Another Friday....

 ....another day out! And some more lovely hydrangeas.

This time at Dunster Castle which for one reason or another we have not visited since the spring. We started our visit in the Dream Garden, an enclosed garden on the perimiter of the property. It always looks lovely and yesterday was no exception with the Dahlia's and borders looking glorious.

There is a lovely view of the church from the gardens

and we realised that we have never been inside. So instead of returning to the castle we headed into town and spent a while looking round The Priory Church of St George 

Lots of lovely carved wood in this church which was originally shared by the monks from Dunster Priory and the people of the parish.

This next section of the church is behind the altar which you can just glimpse in the first photograph.

(If I had wanted those pictures like that I would never have worked out how!)

The tiles look Victorian to me - not easy to photograph without the light spoiling them. But they were lovely.

After stopping off at the gallery of Maurice Bishop a regular stop both in Dunster and Lymnouth when we visit, we headed off to the NT shop for some flour from the Dunster Water Mill and then back to the car. We could see the sea from the castle with this lovely clear view of Steep Holm.

So headed for Dunster Beach to eat our picnic. Very clear views across the channel to Wales.

Just a couple of pictures of what I have benn working on this week. First up I finished these socks.

I used the Winwick Mum basic sock pattern with West Yorkshire Spinners Amethyst sock wool and their Winwick Mum Wildflowers sock wool. One more pair to get cracking on now before Christmas.

I have of course been keeping up with my Stitch Journal and the leaves are filling out nicely.

Thanks for sticking with me if you have made it this far!

Have a great week

FNwF's October

 It was a cool but mostly sunny day yesterday, and with nothing planned we took the chance to get out for a drive. We headed onto the Quantocks to visit my LQS Come to Quilt in a barn high up on the hills. Having purchased the fabric I need to finish off my table runner (and maybe some embroidery thread!) we drove a little way along the road to Fyne Court. After a browse in the second hand bookshop and a curried cauliflower pasty (delicious) in the cafe we had a little walk around. The gardens are not as developed as some of the National Trust gardens but it was nice to see that work has commenced on repairing the walls and gallery in the walled garden. Hopefully at some time in the future we shall see the beds cleared and planted.

These gardens near the cafe were looking gorgeous though.

And I do love the colours of fading hydrangea's.

This pond is overgrown but evidently has breeding Great Crested Newts which are not as common in the UK as they were in the past. I loved the carved balustrade around the edge of the pond.

From Fyne Court we headed towards the coast and found ourselves in the village of Fiddington and spotted this pretty little church

so of course we had to go in. St Martin of Tours

It was Harvest Festival last weekend and this window was decorated up for it.

These carved pew ends are rather splendid.

And the organ had pride of place.

This sturdy and ornate door handle caught my eye.

The churchyard was very tidy! and we had a nice wander round. We were surprised to find this gravestone of Tony Britton

and these lovely cyclamen

but completely missed the carving mention in the Wikipedia link!

So not a lot of sewing happened. I did my Stitch Journal leaf - yes, leaves this month very appropriately.

And perfect for my choice of brown for my RSC colour this month. I have some gorgeous, rich brown threads in my brown box which I am looking forward to using.

Other than that all I did was some knitting while we watched a film in the evening.

Well, I must go and check my washing - the wind has picked up and I can hear it blowing against the conservatory windows, so need to make sure it is firmly pegged!

Back soon with RSC news until then, happy stitching.

The end of September

 Yes, the end of the month already and so of course my Stitch Journal page is complete. It's always an exciting moment when I turn the page over after pressing, and see all my stitching without the blue lines. Another page that I love and all in black and grey.

A couple of other finishes to share today as well. First my Boro Flower Panel which is now waiting for me to devise a method of framing!!

In case you missed my first post about this panel, all the recycled fabrics and threads were solar dyed when we lived in France. I used leaves and flowers from around the garden as well as coffee grounds, onion skins and black bean soaking water. So for me it contains lots of happy memories of our garden and life in France.

I also finished this little pair of baby socks using the leftover Vintage Tinsel yarn that I used for my own socks.

Many thanks to Kate from Arts & Socks for her pattern advice - https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/baby-socks-23 for the socks, with her own addition of the twisted cuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y2epfNAYoM. I think the twisted cuff is a great addition especially in the two colours. Thanks Kate.

So, a new month and a new RSC colour - I am using brown which I have been looking forward to! It also means Friday Night with Friends and I look forward to seeing you there.

FNSI September

 Friday Night Sew In has come around quickly again! and the end of September is in sight. Thank you to Wendy for organising our Friday night again this month.

As usual I started my afternoon with my Stitch Journal which is growing nicely.

Then went on to work on my Boro flower panel. I am filling in the gaps now and waiting for inspiration to strike regarding the top left hand corner - that ricrac seemed like a good idea at the time!

Apologies for poor lighting on this one - it is raining this morning and the light is not good.

I cracked on with some knitting in the evening and this morning I finished the second Vintage Tinsel sock.

Again, sorry about the poor light!

We had some lovely weather earlier in the week and took the opportunity to visit Barrington Court. Always a lovely visit and something different to see each season. The borders were looking stunning and the White Garden full of lovely frothy white Cosmos.

I have also been distracted this week by some good reading! We found a new to us author and I have been whizzing through these books. If you like murder/detective stories then I can recommend these which are set in The Lake District.

I plan to spend what looks likely to be a wet afternoon, knitting some baby socks with the last of the Vintage Tinsel wool. Hope you are having a dryer day.

A mixed week

 And I don't just mean the weather although it is just warming up again after a cold spell. But I have had a varied week of sewing which is just how I like it.

I removed my sample from it's rust and tea bath after 24 hours and I am glad I did as my finished sample has turned out darker than I expected. It took a couple of days to dry out and then I had to rinse it and leave it to dry again. So here it is - the undyed sample first.

As I said, it is much darker than I expected and I would have preferred something a little more subtle, but it is a sample and I really like the effect. So more of this to come I think. Next time I will try just tea and maybe another sample with just rust and water to see what happens. Lots to try and I also want to try Susan's salt dyeing. This is something I have done on paper but never thought to try on fabric.

On Tuesday my quilt group had an all day session and I took the opportunity to layer up this RSC top from a few years back.

I then joined with some of the other ladies in making some decorations for our Christmas stall later in the year.

We also had a very interesting talk from a couple of ladies who work for the local council's Care Leaver's department. We have made quilts and blankets for Care Leavers in the past and it was good to hear how they are put to use. We were also given a list of items that they would be grateful for to give the care leavers - as well as a blanket or quilt, cushions are welcomed as well as gloves, hats and scarves. So plenty for us to contribute.

This months RSC is complete.

I got the sewing machine out for an afternoon and completed this Christmas cushion cover which has now been put away - hopefully, come Christmas, I will remember where!

And while I had the machine out I made a start on ditch quilting the RSC Dresden quilt between the blocks. I plan to finish the ditch quilting and bind the quilt then put it away for hand quilting at a later date.

I then had a hankering to do some drawing and got my Inktense pencils out to have a go at a Gaillardia that we had flowering in the garden .

Very happy with this so then I started to add water. In the next picture you can see the petals that have been brushed with water which look much darker.

I need to finish these off now and add a few leaves. Maybe darkening off some of the petals in the centre.

We are almost halfway through the month and so my stitch journal is also nearly halfway.

If you can spot the silver thread you will see that it is very messy and a mistake - the rest of the skein has gone in the bin! A horrible thread. But I have left it in place as a reminder.

Well that's all from sunny Somerset, see you next week.