Spring in the garden

I thought you might like to see some pictures of our garden which is looking very colourful with spring flowers at the moment.

I have one small clump of bluebells and I was pleased to see today that the flowers are starting to open.

We have a lovely display of cowslips again this year all around the garden.

There are just a few early tulips open - most are still in bud.

The daffodils are coming to an end.

I love the gorgeous colour of the japonica flowers.

We have been working hard in the garden, mainly getting the veg plot ready for planting summer veg at the end of April. Poles are in place for runner beans and the smaller wigwams are where we have planted mange tout peas. At the far end of the plot there are several rows of broad beans starting to flower. Seeds are in for parsnips and carrots.

Now we are off to the UK for a couple of weeks - no doubt it will all need weeding again when we get back!

Easter FNSI sewing

Happy Easter everyone - I hope that you have had a good weekend.

So on Friday night Wendy very kindly invited us round for an extended FNSI to cover the whole weekend! Many thanks to Wendy for hosting us and also for your super Bunny stitchery.

All this lovely sewing time meant that my Baby Dear Jane

now has a border!

Backing fabric has been ordered and at some time this summer she will be quilted.

Do pop over to Wendy's blog to see what everyone else was working on.

Have a good week.

EPP Tuesday and FNSI/EWSI

It's Piece Yourself Together time again - and if you have been working on some English paper piecing then do pop over to Anthea's blog to share your work or just to see what everyone is up to.

Regular readers of my blog will know that last week I finished a quilt - my first UFO finish of the year. And so there has not been a lot of anything else going on. However, I have made and sent off my swap flowers for the month which are these

And this lovely flower arrived in the post for me this week.

I was in the UK for a few days and as we all know hexies are a nice easy project for when you are traveling and so I managed to baste this collection of 1/2" hexies.

 This coming Friday is FNSI - delayed by a week - but as it is Easter weekend, Wendy has decided to turn it into an Easter Weekend Sew In! A whole weekend of sewing fun. Sign ups are open now so do pop over to Wendy's blog to join in the fun.

I shall be working on my mini Dear Jane - adding the border I hope!

But whatever you do I hape that you all have a great Easter weekend.

At last! - a 2016 UFO finish

This UFO has not been around that long - only three and a half years! But for two of those years it sat in my quilt pile with only two borders waiting to be quilted. The reason for this was that I got hooked on crazy quilting. So it has not taken me long to get that quilting finished and the binding added.

So here finally is my 'Jack of Hearts' mystery quilt that I first blogged about here. With more posts here, here, here, here, here and here.

Lovely to have it finished at last and many thanks to Heather Spence  and her Mystery Quilt for a Cause raising money for Cancer Care.

A few more photographs to celebrate the event.

And maybe a few more arty shots!

Hope your weekend is going well - it is warm and sunny here, feeling like spring has arrived.

PYT time again!

It's time to share our English Paper Piecing projects again so do pop over to  Anthea  blog to see what everyone is doing. And if you have done some EPP lately then why not link up so that we can all see what you have been doing. Do pop over and visit Anthea - she is suffering from a bad back and needs cheering up!

It was lovely to find four envelopes of hexi flowers in my pile of post on our return from Spain last week. Two envelopes contained my flowers for February and two were catch ups from December and January. Here they all are

Lots more lovely blue flowers for my garden.

I have been busy quilting a UFO which I have got to get out of the way! so I have done very little EPP work - just this mug rug that I made for a friend.

All last week we were seeing cranes fly over as they migrate north for the summer. These came particularly low over the house.

They are always lovely to see although they don't always mean that warm weather is on the way!

Hope you have a good week.

Piece Yourself Together and Agua Amarga

It's time to share our EPP work again - pop over to Anthea's blog to see what everyone has been doing and to add your own link. Thank you Anthea.

We are still in Spain so I have been basting my way through a box of half inch hexies papers and fabric squares that I cut out before we came away.

I have also sewn together some of the 1" hexies that I basted earlier in the month with the intention of using them as the front panel on a project folder when I get home - a long anticipated project! I suspect that I will use this as a prototype and then make myself another when I have perfected my design LOL!

Yesterday we had a day out down the coast stopping first for coffee and tostadas (half a toasted baguette with olive oil and freshly grated tomato to top it with) which were too good to stop and photograph! We then carried on to Agua Amarga, a small white town which was once a fishing port but now fishes tourists! It was very quiet there yesterday with only a few bars open and all the shops closed but I should imagine it is a very busy tourist spot in season. However, to my mind, now is the time to visit. It was a lovely warm, sunny day and we enjoyed walking along the beach and through the town. Here are a few photographs just to give you an idea what it is like.

We stopped for lunch at a bar on the beach. Our beers came with this plate of tapas. Thinly sliced dried tuna and cheese on bread drizzled with olive oil.

Lunch was boquerones and clamare.

On our way back up the coast we drove to a lighthouse where there is a lovely view of Agua Amarga - usually! Yesterday it partially hidden by a misty haze so hence no photograph.

Only three more days here now - the weather looks to be good though for the rest of the week.

Hope you are enjoying some sunshine too.

Indalo

Everywhere we go here in Almeria we see the Indalo symbol.

The Indalo is a prehistoric magical symbol that was found in caves in the north of Almeria 100 years ago.

It is dated to 4500 BC. It represents a man (some say a ghost) carrying a rainbow over his head.
The Indalo has been adopted by the Province of Almeria as it's official symbol in the same way that the black bull is the symbol of Andalucia.

An Indalo painted or hung on the outside of your house is said to protect from evil.

And it can be carried as a lucky charm. But the charm will only be beneficial if it has been given as a gift.

Many businesses incorporate Indalo into their names for instance

 Indalo Pizza, Indalo Night Club, Indalo rentals etc etc and this Fotoindalo.

 There is of course the

and one of their club notice boards

This curved version is very popular for fridge magnets and for decorating tourist pottery.

Here is my Journal page about Indalo

Last year while we were in Spain I worked on one of my CQJP blocks and included a small Indalo.

 Just a reminder that Wendy has invited us all for FNSI again this Friday - to sign up click here.

Hope to see you there.