FNSI February

 Many thanks Wendy for our Friday Night Sew In - see who else took part here

My first sewing for the day, as always at the moment, was my Stitch Journal. The red page is slowly filling, well actually the month seems to be whizzing past and the page is filling quite quickly!

Yesterdays pebble was the stacked herringbone cross, lower middle. Such a versatile stitch herringbone. And while I am on a red theme here and as I will be linking with Angela for her RSC update here are my log cabins for the month with Jennifer's lovely embroidery (slightly altered to suit me) in the middle of one of them.

These were finished earlier in the week.

But back to Friday. I finally had a trip to a LQS, tucked away on a farm up in the Quantock hills and managed to spend a small fortune but came away with lots of goodies! One of which was binding fabric for my Red Manor House quilt. I machined the binding onto the quilt earlier in the week and have been spending some time each evening hemming it down. So that was my next Friday job. It's a long way around that quilt! I got quite a bit done yesterday but still more to do. Here is work in progress - I think about a quarter left.

Another purchase was the backing fabric for Wings and Pretty Things which has also been waiting quite a while for this next stage. I layered this up at my patchwork group on Tuesday afternoon.

As soon as I have finished hemming RMH I will start hand quilting this. Am so looking forward to quilting again!

Also while I had a large table to work on I layered up last years RSC top.

Those creases are from folding since I layered up - it was ironed before!! This one is for machine quilting and probably Linus so no hurry at the moment.

I think that is all my news for now so I will leave you with the first daffodils in our garden - later than most peoples, I think because they are in a part of the garden that gets no sun. Have a lovely week.

Friday Night Sew In

Last night it was time once again to join with Wendy for a stitchy evening with friends. Thank you Wendy for getting us together. Click on the link to see who else took part.

After a large lunch and a brisk walk I got down to getting this little bag (for a small person) finished. I had to attach the lining to the bag, add the straps and then the popper. Very happy with how it has turned out.

I used that large pink spot as the lining too.

Time to move to a seat by the fire - it has been a chilly few days here. I needed to finish embellishing this heart which is now ready to make into a lavender sachet, along with another one. Hopefully this afternoon!

I have had a busy week in my sewing space, nearly all of it I cant share for now! However, I think I am safe in showing this postcard.

I made an acrylic print onto brown wrapping paper, then when it was dry scrumpled it up. After a bit of smoothing it was pressed onto pelmet vilene with bondaweb and embellished with machine embroidery. Its a while since I made a post card so this was fun. I made two actually - similar but not the same! I love using this technique and have a few more - different designs - waiting to be made up.

Right! Now to get on with finishing those hearts and then hopefully a walk between showers. Enjoy your weekend.

EPP Tuesday!

Many thanks once again to Anthea for hosting our EPP link up - pop over to Anthea's blog here to see how her beautiful scrap quilt is coming along and to see who else has linked up.

It has been quiet on the EPP front here - too many other projects on the go and of course last week we were at the seaside! More on that later. First though I have made several of these.

In one of my swap groups we are sending heart flowers to any member of the group who is unwell or in need of a hug. This is a spare - the centres get signed before sending off.

As I mentioned we were away last week and travelled to Mimizan Plage which is on the west coast of France south of Bordeaux. The long golden beach stretches all the way from Arcachon down to Biarritz. Inland is the flat, forested area of Landes which is protected from harsh Atlantic storms by huge sand dunes stretching along the coast.

The beaches are popular with fishermen and surfers as well as the usual sun and beach lovers.

On our first night we saw this stunning sunset at Mimizan looking like the sea was on fire!

There is a river which splits Mimizan Plage into two - the north and the south beaches.

A pleasant place to sit on a warm afternoon to watch the birds, the fishermen and generally people watch!

 

Not one of my better pictures but I was standing on the dune looking inland and over the tops of all the tall pine trees that grow there. This is Cap de l'Homy Plage where it was beautiful to walk along the beach while the tide was out.

 

 

On our way home we visited the small town of Roquefort - this is not the Roquefort of cheese fame which is further east. It's an attractive town with this splendid bridge beautifully decorated with hanging baskets.

 

 

There is a beautiful Church with different sections having been built over many hundreds of years but which has recently been restored. If you click on the Roquefort link you will se a picture of the outside of the church. I loved the interior decoration.

 

 

 

In the courtyard there is the tiny chapel of St Joseph which is also dedicated to St Jacques and welcomes pilgrims on their way to Compostella in Northern Spain.

 

 

 

We were fortunate to have five dry, sunny days away, we left home in rain and arrived back in grey damp!

 

Thank you for making it through to the end of this post.

 

I am also linking up with Needlework Tuesday at Heather's Books and Quilts.