FNSI again!

 So a rerun of last weeks FNSI as not everyone was involved. Many thanks to Wendy for our evening together.

I spent most of Friday prepping (and cleaning!) ready for a family visit today, although I made time after lunch to work on my Stitch Journal. Here are this weeks additions, Fridays was the laced herringbone far right.

In the evening I was working on my crochet jumper - sleeves coming along nicely.

I have been working on the Wedding Book of my parents wedding this week and have started adding photographs. My main reason though for the book though was to make somewhere safe to keep the cards that Mum had treasured for 69 years. And I have made pockets for these to sit safely in as I think it will be nice for family to go through and take them out in the future.

There were quite a few telegrams - over 20 I think, and these of course are a thing of the past so something unusual for grandchildren and great grandchildren to look at. Here are just a few.

There were much fewer cards though. Here are a few, so pretty.

Lots of gift tags though.

There were several keys and shoes. Notice the lucky horseshoes - one up one way the other the opposite.

Lots more to do, so more next week.

Also this week I managed to finish the fuchsia watercolour I started a few weeks back. Happy with this now.

We met some friends at a garden centre this week and I spotted these tea towels in the kitchen section. Just so pretty and there were quite a few designs.

I have unpicked and trimmed these - they are destined to become tray mats next time the machine comes out.

So that is it from me this week. It has been wet and windy here although dry today and a 'good drying day'! Back to the rain tomorrow.

Have a good week.

FNWFs October

 Storm Amy is passing through and from where I am sitting I can see the trees on the green swaying in the wind. We had rain most of yesterday, Friday, and a lot overnight. So yesterday was a perfect day to stay home, bake, paint and sew.

As always the first thing on my list was to work on my Stitch Journal and Friday's contribution was the red black and yellow woven crosses centre right. This picture shows my work for the week

and these the month of September.

After the hot dry summer, our fuchsias now have a new lease of life and the flowers are fabulous. I started a small watercolour of the flowers on one of my plants.

These flowers need more depth of colour and then I shall move on to the leaves. Time passes quickly when concentrating on this.

Then in the evening I was working on my Chookshed Challenge which is coming along nicely. I am having to pace myself here otherwise it would be finished in no time!

Philip has been clearing out the greenhouse now that the tomatoes have finished  and I was asked! to remove 4 solar dye jars which I had forgotten about. So far I have emptied 2 and these are the results.

Sambucus berries. Looking a little washed out in this picture, the silks have taken on a delightful purple colour while the other fibres are a pale purply green. Unusual but pretty.

Rosemary leaves. Again slightly washed out but the silks are a lovely pale yellow.

We had a lovely day out earlier in the week. We were given vouchers for the West Somerset Railway last Christmas and finally got around to using them. The train starts at Bishops Lydeard, just a 15 minute drive from home and the line goes out to the coast at Donniford and then along the coast to Minehead. This is the engine that pulled our train, the Odney Manor.

All the stations are beautifully looked after and most of the work is done by volunteers.

First glimpse of the sea.

We decided not to do the full journey to Minehead but to get off at a favourite place - Blue Anchor. Although we have visited Blue Anchor many times we had never walked up onto the station so it was nice to get off there and have a wander. There is a small museum showing the history of Blue Anchor and the railway line.

As always the station was beautifully kept and the flowers stunning.

It was a lovely sunny day and we had a good view across the Bristol Channel to Wales and three ships queuing to get into Bristol Docks. Here is the view left to Minehead

and this to the right towards Watchet which is around the headland.

As is traditional lunch was a bacon sandwich - not photogenic but delicious.

On the crochet jumper front, I have made another start with a larger hook and the next size up but I can see that it is not going to work so my next move is to measure up a jumper that I have which is a simple shape and make something the same. Maybe I will have something to show next week. In the meantime, happy stitching.

Friday Night Sew In - February

 Many thanks to Wendy who has been out and about having a great time! for getting us all together again. You can pop over to Wendy's blog here to see who else took part and what they were up to.

I had a fairly lazy afternoon looking at a couple of DMTV videos to get some sketching/painting ideas. I then worked on this little sketch of Waggy the pied wagtail who has been visiting our feeder recently. Now he may not be the most exciting bird - and it turns out there are three although they only come to feed one at a time - but despite all the tasty treats I have been putting out these are the first birds who have stopped to feed. So we are really excited. There are plenty of birds around especially in the trees in the park at the front of the house, but not having any trees in the back garden there is no where for them to perch and check that the coast is clear before feeding. We shall be planting a tree this spring!

Anyway, back to my pencil sketch - it is not finished but I am happy so far.

I must admit to 'cheating' and tracing the outline but then I am doing a series of these and don't want to spend too much time fiddling around getting the basic shape right when I want to concentrate on the technique. Here are a couple of pictures from earlier in the week.

This was my first water colour attempt - not enough water I felt.

I was much happier with this one.

I also had a go at an oyster catcher on an previously painted sketchbook page. He is pecking around in some seaweed in case you wondered!

I spent the evening working on my Red Manor House. The quilting is coming along nicely - and quickly too.

That red sashing will need quilting when I have finished the flying geese. I looked high and low a couple of weeks ago for the stencils I use before starting the flying geese and had given up. Yesterday afternoon while looking for the fabric I want to use for the #sipteaandepp Winter Mystery SAL, which I am way behind on, lo and behold, there were my stencils! No sign of the fabric though haha. Oh well, it will turn up sometime.

Have a great week everyone.

FNSI and RSC!

First of all Friday Night Sew In and many thanks to Wendy for getting us together again, good to sew along with friends. You can see what everyone was working on here.

I felt it time to get my RSC dark blues finished up and made six crumb blocks to add to my collection along with my little dresdens and a couple of scraptherapy blocks. So this month this

turned into this.

I am linking up with Angela here for Scrap Happy Saturday.

The rest of my Friday was spent quilting my tablecloth - the cooler weather has been a bonus as far as quilting is concerned but now that the weather is warming up again I suspect that I shall be working on my Field Journal hexagons.

In other news, this week I finished my watercolour still life.

I really am not happy with the background but it is my second attempt and the paper will not take any more fidling I am sure, so it it is as it is. Very happy with everything else though.

Many thanks to Wendy and Angela.

Have a good week.

It might be July....

 but it is certainly not summer as we know it! The weather continues on its wierd and wonderful way with a mixture of sunny days and showery days and cooler temperatures. I even dug out my jeans this week.

On the sewing front I have made a start on my RSC blues - my little Dresdens are made and scraptherapy blocks made. The crumb blocks will have to wait until I clear my desk.

My desk is currently home to my watercolours and I have started on a still life using what I have learnt over the last couple of months. Here is my piece so far.

Still a few more days work to do on it especially the background which I am really nervous about!

In the evenings I have finished a couple more Field Journal hexies

and I have been continuing with the quilting on my tablecloth.

So that is me all caught up - hope to see you next week at FNSI - have a good week.

FNSI June

 It was time to sew with friends around the world again last night - and relieve the tedium of yet another football match even though it was England v Scotland. For those of you down under, its Euro 2020 (yes I know, it's a year late) and there seems to be three matches a day at the moment. Anyway, to more interesting things.

Friday Night Sew In and thank you Wendy for organising our get together - please pop over to Wendy's blog  here to see who else joined in and what they got up to.

In the afternoon I spent an hour working on my tablecloth and listening to this podcast about positive language and creativity. It's the latest in a series of podcasts about creativity and very interesting. 

My tablecloth has spent the last week or so on the back of the sofa as it has been too hot to work on it, but yesterday, following a few storms, was a cooler day so it was good to get back in the swing of quilting.

In the evening I was working on a new project. I am very fortunate to have 'inherited' the patterns for Field Journal from Fiona. I have so enjoyed watching her work on these beautiful designs over the last year. So last night I worked on this pretty lavender design.

I am not a fan of satin stitch so, being positive, I decided to get this one out of the way early on! My first instinct was to make these little designs into a book but when I realised how many there are I thought my book would be a little unweildy! So my next plan was to make them into finished hexagons which I can then sew together - no idea what the finished size will be but who cares - the fun is in the doing. So here is my first hexagon - the one I finished off a couple of times to get the sizing right!

It measures 4.5" side to side.

In other news my watercolour course has now moved on to fabrics, specifically stripey fabrics and lace, so nothing difficult lol!

For my first attempt I used one of the photographs supplied.

Having happily finished this and thinking that I would never be doing another stripey picture, I remembered my brightly coloured Basque napkins, so I couldnt resist having a go.

Happy with this one too. So then to move onto lace and this is the corner of a small tape lace mat which I have had for years.

This was not as difficult as I had imagined. My only problem was with the background as it was so hot the paint was almost drying as I put it on the paper!

So I have put my paints away now for a few days and am going to have a play in my sketchbooks instead. But for the moment, I am off to find some pretty lavender fabric to frame my embroidery.

Have a great week everyone.

FNwFs and RSC June

 Friday Night with Friends, being at the beginning of the month, is always the ideal time to work on my Rainbow Scrap Challege blocks for the month. And this month is no different. Earlier in the week I got out my scrap box and pulled all the purple scraps - and anything mauve or lilac too as I felt they went together. Just as well too as surprisingly my purple scrap pile was not very big.

So on Friday afternoon I cut out my little hexie Dresden flowers ready to sew in the evening and cracked on with the crumb blocks. Just 3 crumb blocks and only 4 squares for my Scraptherapy box. Still, I did use every last scrap so that was good.

Thank you Cheryll for inviting us round again - pop over to Cherylls blog here to see what everyone else got up to.

Also linking up with Angela here for ScrapHappy Saturday where you can see lots more purple!

I have been busy on and off with my water colours since I last posted and have now moved on from glass to china. First picture my last attempt at glass,then two china pieces.

I also joined in with the #7daysketchbookchallenge on Instagram and did a sketch a day - well I fell behind and did 3 in one day but you get the idea. Having chosen my sketchbook I then discovered on day 2 that our theme would be the 7 colours of the rainbow. My sketchbook wouldnt take wet paint so I stuck with just pencil drawings. I am glad I did though as really sketching was my whole reason for doing the challenge. Here they are in order starting with my red kettle

and finishing with my amethyst ring, the only violet I could find in the house. So glad I joined in with this and I look forward to joining in with the next one.

Well I think that is quite enought from me for one post - have a great week everyone.