Christmas Through The Year!

It's the first time that I have linked up with CTTY - thank you Anthea for hosting this and I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been doing as I am looking for ideas!!

So this is my first Christmas finish

A lovely Gail Pan design mini quilt.

Am busy working on my next item now.

July FNSI and TAST samples

Thank you to Wendy for hosting again. Just click on her name to go and see what everyone else was doing.

Our hot dry weather continues so it is good to be indoors in the afternoons. I made a start on embellishing my latest crazy block

working this seam using Fly stitch which was this weeks TAST stitch.

I worked a row of long tailed fly stitches first in pink then another row of mauve short tailed fly stitch inside each cup. The cups are filled with ribbon stitch and decorated with crystal beads.

I also did this little piece of work using much freer fly stitches.

Hope everyone had a good FNSI and that you will have a great weekend.

EPP Tuesday and a June finish

It's Piece Yourself Together time again - thank you to Anthea for hosting this link again.

Click on Anthea's name above and you will find the other participants on the right hand side of her blog.

Now, first of all I wrote a blog post for the last PYT link and then forgot to link up! How silly is that? You can read that post here.

Since then not much has happened on the EPP front except that yesterday afternoon with half an eye on this motley crew

playing their Bastille Day bowls competition, I managed to baste quite a few 1/2" hexies.

 

I have also sent off my hexie swap flower for July but as usual forgot to photograph it!

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I finished my June CQJP block last week - this is the finished block with a few closeups

The Dorset Posy in the bottom right corner is not a fixture yet - I am not sure if I like it there or not as I feel it might be a bit too 'heavy'

Anyway, this afternoon I put together my block for July and this is it.

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We had friends staying at the weekend and on Sunday morning we went to visit an Open Garden belonging to friends of friends about half an hour south of here. Their beautiful garden contains lots of lovely banana palms which are the gardeners current passion! He even has one with bananas on!

Here are a few more pictures of the garden.

Our garden will never look that neat and tidy!

Have a great week.

July Friday Night with Friends

Cheryll very kindly invited us for FNwFs, even though she is away! Thank you very much Cheryll, I hope you are having a great time.

Do go and visit Cheryll to see what everyone else was getting up to.

Our heatwave continues and so it was pleasant to spend the afternoon indoors getting on with my CQJP block for June. I am pleased with the way this is turning out. It's based on my jungly spring garden so lots of green with bright, strongly coloured flowers.

The fabrics bottom left and bottom right are both much more green than they appear here.
So, on Friday I was working on the flowers bottom left and the red geranium type flowers draped over the block.

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Today in the post I received this gorgeous ATC from Faye.

The theme of this swap was song titles and I think it's pretty obvious what this one is! And look at all the beautiful, tiny stitching! Don't forget this is an ATC not a postcard so only 2 1/2" x 3 1/2"!

You can see the ATC I sent out here.

So that's all for today - must get on with some sewing as we await a possible storm - just some rain would be nice to fill our butts!

Have a great weekend.

Cactus Flower

This much neglected cactus has surprised us this week with a beautiful flower.

Isn't it beautiful! Sadly it did not last very long but was lovely to see.

We have a canicule forecast here for next week - that's a heatwave to you! So it will be a week of early mornings and quiet afternoons indoors - plenty of time to sew then!

Have a good week.

It's Piece Yourself Together time again!

And doesn't it come around quickly!

Thank you very much Anthea for hosting this linky and I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else has done. Anthea herself is working on a very pretty Grandmothers Flower Garden so I do hope that you will go and have a look.

I have not had a great deal of time over the last fortnight and some of it has had to be spent on other things but I have basted some more hexies and also started sewing some together.

I have a vague idea of where these are going but will let you know when it is more definite!

Meanwhile the postman has been busy and I have received two beautiful cards in Sheila's swap. Our theme was beach/summer and here are the cards I received.

This one from Judy

of a coneflower made using some of her own dyed corriedale and BFL wool. The stitching is beautiful. The background is creamier than it looks in my picture. It's lovely Judy, thank you very much.

The other card came from Sheila herself and I am so pleased to have swapped with her.

  I love this little boat bobbing on the Nova Scotia sea. Click on the link to Sheila to see a whole series of lovely cards that she has made. Thank you very much Sheila and thank you for hosting our swap.

Here are the cards I sent to Sheila and Judy. Beach huts are a very British thing I think and I always love seeing the rows of bright cheerful colours at the seaside. This one was for Sheila.

And this one for Judy.

I have been admiring the lovely scarecrows that my friend Susan has been making. So what a lovely surprise it was to receive one of my very own in the post. This one is appliqued onto a tote bag and I do think he is gorgeous!

Thank you very much Susan.

Right, that's it for today - blogger seems to be having a few wobbles so I am going to get this posted while the going is good.
Have a great week

FNSI for June

It's been another busy week here with family staying but managed a few hours yesterday afternoon to join in with Wendy and friends for another FNSI. Thank you Wendy for inviting us all again.

Go and visit Wendy to see what everyone else got up to.

I have been snatching a few minutes during the week to work some stitching for an ATC and used my time yesterday afternoon to get it finished and ready to send off. Here it is.

It's called Fields of Gold and is based on the song by Sting.

Well must dash - airport run coming up.
Hope you all have a great weekend.