A Wedding, a Quilt and a Postcard

It seems such a long time since my last post as so much has happened but it is only just over two weeks.
Most importantly the wedding I was preparing to go to.

My stepson Gary, his wife Catherine and their daughter Emily who is the cutie in the middle.

And here is the quilt I made them to celebrate their marriage.

This is the Mystery Quilt that I made with Heather Spence starting last autumn. The front of the quilt is all pieced from butterfly prints as Catherine loves butterflys. The reverse of the quilt is a Dr Who fabric as Gary is a big Dr Who fan.

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In the spring I took part in a postcard swap organised by Sheila. One of the other participants in the swap was Eglea who is from Brazil. I contacted her suggesting a swap and she agreed.

Here is the lovely postcard that she sent me.

I think these delicate machine embroidered flowers look beautiful on the openweave fabric background. The card is also lightly padded and is lovely to hold.

Here is the card that I sent to Eglea.

While I was printing onto fabric for my spring postcards I also did some prints onto paper. These tulips were printed onto brown kraft paper from my stock. It already had a background print on it which had been over inked with procion dye ink. The paper was then well crumpled before I printed the tulips. Because the paper was well crumpled it becomes like fabric and is easy to sew into and so I worked a simple running stitch to outline the shapes.

My card to Eglea took just over a week to reach Brazil whereas her card to me took exactly a month to travel the same distance! We were both getting worried.

I am busy sorting and organising my thread stash - looking forward to getting back to some sewing soon.

Hope you are enjoying your week.

Lin xx

Birthday Giveaway

Well, here we are in sunny Taunton on my big birthday and the wedding day of my stepson Gary to Catherine.
I was going to show you some pictures of the quilt I have made them but the internet connection here is so poor I could be here all day. Can't wait to get back to rural France and good internet!

Thank you to everyone who left messages on my giveaway post a few weeks ago.

As promised Mr RNG is here to decide the winner.

Except that he will not copy on to my page!!! However the winner was number 7 and that is Sheila! Congratulations Sheila - I have your address so I will pop your bag in the post as soon as I get back to France. Poor Sheila broke her wrist recently so hopefully this win will help to brighten her day.

I am enjoying a glass of bubbly before I get ready for the wedding.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Lin

A Crazy Embroidered Bag

A few weeks ago my friend Chris the UK City Crafter, posted about some gorgeous little bags that she had made. See her post here.

I commented that the bags would be lovely made of Crazy Patchwork - of course, back came the challenge!

Having already had a vague idea at the back of my mind I was quick to pick up the challenge.

This pack of deliciousness

had been sitting in my stash for a while - too good to use!!

There were five 10"squaresof silk in a pack from The Silk Route who always have a lovely stand at the Knitting & Stitching Show.

I chose four of the pieces and cut out four eleongated hexagons to embroider onto and four larger ones for backing.

I am sure that I took pictures of each of the four embroidered panels but I can not find them anywhere so now we jump to pictures of the finished, almost, bag.

I used the leftover pieces of silk to make a rouleaux for the ties.

In her post, Chris mentioned that she had found it tricky matching up the edges on the base of the bag. As I could see that I might also have a problem I decided to join the hexagons together with faggotting. As my original plan was to oversew the edges together and then embroider over the seams, using faggotting meant that I was doing both jobs in one go.

I do think that the base is crying out for an ornate beaded tassel so I shall be thinking about that while I am away over the next few weeks.

I have loved making this bag - more crazy to come soon.

Lin

Some useful information

Dear Friends

I have just read this blog by Chrissie D and I have learnt some really useful stuff about facebook and about my blog. There are two tutorials at the bottom of the page about the comments section on my blog which I found very helpful especially the one about word verification. I had no idea that it was enabled on my blog, assuming that it was something that had to be added. It has now been removed and hopefully life will be easier if you choose to leave a comment for me.

Right, I am off to pack for UK.

Have a good week.

Lin

Happy Easter!

Seen at St Emilion earlier this week.

Seen in my garden today while I was eating my lunch.

Isn't this hoopoe gorgeous!

Have a lovely weekend.

Lin

Wisteria and my first giveaway!

During our first spring here in France, 18 years ago, I fell in love with the beautiful swathes of wisteria flowers that I saw everywhere. I acuired a wisteria plant from a reputable source and eagerly planted it in a suitable position. It thrived and bushed out and still is bushing out all over the place but never a flower has been seen!

Six or seven years ago a friend gave me a tiny seedling that she had grown from wisteria seeds collected from her own wisteria. I planted it in a dubious position, watered it irregularly and slowly it struggled to climb the wall. Three years ago I was surprised to see that this straggly plant  had a few flowers on it! Since then it has thrived and this year we have this magnificent (to my eyes) display of flower.

 A long way to go yet to the magnificent displays that I see all around but I am just so pleased to see this flower.

Glycines is the French word for wisteria - I am not sure why but it feels right, and it's a word I always remember.

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A couple of weeks ago I celebrated my 100th post and wanted to celebrate with a giveaway to thank my loyal readers, and which I am now going to link to my 60th birthday on May 3rd!

I have this Jacobs Ladder envelope bag to give away and inside there will be a few little surprises.

If you would like to win this bag - and I am happy to ship anywhere - then please leave a comment below. I shall employ Mr RNG on May 3rd to choose a winner.

The sun is shining here this morning and it promises to be another beautiful day - I hope it is where you are.

Lin xx

Frescos and Spring Crazy Block

St Meard de Dronne is the next village to us, down in the valley. This morning we were given a guided tour of the church and the recently exposed Frescos.

St Meard (also known as St Medard) evidently was the Bishop of Noyon in the early 6th century. It is believed that there has been a church dedicated to St Meard on this site since those times as several sarcophagi dating from then have been excavated there.

The reason for our visit was to look at the fresocs in the apse.

It is thought that the fresos were painted around 1500 and that the whole of the interior of the church would have been covered in paintings. However, just 30 years later the paintings were deemed to be blashphemous and attempts were made to destroy them.

In this picture you can clearly see the scratches in the stone made by farm implements in an attempt to destroy the picture. However it seems that this was taking too long and so the pictures were then covered up with chalk. Fortunately for us it means that the pictures were preserved and over the last ten years money has been raised and these paintings have been exposed. It will now take more fundraising before the next section of the church can be cleaned.

On either side of the apse are depicted views of heaven and hell!

Here is heaven showing souls escaping from their graves and queing up at the gates, then St Peter letting them in.

This is hell!

There is also a Last Supper

and Palm Sunday

It is not known who the artists were - it is likely that they were a group who went from church to church in the area. Also the quality of the artwork varies considerably.

This was a very interesting visit and I hope that it is not too long before the rest of the Frescos in the church are exposed.

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Linking up with Carli at Good Earth Quilting here is my completed spring crazy block.

I loved doing those little bees and playing with my new collection of silk ribbons.

Hope you are having a good weekend

Lin