Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2019/20

 This years final RSC colour was yellow and I completed my yellow Dresden on Thursday. Then came the fun part of getting out my 20 Dresdens and playing around with them - fortunately we had dry grass yesterday so I was able to lay them out in the garden. And here they are all machined together.

It rained last night so it had to be the bed for todays photo. I am very happy with how these are all looking.

Fortunately I have enough of the grey fabric to make a decent size border so I plan to spend 2021/2 making little hexadens to dance around.

I will need to source some yellow spot fabric for the centres though as I have used up all that I had.

I am linking up with Angela at Soscrappy  - thank you Angela for your inspiration.

Treated myself to these gorgeous cyclamen at the market yesterday - perfect for brightening up the garden at this time of year.

Have a good weekend everyone.

FNwF for September

Lovely to get together again virtually with friends around the world. Thank you Cheryll for inviting us - you can see who else took part here.

Friday was a lazy sort of day as we went out to lunch to celebrate friends 55th wedding anniversary. On yet another 30degree plus day it was very pleasant sitting socially distanced under a very wide tree and eating delicious food. Having given our hosts a lift to the venue it was late afternoon before we returned home and I spent an hour or so catching up with blogs and mail plus half an hour talking Paw Patrol and the return to school that didnt happen with my great neice in Ghana!

Then it was time for cricket and I finally got around to doing some sewing. Having completed the applique of all the vine and basic leaves on my tablecloth earlier in the week I was able to make a start on adding the flowers.

Not many done but the cricket got exciting! And having written England off early in the Australian innings there was a nailbiting end with England winning! Whew. And then it was time for bed.

In other news this week I have my autumn hanging in place with a selection of my favourite autumn postcards

My swap hexies for the month are winging their way to Australia.

This months RSC colour is red.

Just one more month to go and then I will have the twenty I need for a quilt. I may need to play around with placement of my Dresdens before next month to see if I have any gaps, or if I go with the colour of the month.

So thats me all caught up for this week. Things are winding down in the vege plot now with just courgettes producing and the odd tomato ripening. Philip has cut most of the grass that we leave long during spring and early summer for the wild flowers, and so we shall soon be pruning and tidying for the winter. Lots of digging to do but that might need to wait until we get some rain (?) as the ground is very hard.

Covid numbers are on the increase here in France - as indeed they seem to be everywhere and it now
seems odd to see someone out and about without a mask instead of the other way around.

Stay separate and safe and have a good week.

Friday Night Sew In - August!

Many thanks to Wendy for inviting us to join her - see who else joined in here

Hard to believe that we are over half way through August! Autumn is just around the corner and so this week I realised it was time to crack on with my Autumn wall hanging. When you last saw it, it looked like this

and was desperately in need of some red berries to bring it to life - which I was dreading doing! So I spent a couple of afternoons adding borders to the piece and plucking up courage to do the berries. Like all these things, in the end, they were no trouble at all once I had worked out how to do them.

And so my task for Friday afternoon was to add a swag of 1/2" hexies to the bottom border of the quilt and layer it up ready for quilting.

The flying geese along the top of the panel are actually migrating cranes which we see a lot of here in the autumn. I plan to do some basic ditch quilting by machine around the border and then hand quilt the applique to add some detail.

In the evening I worked on the applique on my table cloth. The basic vine and leaves are now complete on two sides and the third is nearly done.

In other news I have been working on some secret Christmas stitching and have completed my purple RSC Dresden.

It has been hot here again with just the odd shower to wash the dust off - not enough to soak the ground though which is what we need.

So I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else was working on last night and will be round to visit soon. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Friday Night with Friends and a catch up.

First of all thank you Cheryll for hosting us again this month, I am looking forward to seeing what everyone has been working on.

It was one of those odd, pleasant days. It started out with an early trip to the market for our sausage and bacon supply for the next couple of weeks from Franklins Farm Quite chilly at 8am and I had to find a jumper. 

Then we went off to the hairdressers, our first trip in 4 months as fotunately we had squeezed in a visit just before lockdown. Perfect timing really as our hairdresser has been open since mid May and busy catching up with all those people who would have visited in March and April. 

Then a socially distanced visit with a friend on the way home who was busy spraying everything in sight with Zoflora!

After a late lunch it was time for some 'me time' and as the fabric samples I had ordered at the beginning of June had finally arrived I spent a happy time deciding which to order and browsing the web site for anything else I might 'need' lol.

I took photographs of these butterfly blocks which are this months task for the Red Manor House BOM

Such a pretty design which I think will make a great table topper at some point. They will be the corners of the border which includes these Flower pots which I completed earlier in the week

and the petals from May.

They need sashing in between each block, hence the fabric samples as I dont have enough of any one fabric that is suitable.

By the time I had printed out pictures of my June finishes and added them to my journal

it was time to water pots and the afternoon was over.

In the evening I worked on my RSC Dresden. Dark blues this month and I was struggling to find different fabrics to the ones I used last year until I remembered the lovely dark blues I have in my Christmas stash.

This has given me an idea and there may well be a red and green Christmas Dresden before the end of the year!

During lockdown I was busy working on some secret stitching which has now been gifted so I can reveal all!

My neice in Australia was expecting towards the end of June and so I had plenty of time to work on a quilt for her new baby. I used this pattern from Annies Craft Store

swapping the pieced elephants for appliqued ones. This was a lovely project to work on - I had all the fabrics in my stash apart from the grey elephant fabric which I ordered and it came from UK very promptly despite lockdown. (Far quicker than the fabric samples!!)

So the quilt was all ready to post off as soon as I had a name to add into the label. As soon as Dylan arrived I was able to post it off and it arrived in Australia 12 days later - never known the post to be so quick!

And here he is with his quilt!

Big brother Cooper insisted on getting out his quilt too

So thats me all caught up - I am getting out my diamonds for the table cloth today to make into basket blocks and theres an autumn mini that needs working on too. Have a good week.

FNwF and Chookshed party

What a busy weekend it has been so far - and it's only Saturday afternoon!

Last night was the first Friday of the month so time for Friday Night with Friends hosted by Cheryll. Many thanks for getting us together again Cheryll and you can see who joined in here

It was a wet afternoon here so I got an early start and finished off a pincushion that I have been making for the Perfectly Pleasing Pincushion Parade next week so no pictures now. I then moved on to work on my swap hexies for the month.

It's the first week of the month so the next set of instructions came for the Red Manor House BOM. This month we have another eight applique blocks to make.  I have completed one block and started work on another yesterday evening.

I have decided to add a small button to the centre of each of the large flowers.

Also this week we have a new Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour - pink.

I even managed to find eight pink fabrics that I had not used in last years pink block.

Of course this weekend its time for the annual Chookshed birthday party.

In the past I have enjoyed stitching along while Chooky and friends party and sew in the Chookshed but this year things are different! Chooky organised a zoom link up for her party and invited me along. The party started yesterday evening at 11pm my time, just as I was off to bed so I popped in this morning for half an hour and then again this afternoon and sewed along for a while. It was so lovely to see and speak to people that I have been chatting to in blogland for the last four or five years. There were people coming and going all the time because of course we are all in different time zones. Great fun and thank you so much Chooky for organising it.

Monday is the first day of PPPP 2020

If you want to find out more  then pop over to Ida's blog here. And I shall be back on Monday with my first PPPP post.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

FNwF's week 2

Thank you Cheryll for organising a second FNwF again this month - it's good to see what everyone is working on and stitch along cyberly. The link is here to see what everyone was working on.

I had a busy afternoon working on a secret stitching project - sorry, no pictures, but I can tell you it is looking good!

Then in the evening on to a bit of applique. I finished the second of my Red Manor House flower blocks. I am happy with how these are looking.

For a change! I then worked on my RSC block for the month. This months colour is dark green but I dont have many dark greens and anyway I used them in last years block so I decided to do a black block. The flower is all together - it just needs stitching onto the background now.

In other news our lockdown is set to be eased on Monday so it will be good to go out together again and to be able to travel a bit further away from home. The weather for the week is not looking very good but hopefully we shall have a chance to get out for a nice walk somewhere.

Enjoy your weekend.

Friday Night with Friends week 2!

Thank you very much Cheryll - great idea to get us all together again this month. You can see who else joined in here

A couple of weeks ago Michelle very kindly shared her 'basket case' design which very much appealed to me and so my plan for FNwF's was to make a few of thses blocks - they are 6.5"

My plan is to join these with a narrow sashing and add a border to make a small summery wall hanging. I plan to fill the baskets with button flowers and a few embroidered leaves something like this.

Thank you Michelle.

Earlier this week I finished adding the April borders to my Red Manor House and so this is how it looks now.

Not the best picture - my 'design wall' is now a little on the small side!

Also this week I have made my swap hexies for the month

and my RSC block

not exactly light and bright but they are what I have.

I decided not to take part in this weeks community stitch challenge - the subject was eyes and I thought I would find it a bit creepy! However, I have seen some beautiful work on the facebook site. Looking forward to next weeks challenge though.

The weather continues to be good and we have been enjoying temperatures in the high 20's on our terasse. The garden is growing very quickly but we have plenty of time at the moment to keep it under control. One bonus of not being away for our usual Easter trip is that we can watch the wisteria flowers open up.

and this rats tail cactus which I hate apart from when it is flowering!

This tree frog seems to have taken a liking for my wasp trap and spends the day there every now and again.

Our nearest town is Riberac where there is a busy Friday market - although not at the moment. However we had heard that there would be a food market there yesterday morning and so I went in at 8 am to pick up some sausages from Helen of Franklins Farm. Just the best sausages. Anyway, when I got to the market there were about 20 stalls, well spread out and surrounded by a barrier with a one way system. There were two gendarmes on duty at the entrance checking our paperwork - the attestation we have to fill out saying why we are out and about dated, timed and signed and identity cards (in my case passport). Once this had been checked and approved we were then directed to use the hand sanitiser before being allowed to enter. All very efficient I thought.

Hope everyone is keeping safe and well at home. Happy stitching.

Catching up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge

And it was a bit of a challenge! Orange was the colour for February and having trawled my stash I came up with one piece of orange fabric. Fortunately I met up with my patchwork group last Monday and they very kindly supplied me with the necessary fabrics so now I will have memories of them in my quilt.

Teal for March on the other hand was no problem.

Linking up with SoScrappy for ScrapHappySaturday

Also finished this week a couple of little gifts for a friends birthday.

The little fob on the scissors is for storing a thimble. Its not easy to see but I made an elongated Secret Garden block a la Lynne Edwards. Cant think why I have never made one of those hexagon pin cushions before - think I might need one for me!

We had a 'ladies lunch' on Friday when these were gifted - my last social outing for some time I feel. We have topped up our freezer and store cupboard and plan to stay put for a while. All bars and restaurants here are closed now anyway.

Stay safe everyone.

Catching Up

Many thanks to everyone for their kind comments after my last post - I am all recovered now thank goodness!

I have been busy hand stitching by the fire for the last few days and have a couple of January tasks ticked off my list. First up my RSC block. I am sticking with Dresdens and so another 'light and bright green' block has been added to my pile.

I also now have four more blocks for the next round of my Red Manor House BOM.

Also I thought you would like to see a few of the Christmas presents that I made which I did not blog about before Christmas.

Meanwhile I am busily stitching on my 1797 Revisited quilt - the end is not far away. An update next time.

Happy stitching!