More Glamping

August 23, 2011August 23, 2011 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello there

You may remember last year I did a couple of posts on the art of glamorous camping or glamping – well we have been adding to our stock of glamping gear and have just spent a lovely weekend at the Tribfest Music Festival in North Yorkshire where we had a very sunny and enjoyable weekend listening to lots of different tribute bands. My absolute faves were the Take That tribute band ‘Back for Good’ on Saturday night, I have never seen the real group but these were excellent and I very much enjoyed myself.

We had very good facilities again including the most glamping portaloos ever – of course they still got smelly but this is what they looked like. Sinks and mirrors and pretty pictures on the wall! And inside were real flushing toilets with wooden seats and everything!

My sister bought me some new glamping accessories for my birthday – some wine glass holders that you can use in a field. You just push it into the ground and it provides a very stable holder for your tipple! You may remember that I have previously posted on the little accessories we have for our drinking round the campfire and these are very lovely for when I do not have my little wine glass table. She bought them while on holiday earlier on in the summer, sorry I do not know where from. Here is Ellie modelling them for me while pouring me a little pre-mixed G and T on Friday night while getting ready to have a BBQ.

As befits a sophisticated festival there were lots of lovely outfits and some wonderful fancy dress – one of my faves was the Alice Cooper lookalike on Friday night – you can just see him in the middle of this pic, complete with plastic snake!

I am just about to buy a new tent for next year on the grounds that they are all reduced at the moment, the one we have had for the last 3 years, a Vango Tamor 500, has been great but is starting to show signs of wear and there are a couple of split poles that we have had to patch so we are going to keep that as a reserve, festival tent that kids can use (as in I don’t mind if it comes back even worse for wear) and get another Vango, this time the Icarus 500 which is an updated version. These are great tents for us as they are light weight for taking on the train, sleep 5 so plenty of room for us and all our kit and also have really good bedroom heights so that we can hang our re-enactment clothes up and get dressed in comfort.

I managed to get a good pic of the Seasonal exchange I got when I came back from Spain which was this lovely flower pillow from Lynn. I have put some ribbon on it so that I can hang it with the others in the dining room.

Have not got any other finishes to show – things have been very slow around here what with all the being away and we are away again this weekend at Bolsover Castle for our last re-enactment show of the year.

Hope you all have a lovely week and I will be back again next week with hopefully more pics of sunny camping!

Thanks for visiting.

Photo Scavenger Hunt – July

July 27, 2011July 27, 2011 stitchesoftime18 Comments

Apologies for lack of weekly post – have family staying so have been out and about and very busy so normal service will resume soon!

The pics for this month’s Scavenger Hunt were all taken in a week on our recent holiday to London. I had set myself a goal of trying to get the whole list in one week – some of it was ridiculously easy while other words took a bit of searching but here they are and I hope that you like them!

A flag

Being the capital city there were a fair few Union flags around – it is only called the Union Jack when it is on a ship – but this is one of my fave flag pics – taken at Hampton Court.

A kite

Had to be a bit creative with this one as did not see any but did come across this quote from Mary Poppins in the Disney Store on Oxford Road ….

We are very big Disney fans in our house!

Celebration

Being the capital city there are loads that take place here but thought I would share with you some of the memorabilia available for our latest one – the marriage of Prince William and the gorgeous Catherine Middleton on April 29th. This pic was taken in a little gift shop round the corner from the British Museum on a very rainy day. I did buy a fridge magnet to take a pic of but thought this was a lovely pic as you can just see the reflection of tourists in the rain under an umbrella opposite the shop.

Fields

Again I had to be creative here as there aren’t that many in central London but we were in the theatre district and I saw this poster advertising the musical from one of my favourite films – how many Christmases did I watch this! Do you remember the bit where they fall asleep in the poppy fields?

Flip flops

For when you are feeling particularly patriotic!

Ice cream

This is not actually ice cream but a little selection of takeaway desserts from Marks and Spencer where we bought our in train picnic for on the way back – how cute!

Red, white and blue

Well I really was spoilt for choice here but I came across some fab shoes in a shop in trendy Carnaby Street – here is the patriotic UK version…

and the patriotic US version !

Seashells

Again this took some thinking about but then Ellie pointed out that Ariel the Little Mermaid has a bra made of seashells in the Disney film. When Ellie was little she had a dress like this with a long fish tail which she loved.She is most upset that the Disney Store don’t do adult sizes!

Something that makes you happy (not a person or an animal!)

Well apart from my family and textiles the thing that makes me most happy is travel (if I get to travel with my family and there are textiles I am super happy!). I really love travelling by train especially as I think it is very exciting and though I use the train a lot I never get bored, I love just sitting looking out of the window watching everything go by. I am sure I would be a terrible driver as I am so used to being able to look all around when I am going anywhere and see all the pretty things. So here is a pic of one of the Docklands Light Railway trains that we used, the views from these of the skyscrapers at Canary Wharf were great – you can just see them in the background here.

Stars

There was the most amazing ceiling in the chapel at Hampton Court decorated with stars – I couldn’t take a photo inside but here is a pic from the front of the guide-book.

and then when we bought things from the gift shop the bag had this design on.

Strawberries

Here is Ellie enjoying strawberries and creme fraiche as part of our picnic at Hampton Court.

Stripes

And some lovely pots lined up in the Hampton Court gardens.

I do hope that you have enjoyed my pics – very much looking forward to seeing what other people come up with this month. To see the other Scavenger Hunt pics or to join go to the blog.

July in Yorkshire – and a giveaway winner!

July 17, 2011July 17, 2011 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello there

You may remember a post a while back – April I think when I commented that it was very warm and sunny – warmer than we usually get in April in Yorkshire or even July in Yorkshire, well this was one of those weekends that proved my point.It has been very, very wet for virtually all the weekend. So no garden fettling but I did manage to get a pic of my lovely new clematis blooms during a bit of sun yesterday.

Poor Ellie has been very rained on during her dig – she is down south at the moment doing an archaeological dig at some standing stones as part of her course. She can cope fine with the rain (it’s just like most of the family holidays we have after all!) but unfortunately her lovely new Zandra Rhodes tepee tent that I bought her for Xmas has on its first trip out proved to be not waterproof at all! They have been very flooded so she has had to retreat to her little tent and we will have to be sending that back to the suppliers with a little note when she returns! Apart from that she is enjoying herself and they are hoping for better weather next week.

We need to wish Becky, her friend and future housemate who is also on the dig with her a belated happy birthday, it was her 21st birthday this week so a very, very happy birthday Becky and I hope that you and Gemma liked the pressies Ellie made you and that you liked the sparkly elephant that starred in last month’s Scavenger Hunt.

Becky and her boyfriend Chris have just come back from staying in our house in Spain and they sent me a very wonderful bouquet of flowers to say thanks and a fab card that she got from Moonpig which had loads of their holiday snaps on it – what a brill idea! Thank you very much Becky and Chris, you are most welcome! Look at these lovely blooms – I don’t know what the little multi-flowered ones are but they are so pretty and I love lilies.

I have had a very busy week again including trying to sort out more IT issues (Jacob’s new birthday computer 0 restored wireless network 1) so some success on that front, bizarrely it will connect fine when downstairs but not when in his room, despite the fact that my laptop will – humm! And 2 hours on the phone with technical support could not fix it – it is a good job that I am a woman who knows my ping from my command prompt I tell you! However he is very happy as he has a super new graphics card and all is very pretty and the games work well, and I have regained access to my laptop of an evening (hurrah!).

To offset this I have a bit of fabric fettling in between marking and decorating. Have managed to work out what I am doing with the farm quilt despite a couple of ‘oops I have measured that bit wrong’ setbacks and have now put together all the labels with the spotty sashing – pic below shows 5 of the 12 that make up the quilt top.

Since I took this pic I have added another row of sashing between all the label blocks in a green gingham so it looks very pretty. Am pleased that I have managed to work out the design myself and that I have done all the sashing using joined piecing which I have seen others at quilt group do but had not attempted it before (aren’t you impressed at all these new words I know now, I am, it is like a whole new language!)

I am very much enjoying my adventures in quilting – we have a ‘Sit and Sew’ day next Saturday where as the name suggests we shall spend all day sewing so I hope to have the quilt top done and possibly backed and part quilted as well as it needs to be finished within a few weeks for a birthday gift.

I have also been enjoying finding out more about quilt techniques as I have discovered a brand new resource from a link on a quilty blog. I was reading Tonya’s Lazy Gal Quilting blog and she mentioned the Quilt Show and I have been having great fun watching their videos (from the comfort of my sofa thanks to the newly restored wireless connection!)

I like the way that as well as all of the free stuff when you register you can buy access to the individual shows you like without having to take out a yearly subscription and I think at about £1.50 a show that is very good value as they last an hour and are very informative.I watched a really good one on 1930s quilts the other day and am going to go back later and browse some more.

Last but not least I have picked a winner for the 200th post – using a random number generator which other people have mentioned as good way of picking. I had five comments on the post so numbered them in order and the winner is Number 2 – Lorna (no blog). I am mailing you Lorna to ask you what you would like as your ornie. Thank you to all who commented and I will be having another one in a few months in Nov as that will be my 4th blogaversary!

Well I hope that you have had better weather than we have – my Mum arrives next week for a visit so I am hoping that she will pack some Spanish sun in her case, meanwhile we will look on the bright side – at least I have got out of cutting the front hedge this weekend!

See you next week with hopefully a completed quilt top, thanks for visiting.

London Life Part Two – history and architecture!

July 12, 2011July 13, 2011 stitchesoftime2 Comments

As regular readers will know I love taking pics of architecture (particularly pretty doors and iron work to the bewilderment of my children!) and I had plenty of opportunity in London. We arrived at St Pancras station which is an incredible building, one day would love to depart from here on the Eurostar or the Orient Express as I love train travel and it is a wonderful station, very modern on the inside with lots of shops and cafes (including a champagne bar!) but the outside is the best bit.The web site has a nice little bit on the history of the station with more pics if you are interested.

Edited to add – According to my Google banner today 13th July is the architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott’s 200th birthday – well done Sir for a fine building!

No pretty pics of the British Library which we went to that day – lovely gardens and it is nice inside but too much of a brick block for me. We did see some very lovely things in the Treasures collection including old maps and illuminated manuscripts and they have a very good feature on their website that lets you look at some of these in more detail called ‘Treasures in Full’ and an online gallery called ‘Turning the Pages’.

However the following day was heaven as we went to Hampton Court ! I didn’t realise that the Flower Show was on that week which meant it was very crowded coming home on the train so we stayed and had tea there and caught a later one. Hen House has wonderful post all about the Flower Show – she went a couple of days after us so I didn’t get the chance to bump into her which is probably a good things as the children would have been very embarrassed by me trying to introduce myself to one of my ‘imaginary friends’!

I have wanted to visit for a long, long time because of my fascination with the Tudors, particularly Catherine of Aragon who has always interested me not just for her love of embroidery and allegedly introducing blackwork to England but also because of her story which is such a powerful one and the outcome of it changed so much about English religious culture which again is one of my interests. I have just started re-watching the Tudors from series one and am going to treat myself to series four as I missed most of that when it was shown live (on far too late at night!).

The place did not disappoint and I was also very pleased to find that there was the newer palace of William and Mary from the 18th century behind the Tudor one which I had not realised. I prefer Tudor architecture and decor to Baroque but the gardens and apartments were lovely.Below pics show the outside of their palace and one of the beautiful symmetrical gardens.

This was the really exciting bit though.The pics below show the Clock Court, Tudor Gardens and window in the Great Hall, the ceiling of the Watching Chamber and Henry’s kitchens which fed 1200 people a day when he was there with his retinue.

I think that gold ceiling would make a marvellous inspiration for a goldwork piece!

And there was even more excitement with a very good exhibition about Henry’s early life which we looked at after the main house including paintings of two people you might recognise.

The lovely Catherine of Aragon and her rival Anne Boleyn.

There was a very poignant part of the exhibition detailing all the stillbirths and deaths of Catherine’s children and both her and Anne suffered because of their failure to produce a male heir. It really does make you appreciate what women went through in childbirth and how the status of women has changed thankfully.

We also met the great man Henry the 8th himself with his last wife Kathryn Parr – during the day they had a series of short re-enactments with some actors recreating part of their story and I was lucky enough to get some lovely pics of the in the courtyard.

Fab costume , I do fancy doing Tudor re-enactment myself but would only ever opt to be a lower staus role. I will leave the really fancy stuff to my very talented friend Kat , who by the way has just had her second baby girl – big congrats and welcome! I am sure the baby will be as beautifully dressed for re-enactment as the whole family are. Her Tudor section is here if you want to have a look at the wonderful things she makes.

We later went to the Natural History Museum which Jake loves and they had a dinosaur exhibition which was very good (the sort with the moving ones in!) This building was designed to look like a cathedral to honour of all God’s creations and it is an amazing building . I bought a book on the history of the building and it is made of terracotta not carved stone as I had originally thought and was created by Alfred Waterhouse. More pics and history on this site if you are interested.

There was a bit of modern architecture appreciation as we stayed in Docklands so took another trip to Canary Wharf where we marvelled yet again at how tall the buildings are.

We are having a quiet couple of weeks here now doing some house and garden fettling. I am finding my Makower farm fabric quilt a challenge as I am designing it myself so no pics yet just a lot of moving fabric around and trying not to cut it out wrongly but hopefully I will have some progress on that by the end of the week.

Well this has been a very long post – time for a cup of tea I think!

Hope you all have a lovely week and thanks for visiting.

Photo Scavenger Hunt – June

June 30, 2011July 27, 2011 stitchesoftime13 Comments

Hello everyone – here are my latest pics.

I have mainly themed these round two locations – one is the place where I work as that enabled me to get a lot of the target words covered and the other is our recent trip to Tatton Hall in Cheshire as I was looking for some interesting ways of covering some of the other words.There are also some random ones so I will start with those first.

Farm Animal

My lovely LYS Woolly Minded and Beady Eyed has a new addition , this very cute sheep now resides outside the shop wearing a fetching fancy yarn scarf. He is looking a bit over exposed in this pic as he has nice woolly curls on his back that you can’t really see here.

Elephant

Luckily Ellie brought this home just after we got the words for this month – it is a pressie for one of her friends so I snapped it straight away!

Childhood Memory

This is the first of the pics from Tatton Hall and was part of the displays of vintage toys in the gamekeeper’s cottage. My grandmother was probably the one who taught me to sew as a child as she was very good seamstress and I do remember having a machine when I was young , though not a miniature one like these.

My grandmother used to make most of mine and my sister’s clothes and we were always dressed in matching outfits – I remember one particularly fetching one of tartan kilts and ponchos (luckily I don’t know where the photo evidence for that has gone so you will be spared!) She did used to take me fabric shopping a lot , to the local markets and to a marvellous shop called Gordon Thoday’s which was a huge shop with bolts of material everywhere. Therefore I suspect she is responsible for my fabric addiction – thanks Nana!

Cutlery

Again from Tatton – this box was in the Victorian Kitchen.

Cheese

And this was in the Victorian Parlour laid for high tea with the china cheese server on the table – in the days when cheese all came in the same shape!

Night

This is my little friend Paddy on the right of the pic from our medieval group with a fellow fire juggler. This is part of what we do to entertain ourselves of an evening at an event – along with the campfire and ale (or in my case cider!) Paddy is 11 so he is doing really well at it and was able to produce some great fire circles himself.

Something with your town’s name

This was an easy one as this is where I work , this sign is on the outside of my office wall!

The view right outside your door

And this is the view outside the door of my office, the section of the campus where I work is all the old converted textile mills and this is the old mill chimney in the car park. You can still smell the lanolin in some of the buildings and the canal runs at the back of them.

Architectural Detail

This is my building, the old mills were five or six stories high and made from beautiful Yorkshire stone.

Tree Branches

The canal behind the buildings is lined with trees with seating areas along the canal path and ducks and squirrels which makes it a lovely campus.The building I work in is called Lockside as it is next to the working lock and in the summer lots of canal boats go past.The canal was restored and re-opened about 10 years ago.

Something beginning with Z

I studied at the University as an undergraduate and then this building was called Z Block, I had my Geography lectures in here. I really like the detail on the roof and I am pleased with the reflections of clouds in this pic.

Wheel trim

Another of the set of pics taken at work – lots of cars park on our campus and this one had a very pretty wheel! I think it looks a bit like a quilt pattern.

I do hope you like the pics and look forward to seeing everyone else’s, I will be popping over to Kathy’s blog to do that later and to get the list for next month. We are off to London next week to do some sightseeing so I am hoping to get some of them then.

Thanks as always for visiting.

Malvern Quilt Show

June 12, 2011 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Hello there

I hope that you are all well. I thought I would share with you some of the pics that we took of the quilty loveliness at the Malvern Quilt Show that Ellie and I visited a couple of weeks ago. We got loads of ideas and were very inspired by the designs used and impressed by the level of skills in both the patchwork and the quilting. So much so that I have bought a foot for my machine to enable me to do free motion quilting and will be attempting that over the summer.

Here is a little selection of the ones we really liked – sorry I have misplaced the show guide so cannot tell you who made them but thanks to all those people whose very hard work made the show so good.

Wonderful aren’t they. I was reading Crazy Mom’s blog again last night and she has some really lovely circle quilts on the go at the moment that I may attempt some day. I have done a bit more on my Xmas stained glass throw and cushion covers this week but nothing worth taking pics of – just attaching the batting and doing some very basic quilting round the design. Am thinking about hand quilting some Xmas motifs in the borders so will try that out.

Not a great deal has got done today of any note due to very bad weather, the planned garden fettle and bbq has been postponed due to torrential rain all day (in June I ask you, what is happening?) I hope that the weather is good next weekend as we have a big re-enactment event at Tatton Hall in Cheshire. This is our only big event this year, sadly, so I am hoping for a really good time so please pray for fine weather for us!

Will catch up with you all after that – thank you for visiting.

And relax ………..

June 9, 2011June 9, 2011 stitchesoftime1 Comment

I have just come back from a great week in Spain , I went this time with my lovely friend Kerry who very much enjoyed herself and it is now the end of term so after this week no more teaching . Hopefully I am set for a mellow summer – a lot of marking to be done but I am very much looking forward to the next few months. That is the very nice thing about my job that it is quiet during the best times of the year so that I can get my work – life balance better when the evenings are lighter and the weather nice (though we did return to good old Yorkshire rain which looks set in for the rest of the week!)

Very little crafting was done this week though I did manage to finish a square for Knit in Public Day on Saturday. Lydia from Spun yarn shop here in Huddersfield is having a Knit and Natter on Saturday to sew all of the squares together to make charity blankets – sadly I can’t go as I am teaching but Ellie is going and she has made some squares as well.

Here is mine – the pattern is Moss Stich Diamonds from my Knitters’ Bible book in some left over Sublime yarn.

And these are Ellie’s in garter stitch made from Escape – a lovely variegated wool.

I have also finished another Xmas ornie – a little JBW tree from the Christmas Keepsakes 2 chart from Sew and So that I have backed with pretty red tree fabric, this one I have added seed beads to as well on the tree and all around the edging.

Ellie was busy while I was away – she has used her birthday pressies to make the gorgeous Cath Kidston bag that came with her Sew book and to make some other little bags as well for herself and friends. She says that she is having trouble the straight lines with her quilt but she has made a very good job of the bag – I love the button detail on the side.

Now that I have the batting I am planning to finish off the throws for the sofa soon and am still cracking on with Xmas ornies. Am having a little problem with the pattern for the pink Sublime baby cardi so that is on hold till I can find a correction for the pattern as the instructions for the left front make no sense at all!

I will leave you with a few pics from Spain, the cactuses that I took pics of the last time I went have flowered and here is a lovely door in Oriheula at the cathedral – I could have saved this for the ‘architectural detail’ pic for this month’s scavenger hunt but have many lovely other Oriheula pics to choose from.

We went back to the park in Guardamar where we saw some cute little red squirrels and this time I took some bread for them. They were very tame, here is one letting me feed him with pieces from my hand and a close up of him later playing on a tree.

Hope that you have had a lovely week and are gearing up to Summer. Thanks as always for visiting.

Never too early for Xmas crafting!

May 15, 2011 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hope everyone has had a nice week. I have been getting on well with my Xmas ornie targets for this year – I am aiming to make one new ornie for me a month as well as the usual present ornies and stock for at least one Xmas craft fair. So I will be starting that stock as soon as term finishes at the end of May and I have a bit more time.

So far for me I have finished three JBW stockings (plus a blue one to hang on the conservatory door) and this week completed the JBW Xmas pudding ornie and another one which is taken from a bigger design using blackwork of ivy leaves from one of my old New Stitches magazines. I have made the ivy leaf ornie before for my Project Nepal fundraising but want to re-make a lot of past ornies just for me and this was my demo piece at last week’s WI craft bee. They are both backed with some nice holly fabric from my stash and the pudding one has a great stocking ribbon that I got at the Harrogate show last year.

I am now working on a JBW tree ornie for me. I have put together all of the blocks for my stained glass window Xmas fabric throw with the sashing and this afternoon will do the border which is pieced from all the Xmas fabric used and the backing. Hopefully that will be finished this afternoon as I have been very good and got up early to do the housework and spring clean the cellar!

I am very pleased with the way that it has turned out – I did have a bit of a challenge with the outer sashing as I discovered that the bottom row of blocks were quite a bit smaller than the top row (my inaccurate cutting!) so I had to stretch that row to make it fit but it turned out ok. With the left over block I am going to make a cushion in the same style and have cut out single pieces for a matching cushion. I have also got lots of odd rectangles from cutting the border so thought I would make a small runner for the coffee table so that my room can be very co-ordinated this Xmas.

We had a bit of a show and tell of all the different blocks on Monday at Quilt Group. This is a pic of Davina’s blocks that I took at the workshop which just shows how different the choice of fabric and sashing colour can make the quilt look.

If you go and visit Davina’s blog you can see the pic she took of the original stained glass pattern with solids and black sashing.

I have had a very nice week, very busy at work but I have had a few trips out to visit my students which is always lovely. On Monday I went ‘over the border’ to Nelson in Lancashire. It was a lovely train journey through very beautiful countryside, this is a very historic area full of beautiful hills and moors and lots of industrial heritage – mainly dating from the Victorian era when all the mills were built. Here are a few pics to share with you – the first two are taken at Hebden Bridge station, then there is a view of the hills from the train and the flower was near the college I was visiting.

I hope you have all a nice week ahead. I am very much looking forward to next week as I am going down to visit Ellie in Worcester and we are going to the Malvern Quilt Show ! There may well be some additions to the stash (it would be a shame if there weren’t!) and then I am helping Ellie bring all her stuff back up as she is coming here for the summer this year which is lovely as we can do lots of crafting together.

Thanks for visiting.

A Lovely Week!

May 8, 2011 stitchesoftime8 Comments

Hello again

Hope you have been having a very nice week. I have – filled with lots of lovely crafting and fun with other people while doing it. I only started crafting socially (as in joining groups) about 4 years ago when I joined the Embroiderers’ Guild but now the kids have grown up and I have a lot more free time for me it forms a large part of my social life and I love it! It is so nice seeing what other people are working on and getting advice when you get stuck and having a good laugh (and usually some cake!) while you are at it. This week was a very nice one as I went to two knitting groups, did one session at WI and spent all day yesterday at a Quilt Workshop run by Christine from my quilt group.

First of all though my Spring Exchange for the Seasonal Exchange blog has arrived in the USA so I can show you pics of that.When I was given my partner Lisa’s name I went to look on her blog to see what sort of things she liked making and I saw that she had made this as an exchange piece for her to send off and she mentioned that she liked it so much that she would want to make one for herself in the future so I thought this would be perfect and luckily she is pleased with it.

The design is called Friendship Bird Floss Ring and is from the Jan/Feb issue of Gift of Stitching magazine. It is stitched on evenweave with thread from The Silk Mill. It is the first time I have used the little pearl thread rings which I got from Sew and So.

I have seen on a few people’s blog pics of their smaller stitched items photographed outside on bushes so I thought since this is a bird it would be nice for him to be in a tree so here he is in my garden!

Knitting progress with the pink baby cardi is slow but steady – not helped by the fact that I keep forgetting to do eyelet rows while I am decreasing so I have had to take back quite a few rows!

I have also almost finished my latest Xmas ornie and made a start on another this week as a demo piece for my WI meeting. I have recently joined my local branch of the Women’s Institute which meets monthly with a variety of activities on the programme. This month it was a Craft Bee and I was asked if I would like to demo something so I chose blackwork which turned out to be good choice as no-one had heard of if. There were quite a few cross stitchers who came to my table but some people who had never tried crafts before so we had a fun evening. The pics below show my demo table and a couple of the pieces that beginners did. I used patterns from the Blackwork Archives for the beginners as there are some very good simple designs there that you can download.

The quilt workshop I went to was based on a design called Stained Glass Windows. I forgot to get a picture of the original quilt that Christine had made as a demo but it was made from bold plain colours with black sashing to give the effect of stained glass. We had been asked to bring any fabric from our stash and as I have rather a lot of Xmas fabric (ahem!) rather than buying anything new I decided I would use the workshop to make an Xmas version of the sofa throw WIP.

The quilt design seemed quite complex to start off with (especially for me as I am a little spatially challenged!) as you layer seven 10 inch squares of fabric and cut them all at once into seven different sized rectangles, then you lay them out so that each block has one of each of the seven colours.

You can make any size of quilt by cutting extra sets of seven fabrics. I will probably only use 6 of my 7 blocks for the throw – I may cut out pieces for another block to make 8 blocks once I see how big the 6 are (am hoping to get some more quilting done this afternoon in between hedge cutting and other domestic duties!) Here are the three I got finished yesterday, I decided to use green sashing rather than black as I thought it looked more festive.

I am very pleased with them as it is the first time I have done a sashed block and it wasn’t as hard as I thought. I had lots of help from the others and it was very nice to see all the different colour combinations that people chose and how they turned out.

In cake news this week I have been experimenting with my recipe and have made a different flavour – vanilla with a hint of ginger (Jake approves!) – here are the strawberry and chocolate star topped versions I made for quilt workshop.

Lastly I will leave you with some pics of my neighbours’ very cute cat, Henry, who was climbing in the clematis this week and very kindly posed for me. We don’t have any pets any more – all having died of old age – but Henry comes round a lot and is very friendly.

I just love that last pic – so cute!

Well I hope that you have a lovely week ahead – I am going to be super busy as I am out every night, all social and crafting which is lovely. Thanks as always for visiting and for all the lovely comments! I especially welcome all those new people who have visited through the photo scavenger hunt

Photo Scavenger Hunt – April

May 6, 2011May 6, 2011 stitchesoftime10 Comments

Once again I had great fun with these – trying to interpret some of them in different ways. Most of them were taken on my recent trip to Spain. Hope you like them!

A church

This pic was taken from the boat when we went on our trip to the island of Tabarca and shows the old church which is being restored. I love the contrast of colours between the blue sea and the stones of the buildings.

A cross

Again from Tabarca, this is taken outside the church and is the cross from the top of an old well. I really like this pic – think it is one for printing off and framing.

A sculpture

I did see lots of nice sculptures in Spain as they love public art but then came across this on the beach so thought it was a good one for this category.

A set of keys

I wanted something interesting for this as all my personal keys are very boring them I came across this advert for a cross stitch picture which I think is wonderful so I am using this. The kit is called Keys to the Kingdom from Rosewood Manor Designs and I am using this pic from their website as I have not got around to ordering this yet. I am going to stitch bits of it as greetings cards – I thought they would be lovely for 18th and 21st cards.

An interesting shop name

Not only an interesting shop name but a very lovely shop. This is my LYS in Huddersfield where I go as much as I can for Knit and Natter!

April showers

Back to Tabarca for this one which is interpreted a bit differently. Most of the beaches in Spain have showers where you can rinse yourself off after your stay. Some are just for feet but this is a full size one. So here you have a pic of a shower taken in April!

Breakfast

I have posted pics of breakfast before on my blog and I now I get to do it again without seeming strange. This is my all time fave brekkie which I have for special occasions – scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and bagel – yum yum! I like the way my chilli sauce has formed a heart shape – breakfast with love!

Eggs

Jake found these in a supermarket in Spain – we were there just before Easter so I guess it must be a Spanish tradition. I was going to use them for scrambled eggs then I thought ‘ I wonder what huevos cocidas actually means? ‘, looking at the label – it means boiled eggs so we had them for picnics instead!

Something to do with Shakespeare

This pic was actually taken in March as we went to Stratford for Ellie’s birthday but I thought the fact that we had actually been to Shakespeare’s birthplace was too good to miss. No pics allowed inside so here is a shot of the house.

Something to do with St George’s Day

Again a great one for me as we did a three-day show at Bolsover to celebrate this the other week. My pic of choice from that is a shot of William de Bohun’s beautifully decorated helm resting on its stand after our show. De Bohun himself was looking a little hot after fighting in full armour in very high temperatures!

Something yellow

Again from Spain, these pretty flowers grow wild everywhere, they are all over the beaches and any uncultivated area. I don’t know their proper names, they have very thick fleshy leaves to conserve water and come in pink versions as well.

My camera

Pic taken using mirror in good old blog tradition! My trusty little camera – on its last legs but still taking some lovely pics – what would my blog be without it! It is a Fuji A850, about 2 years old.

ThimbleAnna’s pics can be found here – she’s got a good one for keys and the lists and links to other’s collections are at Kathy’s blog if you want to join in.

Thanks for visiting – see you for more craft updates soon!

Stitches of Time

I have created this blog to share my interest in all forms of stitching, quilting, sewing, knitting, medieval re-enactment and costume making – particularly my love of historical embroidery. I also love travelling,especially when it also involves any of my other interests.

Tag: blogs

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Photo Scavenger Hunt – April