Saturday 21 April 2012

'Twas the Night by JBW for April.

Did you remember its IHSW and  I have spent the time finishing this JBW 'Twas the Night #3
Not a great picture but I think you can see that it is three charts all stitched together. I thought one by itself was too small for what I want it for.
Stitched on 28C antique white linen with the recommended DMC threads.its backed with red fabric and edged with red ric-rak.
So now  I have four Christmas ornies completed, I am feeling very pleased with myself.
This evening I am taking my Summer Celtic Lady out of my basket.
Happy Stitching
Chris xx

Thursday 19 April 2012

Late post for WIPocalyse progress.

Although it might look as though I haven't stitched that much on this Chatelaine, Convent Herbal Garden, this took me a few evenings.  I am beginning to like this more as it grows. The gold thread brightens what I thought were quite dull colours.
  
Too many other things going on, we have been away for two long weekends,  so I had only had time to stitch a little on this. So this Rosemond Manor Quakers and Quilts will be my priority the rest of this month.

And this was my small for April.. Its a needle roll by Down Sunshine Lane Pastel Hearts.
Although I used Crescent threads they weren't the recommended colours as I wanted to use up what I have in my stash..

This was gifted to me by Elisa so if anyone would like this chart, please say and I 'll post to you.
I am happily stitching my April Christmas ornie and another quilt.. busy, busy, busy!
Happy Stitching all.
Chris xx

Monday 16 April 2012

My Spring garden

I am so pleased with how my garden is growing after the years of neglect it has while the house was leased.
DH widened this border for me last autumn and I planted it with daffodil and tulip bulbs, wall flowers, polyanthas, pansies, viola and stocks. The forget-me-nots are self seeded and very pretty.
All survived the snow in February and now are filling the border with colour.
I love those deep purple and cream tulips.

I never used to plant tulips in the past, but saw them at a garden we visited a few years ago and now I love them. These were a mix of red with the petals of the yellow ones tinged with red bought as a pack.
Its worth buying good quality bulbs as these show.

And this is the north side of my garden showing the red camellia given to me by a friend for my 60th birthday so it has done well. In the same border are cowslips and primroses which I planted several years ago.
The green house is now full of seedlings and more can be found in the conservatory. I am determined to have a garden full of flowers with lots of colour and interest. Worth all the hard work of weeding the beds and digging out a most pernicious plant, pretty but it was choking my flowers, wild garlic! It has a pretty white bell flower not unlike a blue bell but very invasive and smells like onions!
Roll on the warmer weather I have lots more to plant.
Happy Gardening all you who love it as I do!
Chris xx

Thursday 12 April 2012

Truer colours

Taken in the back garden in the sun gives  truer colours... thank you for all your comments.



It is far from perfect but I worked really hard on this.
Chris xx

Tuesday 10 April 2012

I am so proud..

I have machined sewn my very first double bed size quilt! I bought this fabric in 2001 when I decided to take early retirement. So to keep me from being bored I decided to make a quilt.

I was going to sew it by hand, but after a try at a few blocks I gave up. Since January this year I have been going to a quilting workshop each week and this is my efforts. It is not as blue as the photo looks. The pattern is star and railway fence blocks. I had several goes at the star blocks which are made up of 'flying geese' and I found it really difficult not to sew the blocks losing the points of the star shape!
I got better as I sewed and also my quarter inch seams with practice were more accurate.

But here is my finished effort, some of the top stitching sewing is a little wobbly but I am very pleased with it.
I am more confident to sew another quilt and have the fabric ready to go.
So watch this space!!
Happy stitching all

Chris xx

Thursday 5 April 2012

Two very enjoyable evenings,,

If you are a regular follower of my blog you might have noticed I read more than anything else. I can read a book in a day and night. Yes, I stay awake to do just that if it is a real page turner. I have my favourite authors and when I find an author I like I read everything by that author, until I have had a enough of that storying or style. My latest find is Margaret Leroy; here in Billericay if you order a book from the library on line yourself, there is no charge so I order regularly.
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During March and the beginning April it has been the 12th Essex Book Festival with talks by visiting authors. I had booked to see Patrick Gale, because my reading group had been given the un-proofed version to revue his latest book  ‘A Perfectly Good Man’ and it was good. I loved it,  where as other books I had read by him I found not to my liking..

 His talk, as it was about this latest book was good and he read a section which was wonderful. He is good looking and read perfectly, which I suppose he would as he wrote it! LOL.
 It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. I asked a question about researching his novels and the members of my Reading Group said afterwards, they recognised my voice  although they couldn’t see me, as we were sat right down the front having arrived very early to do just that! But we had been asked to ask questions as our Reading Book was hosting his event!  It was interesting to hear that he wrote his books by writing all each character’s part through to the end! Never heard of that before and he wrote it first by long hand and then typed it up! He even passed around one of his note books of which I had a good look!! I too like to write, although not so much since moving here as there is so many other things I love to do. I didn’t admit I didn’t like his other book, that I had read and had only read the two, where as the other author was Jodi Piccoult, I have read ten of the sixteen books she has written..


Her talk was excellent, she was interesting, animated and full of stories. Her answers to the questions at the end were amazing,  such stories of how she wrote some books and how others impinged on her life. We were certainly entertained. She actually gave examples of wolf howls and had three volunteers to demonstrate the different howls by different members of the wolf pack! Her American accent was lovely to listen to and she too read an excerpt from her book. She is attractive, with long wavy curly hair and slim (damn!!) and writes so well..

And Essex Uni had super campus, we were able to park right near to the lecture hall where it was held. It was full probably about 300 hundred people there.
Two very enjoyable evenings and I am looking forward to next year’s authors.
Hope you too find an author you like and a book that is un-put-a-downable!! LOL
Chris xx

Monday 2 April 2012

Miles of Golden Sands

Each year at this time,  I return to my home town. I go to put flowers on my mother's grave, my two aunt's and my grand parent's..we usually rent a cottage or house but this time, we stayed in a  B&B that accepted pets.. so Nell came too

The B&B over looked Newton Beach which is a mile from the town of Porthcawl, where I was born and grew up.

                                                      Blue Seas B&B
Beach Road
Newton

It was more than just comfortable, great comfy bed, en suite and plenty of hot water for our morning showers, great big soft white towels and great cooked breakfasts. DH enjoyed a full English each morning I had tomato and bacon omlette, beautifully cooked. The bacon was welsh thick cut bacon and very tasty.
Nell loved chasing the ball on the beach and I loved watching!
We met up with my old school friend on friday evening, someone that I have been friends with for 60 years!
And then Sunday we met with DS2 and my DIL, who live in West Wales for a super Sunday dinner in one of the big hotels and then a stroll along the front prom to a cafe where we had coffees and icecreams.
A very nice long weekend, we feel we have had a holiday which indeed we have.
Oh to live by the sea again!

Chris xx

A big thank you to all that accepted the Leibster award, I am just off to read what you have written!