A Gorgeous Giveaway

My friend Eli is having a giveaway to celebrate both her 40th Birthday and her blog's 2nd birthday. Do go and visit her - she is the most talented person and her blog is lovely.

Manic!

Just a sneak preview of one of the wonderful quilts I saw yesterday at Chilford Quilting Exhibition. Had a fabulous day and have photos of many more wonderful quilts to show you.

Busy, busy, busy finishing a music programme for the clarinet choir I used to play in. It is their 40th Anniversary this year and I am designing the programme for it. 20 pages!

Tomorrow we have a SEN Review meeting at DS2's school, then the washing machine is (hopefully) going to be repaired. After that I have to dash off to a meeting re the concert mentioned above.

That is just a few of the things that seem to be swirling around in my head at the moment, oh and the fact that I couldn't get through to the doctors today...I need him to do something about this yucky pain!

When am I going to get time to show you my wonderful photos?! Or Sew? Or play with my fabrics?

I have a new friend.

Isn't he the sweetest little thing?

This little fellow arrived this afternoon all the way from across the pond, that huge continent Australia. He came with a packet of other goodies...

A wonderful Australia magazine - Homespun - never seen this one before so was quite excited to notice it had a feature on New Zealand Patchwork and Quilting shops. Would you believe it even has the Patchwork Barn featured where I bought my wonderful New Zealand fabrics earlier in the year. I was amazed to read this as it is out in the middle of the country with the nearest Town (and only a one street one at that) several miles away.

Anyway back to my goodies...

Some lovely fabrics.

Lots of lovely projects...

This DVD looks very useful.

Now how and why did this parcel come about? Well I love reading Kelly's blog: Em ay kay ee and when I saw her asking 'Do You Live in the UK?', well how could I not respond? Kelly was featured in a magazine that I just happened to have so I contacted her straight away and said I would get her one or she could have mine if I couldn't find another one in the shops. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find another one in the shops, however, although I had opened mine and browsed through it, I hadn't used any the lovely fabrics that came with it and still had the original packaging so I parcelled it up, along with a little cosmetic purse and sent it on its way. Lovely Kelly sent me these wonderful gifts and magazine in return. Thank you so much Kelly for your generosity. I especially love my new friend...you must have known I have a soft spot for anything small and cuddly!

I've been keeping up with my jogging, although it is hard work. I find that generally I 'function' much better if I get up at 6am. Yesterday I felt great. Today unfortunately by mid-morning the extreme wave of tiredness hit me with a vengeance and I had to go and have a long sleep only to be awakened by the postman after lunch with the above mentioned parcel. My arm is especially bad today with the hypersensitivity running all the way from my fingertips, down the inside of my arm and then down my side. It feels like it is on fire. Hoping it will be better for the weekend as I have my quilting day tomorrow and on Sunday I'm going on a coach trip to a Quilt Show. How exciting!

I peeled and stewed a load of apples this afternoon (probably didn't help my arm, but it was already sore) and we now have another 11 trays of stewed apple ready to go in the freezer.

We had a little fun guessing how many apples hubby had picked the other day and I was the closest! 163! Both cookers and eaters.

So I will leave you now with this picture of some of the rose red eating apples. Yes, they taste lovely.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mad, bad hexagons!

I've gone hexie mad...MAD being the ultimate word for how I felt last night. My beautiful hexies proved very problematic in the way I wanted to applique them on to the friendship block. So much so that I decided to machine applique them on...HUGE mistake! I hated the result had to cut of the side borders, sew new borders on and start again. Needless to say I didn't do any last night. I went to bed earlier with a book instead!

This morning after having gone for an early morning jog, I had a lovely refreshing shower, popped down the road to get the ingredients for DS2's cooking lesson today and then set to with my hexies. I made sixteen new hexies, sewed them together and then sewed them onto the block.

Much happier with the result this time. I just hope Marina will be happy with it when she gets it back. Her stitching is just so lovely it makes me very aware of my own shortcomings.

With this complete I it packaged up and sent on its way to the next Stitching Friend, Fiona in Australia (so aware that I am the only one in our group the other side of the world so have to allow time for travel!).

More hexies were cut out and I made this flower. Another 18 hexagons have been cut out and basted ready to make into more flowers. I have some ideas for these...

While out I treated myself to this quilting magazine.

Not sure if I will get it again, but it is nice to browse through to get some ideas and also has a pattern sheet for an apron I might make.

I can't believe it is nearly the end of the week already. Is it just me or are the weeks zooming past? I have such plans to be organised but the days just go by too quickly. I have to sometimes remind myself that I do some housework...even if appears like I haven't. For example, today I washed two loads of washing, hung them on the line and when dry (yes they dried on the line today!!!), folded them. The hoovering though evaded me again ;-)

Cheerio for now!

A tiny hexagon...

When I read we had to make 1/2 inch hexagons for our Stitching Around the Block challenge I must admit to having felt rather daunted. I certainly didn't give it a try yesterday as my hand wasn't behaving itself. Today however I faced the task ahead....

Sixteen little hexagons cut out reading for basting.

Basted...These are so much fun and really addictive. I think I prefer these small ones to the larger hexagons I have been making so I more of these will be on the menu this evening whilst hubby is out playing chess.

Almost finished ready for posting on tomorrow.

The sun was shining through the leaves this morning reflected the lovely yellows of our Maple tree.

Inspired by these colours I took a short drive to take some photos of the church

It looked so lovely with the light reflecting on it.

Apples! I have rather a large amount of apples to stew and freeze. May make a start on them this evening.

Photography Day

It is OU Photography Course catch up day today. I have been practising using 'Elements' and the various tools it has. What fun experimenting can be.

The bird feeder was at a slight angle so I have straightened it using the vertical perspective tool.

Such a dull day today so I have been playing around with Hue and Saturation.

More of my photographs can be found here I am gradually adding more photographs.

I was asked what camera I use. I have three I use.

My compact camera which takes great macro shots. Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3

I took this camera to New Zealand with me and I was really pleased with how it performed as I got some great macro shots of various insects and flowers as well as the gorgeous scenery. It is not so great at taking shots inside if it is dull. But perfect to pop in a bag or to wear in a small bag round your waist as it is nice and light.

I have also been using my FIL's Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 and this is a great camera.

I took this camera to the Lake District with us and enjoyed using it and experimenting with different settings. A bit more advanced than my compact but not quite an DSLR.

Encouraged by my enthusiasm for photography I was rather spoilt by my lovely hubby who bought me this baby just before my course started.

I have been using this ever since...I have a lot to learn to really be able to appreciate all of its capabilities but so far am really pleased with it and very much enjoy using it. This is the first camera of this type that I have ever had and feel very lucky to have it.

Right off to find some colour for this weeks Colour Safari!

November has arrived!

It really feels like winter is approaching now the clocks have gone back an hour and of course it is now November. Goodness how can the year go so quickly. Even DS2 said it felt like Christmas with it being dark when we were coming home from the library at 5pm this afternoon. There seems to be a nice rhythm to our week developing. Although it has since gone rather pear shaped with a meltdown this evening.

The leaves of our cherry tree are turning lovely shades of yellow and red.

My early morning run today was hard work...legs still a bit stiff but not as bad as they were on Saturday and Sunday! It is nice now that it is a bit lighter at 6am. Not too light for anyone to be able to identify me jogging along though! Phew!

This morning I also attended my first yoga session. It has been many years since I have done yoga and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it. Such a gentle exercise with just the right amount of stretching and lots of good breathing. I hurt all the way through it though - my back ribs still hurt when I expand my chest, lie on my back and my hand tingled and hurt every time I had to raise it. Hopefully though with these stretches and opening out of the thoracic area I may be able to get some relief. I'm now on the highest dose of Lyrica and I haven't felt any benefit so far. Unless of course I would have been in much more pain were I not taking it! Still I am pleased to be taking myself and my body in hand and working towards something positive. Only time will tell what sort of benefit it will have to my shoulder and arm problems though.

Apples have been peeled and stewed again for the freezer. This time in tin foil trays so that I can pull one out and put crumble on top for a winter desert when we feel like it. Of course our daily loaf of bread was also baked.

This afternoon I decided to try out my new fangdangled walking foot.

Look at this...serious business!

I had a quick practice and then set it to work on my blue and yellow quilt.

Straight lines and wavy lines - good fun - and so much easier and better with this new foot.

DS2 asked me what I had been sewing today when he came home from school and I showed him my quilt. Can you make me one with reds and blues? he asked. So guess what he will be having for Christmas!

On Saturday Marina's part one of Stitch around the Block arrived. Gorgeous sewing, I hope I can do justice to the next stage!

So much detail was added. Ready to start stage two tomorrow.

I also tried my hand at Lola's wonderful 'Mary go Rounds'.

Do try them, Lola has given such lovely clear and precise instructions. I've nine more bangles that I bought from the CS last week so I can make some more of these...will probably try a Christmas theme.

My Sewing Studio is getting ever so much closer...countdown now until it is built...getting very excited. On Saturday they came and laid the base hard core and they will be concreting it next Saturday.

Is this how you want it?

Hard core down...concrete to come.