It has been raining this afternoon. This is a rare enough event in this part of Spain to cause much discussion, although this year has been wetter than any other for 72 years. Having lived in Yorkshire for 37 years I keep telling people here that this gentle rain that they get most of the time is nothing to be concerned about 😉 I was actually secretly quite glad that it was raining as otherwise I would have felt as if I should be weeding at the front of the house, or washing my paintwork or some other useful household task.

Instead I spent all afternoon sitting watching Netflix and sewing, finishing off the project we started this morning at my sewing group here. It still feels very naughty to be doing this kind of thing on a school day, I haven’t quite got the hang of this retirement lark meaning I can do anything I like at any time but have had a thoroughly lovely time.

My new sewing group, and the knitting group that are some of the same people are lovely, so welcoming and friendly. We alternate between our own projects and workshops led by one of the group and today we were doing one of my favourite things, making a pincushion. I mentioned previously that I don’t have many left and couldn’t resist this gorgeous design. This is one of the demo versions made by Eileen who led the workshop and the pattern and an instructional video can be found here.

What I love about this is that they can be so easily customised. Eileen’s version had the apron having little pockets for scissors etc as her apron was finished using pinking shears but as I don’t have any I finished mine with lace and left out the pockets.

You can also stitch a little necklace on but I decided to trim the neckline with ric rac instead. All of the material came from my stash, all Liberty fabrics for the coloured sections. You just need some toy stuffing, rice to give it some weight, and a small circle of both felt and card for the base.

A really lovely make, I am so glad that I found this group (through an advert on the local Facebook page) as we have other exciting things planned in the next few months. It also gives me an outlet for other makes as the group do a lot of crafting for charity. I have completed the Jubilee outfit for Luna so will share that with you soon.

Granada was wonderful, I have hundreds of pictures to sort through and then I can do some posts about that. We have three other day trips in the next two weeks as well so I will be able to share lots of lovely Spanish architecture with you over the coming weeks.

This week I also start another creative writing course so I am very much looking forward to that. I am not sure if I will get much writing done until autumn as want to make the most of the time here being outdoors but am looking forward to spending time with more creative people.

I hope that you have all had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend. Whatever you are doing have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.