Good morning from a mainly sunny Yorkshire. It has been good weather the latter part of this week so I have had some nice walks, which has been a good antidote to hours in the Zoomisphere. I think I had 15 hours on Zoom this week so fresh air and a view of the hills is much appreciated.

Plus, I went past the houses of a couple of friends and was able to talk to three more human beings without a screen in the way 🙂  It really is a case of appreciating the little things and seeing other people is a big part of that, at least seeing them from the neck down rather than a screen full of just heads!

As well as some embroidery and block making I have been keeping myself entertained with jigsaws. I normally do them on holiday in Spain and buy those from the charity shop there so just before lockdown I got a couple from our local charity shop. I chose ones that I thought would be too difficult for children so have been working on this for the last 6 weeks.

As you can see it is very slow going, I placed 7 pieces last week as the colours are all the same now with little to distinguish the shapes. I will keep going but don’t expect to complete it any time soon.

I have also been looking on Ebay for other puzzles and discovered the joy of Gibsons’ puzzles. They have a lot of vintage art designs and I was lucky enough to get this one delivered on Friday.

I have chosen puzzles that are themed to things that I love doing so am really enjoying this haberdashers’ shop. I am longing to be able to go back to my real life haberdashers and hope that they will be able to survive this situation.

This is my progress since Friday so you can see how much easier it is compared to the other one. I have another expected this week and am planning to buy some more but will have to ration myself to just an hour a day or I will run out of puzzles!

I have completed another block for last week’s  Riley Blake Block Challenge as I thought a fussy cut Economy Block one would be nice. I have had this tea themed fabric in my stash for about 10 years and am going to make this into a mug rug with some hand quilting on it.

This week’s block is the Nine Patch and I used the tutorial from Diary of a Quilter. As I wanted to use different fabrics for each of the squares I opted for the cutting individual squares approach rather than strip piecing so was pleased at the matching of these seams.

I am definitely finding it easier to piece during this challenge which is good. These blocks came together very quickly as well.There is always one block with less perfect matching but that won’t be so obvious from a distance 🙂

I have also finished the embroidery on the little camper applique. I just have the backing to sew now.

I have trimmed the edges of the fabric and just glued them into the hoop with fabric glue and have stuck some white felt on the back which I am whip stitching to the fabric.

I really love how this turned out and would like to make another one for my future camper van. Especially the little flags, they are so cute!

The design is free from Flamingo Toes here. I have also discovered that she has lots of other free hoop art designs and free quilt designs for blog followers at her page here.

This one above is particularly appropriate for this current situation, I am very, very grateful for a lovely home to be able to stay in, safe, secure and comfortable, which is surrounded by beautiful countryside and with very good friends to support me.Photo from Flamingo Toes website.

I am still enjoying my online courses as well, this week’s ones have been on the history of textile mills and the history of the book. One of my retirement ambitions is to do more creative writing, and one of the themes I want to write about is about the mills around here, so once the doctoral rewrites are finished in June I am going to spend some of my staycation doing research for that.

I hope that you are all ok, not only in physical health but in mental health as well, as this situation and being in lockdown continues it is more important than ever that we can all stay focused on positive things and I hope that you are all finding things to do that bring you pleasure as well as help you fill hours or give you respite from work.

The irony of being a teacher working from home is that people sometimes assume that we are doing nothing, when actually I have never been so busy with all the additional meetings and student support. It is good to find off screen things that bring a sense of normal and both rest my eyes and stretch out the rest of me.

Take care as always, stay safe, stay positive and thanks for visiting.