us Spring is working hard - everywhere you look there are clumps of daffodils

On banks, under trees and along the verges, and nestling not too far away some shy primroses

All the hedgerows are starting to bloom

and then there's forsythia in our neighbour's garden

Isn't this such a lovely stand of trees ?

Don't know what these fellows were up to,but there were rather a lot of them -  looking for lunch maybe ?

Not the clearest photo by any means, but it was a bit of a challenge trying to snap a flock of whirling birds!

So better days are definitely on the way, but before getting all excited about it and loosing the thermal undies - this is what we woke up to first thing this morning

A little reminder that Winter is still lurking there in the background after all!!

Dydd Gwyl Dewi

St David's Day, 1st March, a day of celebration for all sons and daughters of Wales no matter where they have wandered!

Isn't it strange that although many have travelled the globe throughout the ages and settled far and wide, 'home' is always 'home' with a special place in ours hearts and minds, and this family is no exception!

The house is full of bunches of daffodils, we are having leek soup with fresh French bread for lunch and tonight dinner with Welsh friends with cawl  and  'teisen lap' on the menu!  Lots of chat, laughter and 'hiraeth' guaranteed, and who knows maybe even a little singing :-)

Whilst  getting  links from Google, I came across a very good site about Wales if you're interested.  In case you don't have the time to visit,I thought these few facts were quite interesting. Whether they are all true or not I'll leave to better minds than mine to decide !

* The Captain of "The Mayflower" was born in Wales

* The world's first working steam locomotive ran on a nine mile stretch of track at Merthyr Tydfil, Wales in 1804. Richard Trevithick's four wheel engine hauled ten tons of iron and 70 people before the track plates broke under the weight !


* St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, was Welsh by birth (according to legend) !
( Patrick was born and was subsequently kidnapped from Banwen, Wales. - our own Patron is St. David )

* Mount Everest was named after a Brecon man !

*The first game of lawn tennis was played in 1873 at Nantclwyd Hall, Clwyd, North Wales !

* A Welsh mathematician, from Tenby, invented the "equals" sign =

* The first place of Christian worship in U.K. was Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales and similarly the first UK Cathedral was St. David's, Pembrokeshire, Wales

* The Welsh invented the longbow - the world's first armour piercing weapon.Welsh longbow men were feared throughout Europe in the Middle Ages.

* The northern hemisphere's longest place name is located on the Isle of Anglesey, northern Wales.The town is called:

 Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

* Up to half the signatories to the U.S. Declaration of Independence had Welsh ancestry, including Thomas Jefferson !

One last item that isn't mentioned on the website is that Wales gave us
'Myfanwy' , the one of greatest love song ever written in my opinion, and it always brings a lump to my throat.

February Update

Being away from home means not a great deal has been done on the sewing side of life.

Quilting the Pineapple top has taken a great deal longer than I thought it would, not only because of my wanderings, but it also because it has become a battle of wills between me and the quilt top!!  Until now I seem to have been the loser, but finally I can see an end to it all!  The sheer size of the quilt has made it almost impossible to feed through the throat of my machine as most of the quilting has been on the diagonal, and all the pulling and tugging causes the arthritis in my hands to flare up, so it's been a very slow process!

I think that perhaps 'straight lines' was not the most intellegent choice of quilting for something this size as I've ended up with quite a lot of  rather wonky lines , but they are my wonky lines and.......they are all finished ! Just the borders left to do so hopefully it'll be done in next couple of days and then there'll only be a trillion or so threads to bury and the binding to get on with!

All things considered, my target of one finish a month was disappearing fast,so I took some time out and finished another  UFO -  small yes, but at least I have a finish for February :-)

My mini quilt version of  Kelly's Flower Garden Pillow.

You can find the tutorial on Kelly's blog if you're interested.Can't remember how long this one has been hiding in the cupboard, but the date on the tute will give you some idea:-)

I'm also adding a couple more items to Myra's PhD Challenge as I need to tackle something smaller and easier to finish in March after  all the push and shove lately, so, remember this post ?  Well, not long after, DGD decided that the bedroom was not to her liking and it changed it to pink!  D9P really did  disappear into the cupboard and there it has stayed. I'm hoping to finish it in the next couple of weeks as its on a promise to Project Linus! 

Next it's to do something with these - Soot & Ashes by Cheri

I did finish all 15 blocks, put them together as per the instructions, didn't like it, so I took them apart - as one does!  Time they went back together again I think!!

Been A-wanderin'

But I'm back now!

I'm afraid I've had a touch of February-itis and enough of the grey, dismal weather that's the main cause of it, so we've been across to the UK to annoy as many of our children as we possibly could :-)

Seeing the grandchildren is always a pleasure as is spending lots of money ,until the bank statement arrives that is, but, as always, its good to be back in our own home.

The grey dismal weather is still lurking unfortunately, but Spring is trying hard to take charge.  Temperatures seem a lot milder, even the rain feels warmer (!) and look what is hapening in the garden!

Beautiful 'Lambs Tails' catkins dancing around on the Knarled Hazel bush

A few shy Camellias peeping through, and, just in time for St David's Day

Miniature daffodils nestling among the new Geranium leaves  - better days must be on the way don't you think?

Mug Rug Swap

Yesterday my Mug Rugs arrived from my partner Tessa Mc Ardle (no Blog) in South Australia - didn't I do well? 

I have to show you the backs as well, as they are just as pretty as the fronts

Tessa sent other goodies too

A lovely sewing themed card , a notepad, bookmark and even a 'cup' of coffee - how good is that !  Thank you Tessa,I love the mug rugs -  you have been very generous!

Thanks also to Michele for organising the swap!