Rain! - well possibly

 Yes, we have rain forecast for overnight tonight, but I am not holding my breath, we have been fooled before with false promises! All I can say is that we have had another week of heatwave although fortunately far more bearable temperatures.

I spotted these from my backdoor at 7am earlier this week. Obviously taking advantage of the fact that the wind had dropped considerably.

My Stitch Journal has progressed - the end of the month is in sight!

The hexagon patchwork has grown this week - mainly thanks to an afternoon with my patchwork group.

I need to get a move on this week as there will be a new Chookshed Challenge next weekend.

I have also made more granny squares but I won't bore you with more pictures of them and been playing in my sketchbook.

So, that has been my week - I am off to play with my hexies, see you next week.

A Quiet Week

 It remains hot and dry here and I have lost count of how many days we have officially been having a heatwave. Not up in the mid 30's thank goodness but hovering around 30 which is hot for us. Lots of crispy brown grass around and the threat of wildfires. There have been a few.

I have been spending some time working in my sketch book this week - there is a Chookshed Challenge not far away that will need a few small designs and I have been working on those.

My Stitch Journal for this week looks like this.

Susan very kindly offered to send me a hexie flower for my quilt and it arrived this week.

Plus a few lovely blues to add into my pathways. I have started to add the flower in but have not made much progress as once again it has been too hot to have it on my lap.

I have made progress with my granny squares though and now have 30 - almost halfway to the 64 that I need.

So that's about it from me this week, hopefully more to share next week.

Happy Stitching.

Count Binface for Clacton!

 Well, what a week it has been! Three deaths - the amazing Bonnie Tyler, newsreader Dermot Murnaghan and sadly (though not because I liked the womans politics) Ann Widdicombe. Another heatwave! Trump making himself look a fool over the football. England getting through to the next round!

And the resignation stunt of the ghastly Nigel Farage.  For those who don't know him, he is a friend of Donald Trump, no more need be said. Farage is standing again as MP for Clacton, supposedly to pit himself against the establishment and for the 'good people' of Clacton to back him. Quite sensibly, all the main stream political parties have decided not to stand against him. However Count Binface has come to save the country! And a lot of the country are behind him judging by facebook. So are these Clacton residents if the bin bag flags flying outside their houses are anything to go by.

So, moving on to more sensible things, here is a Stitch Journal update.

And my Chookshed Challenge.

I have been working on the third round of hexies - I have marked the centre hexie, top centre in the picture. But have not done as much as I would like as I am finding it all a bit hot on my lap. So instead, while the football continues, I have made a start on some crochet. I had quite a lot of yarn left over from the Seashore blanket that I made earlier in the year and have started using it to make granny squares for a warm winter jumper. I purchased some fushia yarn from the same range and am using that to edge the squares. These are what I have come up with this week.

Very happy with how these are looking.

Right, I am off to watch some cricket - and possibly make some more granny squares. See you next week - I wonder what it will bring?

Saturday evening edit!

Oh no - just found out that Patricia Greene has died. She was the longest serving actor on The Archers and played Jill Archer for 65 years. 😢❤️

Almost afraid to listen to the news now!!

Partying with The Chookshed and a milestone!

It was fun to join in with Chookyblue for her annual Chookshed birthday party over the weekend. You can catch up with what was happening in the Chookshed here. Many thanks Donna for your invitation and I hope everyone else had fun too.

Unfortunately, a last minute Sunday BBQ lunch plan due to surprisingly good weather, meant that I did not have as much sewing time as I had hoped. It was our first opportunity to entertain outside this year so apart from all the food prep the terrasse needed a good clean as did all the furniture. However, I did manage to get a big job done and dusted over Friday and Saturday evening so that was great.

Having finished last week adding the facing hexies to my swap hexie tablecloth, I was able on Friday afternoon to get it layered up with some backing fabric and pinned in place. For some reason I do not have a photograph of this but never mind. After two evenings hemming, the facing hexies were all stitched in place and now the tablecloth is ready to quilt.

On the subject of quilting, I have been pondering how to go about this all the time that I have been putting this top together and have not been able to come up with a plan. I don't want an allover pattern as I don't want to lose the definition of the flowers. My big hexagon quilt is quilted around the outside of each flower but I have never really been happy with that and of course it is not suitable to ditch quilt because of the opened out seams.
So, I have decided to tie it, or knotting as Averil Colby called it in her Patchwork book. I am going to use a yellow perle thread and knot the centre of each flower first of all and then see if I feel it needs anymore. As I have not used any batting it is not a matter of keeping the batting in place.

The BBQ by the way was a great success!

Yesterday the patchwork ladies came for the afternoon and great progress is being made on their sampler quilts.

All the blocks are completed on the yellow quilt to the right - it just needs the rest of its sashing and a border. One of our group lives in UK and her version is coming along very nicely too.

Hopefully we will get all five finished quilts together for a photoshoot later in the summer.

The wind is building up here and it is very sultry - storms coming our way overnight!

Oh yes, the milestone. This is my 400th post!

Hope you are having a good week.