Mid December already!

 And what a grey and dismal week it has been! The storm last Saturday was as bad as forecast with lots of damage in the county and West of the country. Fortunately we survived damage free, we are in a dip and do not catch the worst of the wind. However, I did enjoy sitting indoors and watching all the leaves from the trees to the front of our house skip away across the surface of the park! Hardly any left on the trees now. Since then we have had grey weather and yesterday was particularly damp and dismal but today is a bright sunny day with lots of blue sky.

As usual I have been enjoying my stitch journal.

I have been thinking for the last month or so about how I can continue on with this but in my own way. I have all these nice solar dyed threads and fabrics left from my boro flower panel - see header picture -

and thought that it would be nice to make use of them. So I have decided to use them to make a daily stitch roll using this lovely old mill spool that I picked up recently in a charity shop.

So I am all ready now to start stitching on January 1st.

And to keep myself on track I have decided a daily post on Instagram will make sure I am up to date.

I have been quilting this week too - no pictures - and have also finished these Kingfisher socks.

So Christmas knitting all done and dusted. Christmas decorations have gone up this week and I had a present wrapping session one afternoon. Just a few more to do. We shall be entertaining twice over Christmas so now I need to plan my menus!

Have a good week everyone and happy stitching.

Friday Night with Friends December

 

Friday was a grey and windy day so after a trip to the supermarket we were happy to spend the day indoors. So straight after lunch I got on with my stitch journal - a new page now for December and we are all starry!

These are quick and fun to work.

I have been busy the last few weeks quilting the wide border of Wings and this week I came to the end of all the cross hatching. Just so happy with how it is looking.

Now to work on the outer borders. I spent some time yesterday marking up the feathers along one edge and in the evening made a start on the quilting.

We are in the middle of storm Darragh today. We had a red weather warning this morning expiring at 11.00am but I am pretty sure the winds have been stronger since we moved down to an amber warning! Strong enough to blow over my cast iron garden chairs anyway. Evidently we are to expect another 24 hours of strong winds so plenty of time to play in the kitchen - mince pies need to be made as we have finished the first batch - and with my sewing.

Have a good weekend every one.

The End of November

 What a strange month it has been with dank, grey, damp days followed by bright crisp mornings with frost and the odd sleet shower and then howling wind, rain and floods. Now we are having a very mild couple of days before the temperature dips again. 

Tomorrow is officially the fist day of winter and being the first day of December I shall be making my first batch of mince pies of the season. The mincemeat has been maturing for the last couple of weeks and I am looking forward to my first taste. And of course my Advent calendar is hanging up and ready to go.

Since my last post I have completed the first Kingfisher sock and no 2 is well under way - pictures next time. I have also been busy quilting Wings and am almost at the end of the wide border - again, pictures next time.

But what I do have pictures of is my completed November Stitch Journal page which looks like this.

My photographs make it look like all the stitching was done in white but there are some cream threads in there too and the odd bit of sparkle here and there!

The table runner is completed and ready to wrap and gift. Sorry about the slightly skewy photos!

The big news of the week is that this came home with us from the charity shop yesterday!

It is a lovely Victorian writing slope which we could not leave behind. I have always wanted one of these.

It is in very good condition (and has a key for the working lock) and I have given it a good clean and polish. It smells delicious!

I love the ink stains and it has three secret drawers too. So looking forward to filling this with lots of stuff!

Well that is all from me for now - I am off to draw up my Stitch Journal page for December and sort some threads. Hope you have a great week and that I shall se you at Cheryll's on Friday for Friday Night with Friends.

FNSI November

 And we are half way through the month already so fifteen of these squares have now been filled with random stitches and patterns.

We spent part of our Friday at a Christmas market - far too early for such things but I suppose we have to start somewhere. It was a beautiful clear blue sky day after a foggy start. We are getting proper November weather at the moment and are promised even colder next week - and the return of rain which will probably mean snow in the north of the country. Anyway, back to the market which was packed with people and stalls full of nice things. Lots of drinks to sample and chocolate to taste - always welcome. We came away with a few Christmas presents and full tummies after lunch in the restaurant. The market was held at Hestercombe House which has beautiful gardens - sorry no pics but we decided we were ready for home after all that shopping! We did drive home via Lydeard Hill though as it was such a nice day. The trees are all looking beautiful at the moment and the misty view from the car park in the sunshine was beautiful.

Anyway I have been busy quilting away on Wings in the evenings this week so for a change I got out my knitting Friday evening and cracked on with this sock - nearly to the toe now.

Last week I visited a quilt show with some friends at my LQS Come to Quilt. Come to Quilt is home to Dragon Quilters who meet once a fortnight there. There was a lot of work on display and I will share a few of my favourites with you.

This little quilt greeted us at the entrance and was drawing gasps!

This quilt was stunning.

And this wall hanging next to it was also gorgeous. There is a Four Seasons class held regularly at Come to Quilt and this work was made following the class.

Another class that has been held at the shop was a Three Hares quilt and there were several of these on display - some finished some not. This was my favourite as I loved the way it had been personalised with the addition of Green Men in the corners of the 4th border in and hounds chasing the hares in the outer border.

This one was also complete. Not the best lighting though in this room.

And a few more that caught my eye.

This one with all it's bee and honey connections.

And this one because red and white always looks amazing.

Well now, I think I am going to turn the heating on, wrap Wings around my legs and spend some time quilting while I watch the leaves falling from the trees outside.

Have a lovely weekend everyone. Hopefully you can click on the image and read the details below.

FNWFs November

If you are just here for RSC then please feel free to scroll straight to the bottom!

 Friday was not a hugely productive day as other things were happening. However I completed my Stitch Journal piece for the day after lunch. It was the 1st of the month so I was starting on a new 'page'. Squares this month and I filled this one with some simple rows of herringbone.

I am working with white/off white threads this month and pulled out my white box of threads to work with.

In amongst all my threads are some old Pearsalls threads that came to me from my Nana and Aunt when I inherited their stash. Interesting because the bulk of their threads were Anchor stranded. Most of the Pearsalls are a fine floss which I tend to avoid as it is tricky to work with but in this box I found a couple of skeins of 'Broriche silk'.

 It's like a fine silk perle thread and I used it for the herringbone in my first square. It was a delight to work with I must say. Pearsalls the company intrigues me too as they are based in Taunton just down the road from me. They no longer make embroidery threads though, just concentrating on medical threads.

My brown leaf page is of course finished and here are a few pictures.

I did get some knitting done in the evening while watching TV - I made good progress up the leg of a new pair of socks.

As always I am using a West Yorkshire Spinners sock yarn, this one is called Kingfisher.

So that was my FNWFs - many thanks to Cheryll for hosting again this month.

In other news I have been busy quilting Wings - sorry no pics - and also had the sewing machine out during the week to quilt my Magic Lantern runner.

Trimming and binding to come but I must put this away for now - it is a Christmas present and I have a more urgent birthday present to produce!

Also I don't think I have shared with you all my RSC log cabins for the year. I laid them all out on the bed recently just for the fun of it - I have no intention of sewing them together until next year when I shall also have to find some sort of border fabric.

In fact, now that I look back - I don't seem to have shared pictures of my October brown log cabins, so here they are.

Linking up with Angela at some point!

Well that is me all caught up for now. Have a great week.

FNSI October

 It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon here after a night and morning of rain - storm Ashley, the first of the seasons named storms. Fortunately for us it was not as fierce as expected although more rain on top of what we have already had will be looking for somewhere to go.

Friday was a dry day and we had a few errands in town in the morning. I spent a couple of  hours in the afternoon catching up with friends so not much sewing happened. But I did of course do my Stitch Journal leaf for the day and the page is filling up nicely, if a bit too quickly!

I also cut the backing fabrics for my Magic Lantern runner which is now almost ready to layer up - just some little black feet to add first.

It does rather resemble a Dalek at the moment though!

In other sewing news I have been working away on quilting Wings and Pretty Things and have turned the first corner of the wide border.

And have been dipping into another white sampler piece destined for the tea and rust pot!

It will eventually be attached to the first piece and I am on the lookout for a suitable piece of driftwood to wrap it round.

So that is me all caught up, thanks to everyone else for their company and I will see you again soon.

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