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.

CTTY and a Scheepjes update

April is here, well nearly over actually! and it is time to link up with Anthea at Hibiscus Stitches for Christmas Through the Year. I do hope you will join in and share any gifts that you are making as we all need some inspiration and it is good to see what others are doing. Anthea is showing a very pretty bookmark that she has made.

Sadly Anthea, despite my best intentions and scheduling it in to my stitching journal, I have very little to share. But I will share what I have.

This little stitchery is a Gail Pan design from her book Patchwork Loves Embroidery and is destined to decorate a little Dorothy bag - hopefully you will see the finished bag next month!

I am using a pretty Cottage Garden thread for the embroidery.

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A quick update on my Scheepjes CAL. I have completed week 4 and have been working on the crochet for the centre panel of the shawl. I am now ready to start decorating again.

We came home from our week away to find our Wisteria flowering and looking it's best ever!

However, there has been no rain and we have none forecast for the time being so the garden is very dry. Fortunately a friend took pity on my pots and popped in a couple times to give them a drink. But we are enjoying the beautiful sunny days which are giving us a chance to tidy up the garden.

This coming Friday is FNSI hosted by Wendy - if you fancy joining us for a virtual sew-in then pop over to Wendy's blog here to sign up and join in the fun. I hope to see you there.