Month: June 2018

What a difference a year makes ….

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This time last year I was posting about how very hot Tatton was and we hid under the trees from the heat all day on Sunday. Well this year we had more extreme weather of another sort.

Most of the weekend was dry and sunny, except for the 30 minutes of the battle on Saturday. We had some rain first thing then it cleared up and we had a lovely day, got ready for the battle at 4pm and marched on to the battlefield.

Then the heavens opened. It was the worst rain we have ever had and we were literally soaked to the skin within about 10 minutes. We also had freezing hail for a few minutes as well. I am just by the flag in this picture.

Tatton 2018 - battle 1

 

The guys in armour did not feel it as much as we did in our dresses, the fabric was so difficult to walk in soaking wet and sticking to our legs.

Tatton - battle 5

Tatton 2018 - battle 4

Tatton 2018 - battle 2

We were marshalling again and this is me in action at the end of the battle when the rain was easing off. I have never been so wet in my life and was very cold by the end.

However we made it back to camp, laughing about what had happened and our good friend Silke took this shot of us as we got to the top of the hill.It does not really show how wet we are but everything was soaked.

Tatton - soaking wet sisters

As another friend said, we are not sugar mice, we will not melt and we had a good laugh about it later. Luckily there was brilliant sunshine for the next two hours and everything dried because guess who had not brought spare clothes for the weekend?

Yes after all those events where I pack lots of everything just in case I only had a spare shift and no spare dress and Ellie only had one of each. We will be going to the next event with a change of clothes 🙂

We have just come back from a wonderful few days in the Lake District, had camera problems again so am waiting on pictures from Ellie to show you but it was stunning and we loved it. I am off to Spain tomorrow for 12 days of doing very little, am planning on lots of reading and not doing any thinking about work or marking and enjoying the sun.

Hope you have a nice couple of weeks, take care, thanks for visiting and see you soon.

 

Finding ways not to make flying geese!

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To paraphrase Thomas Edison I didn’t exactly fail this weekend, I just found out one way not to make flying geese for a Dutchman’s Puzzle block.

Dutchman's puzzle 1

I had looked up the block in one of my quilt books but although it said the finished blocks were 6″ square when cutting out the triangles they were far too big so I thought if I halved them that would work.

Turns out that means that when you join them all together you loose the points of your geese. Oh well, it still looks pretty and I can pretend to have invented a new block.

I have found another way of doing it which although looks a little weird at first appears to be working so started another block this afternoon.

With the left over triangles I made some pinwheel blocks, the smaller ones is a result of not matching the centre correctly so having to take it apart and recut it all, resulting in a mini version. It still looks good though and at least I have some points on these triangles 😉 I love the brighter colours in these ones.

Pinwheel block 1

Pinwheel block 2

It has been a very lovely weekend. Ellie came up to spend some time with us from Thursday so we went to the cinema to see the new Jurassic Park movie, (I love those movies and this one was very good).

We also did some gardening replacing all of my pots and hanging baskets with new flowers which I am hoping the sheep are not going to eat.On Saturday we managed to have our 8th BBQ of the year!

I spent two whole days in the craft room. As well as the blocks I have made myself a new shift for re-enactment, just have the hems and seam finishing to do in time for the Tatton event this coming weekend.Then Ellie and I go to the Lake District for a few days camping which will be fun, lots of National Trust houses to visit and hopefully some beautiful views.

Hope that you have all had a lovely weekend and have a nice week ahead.Thanks for visiting and take care.

Christmas gift stitching

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I am working on a couple of Christmas presents at the moment, both using Jenny of Elefantz stitching designs.

The first one is a design from the Stitchery Club Nov 2016, this is another version of the one I stitched a few weeks ago while in Spain which I made into a pouch for me and I loved it so much I wanted to stitch it again.

Elefantanz flower circle 1

I have adapted the design to be a full circle of flowers by copying a couple of motifs from other parts of the circle.I can’t find the design for sale at present on Jenny’s site.

I used a Liberty fabric for the hexagon and my favourite Silk Mill threads for the stitching along with some of my new Caron Waterlilies variegated thread from Sew and Sew.

The other thing I am going to buy if I ever win the Lottery is the entire 700 thread set that is available from the Silk Mill, can you imagine having all of the colours!

This will be a pouch with some contrast Liberty at the bottom and denim for the back similar to the previous one below.

Bird and hexagon pouch 1

The other Jenny design is from the May 2018 Stitchery Club and as soon as I saw this design I knew I would stitch it straight away. It is so unusual and I am looking forward to practising some new stitches while doing it.

ELEFANTZ+stitch+sampler+cover

Picture above from Jenny’s Craftsy page where you can buy this design. This will become a project wallet to store embroidery.

At Jenny’s suggestion I trace my embroidery onto the fabric using a brown Zig Millennium pen. I bought three a few years ago from an online art supplier and they are still going strong.I am using a cotton fabric with a white on white background as I tend to do for most of my embroidery.

Elefantz embroidery sampler 3

The stitching covers up all trace of the pen as it is permanent.

Elefantz embroidery sampler 1

What about you, have you started your Christmas crafting yet? I already have 3 ornaments completed with one nearly finished and another 5 of the same design to make.

I hope that you have a lovely weekend ahead, Ellie is coming for a short visit until Saturday lunchtime and I am planning to spend most the rest of it in the craft room, my last weekend here for a while so I will make the most of it. Take care and thanks for visiting.

I do like a good freebie!

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I recently treated myself to a quilt magazine, I used to have subscriptions to three magazines but stopped as I had so many lovely ideas that I didn’t ever get time to make but bought this one because of the free gift of quilter’s graph paper.

Quilt mag

As you know I have been resizing blocks and thought this would help me. It is great as unlike ordinary graph paper it comes in one inch sizing with the option to use different scales. There was also a useful article on how to resize and add the all important seam allowances.

Quilt graph paper 1

I was just going to make some more churn dash blocks but there was an illustration of a Philadelphia block and I thought that looked pretty if quite fiddly in smaller scale. You do know how I love to make tiny things though so I worked out the measurements using my graph paper for a 5″ finished size block.

Quilt graph paper 2

Quilt graph paper 3

Philadelphia block 1

I completed it yesterday and am very pleased, most of the pieces match really well, not easy when some are only 1/2 ” across. This is on the pile of blocks to make into pouches and bags for gifts and Yarndale.

Philadelphia block 2

I am on with another couple of blocks today from one of my books. I have also just discovered this site with free Block of the Day cutting instructions so that  should keep me amused for a while!

I decided to have the complete weekend off work despite being away for the last two weekends as well. I have marked 142 assignments in the last 5 weeks and have 22 more to go but am feeling a little brain dead so thought a weekend in the craft room would be good for me. The weather is lovely today so we are making plans for our 6th BBQ of the year!

I have a quiet week ahead with just a few meetings and the marking to finish off so am looking forward to getting that done and then spending some serious time on my doctorate, after I come back from my holiday in Spain 🙂

I do love this time of year, the rhododendrons are in bloom and the sunshine makes everything look lovely. Hope that you are having nice weather where you are.

Take care, see you soon and thanks for visiting.