Rome part one

As promised, here are some pictures from our recent visit to Rome. Apologies for the skewed ones!

Just around the corner from our hotel was the church of Santa Maria Maggiore which was built in the 5th century. This is one of it's domes and there were beautiful mosaics in the apse and elsewhere in this huge church.

This beautiful goldwork embroidery on the vestments of Pio V caught my eye as did this beautiful tassel.

We spent our first day traveling round on an open top bus and hopping on and off where we felt like it. First stop was the Coliseum and here is the Arch of Constantine which stands to the side of it.

A detail of the top of the arch.

The Palatine Hill is to one side of the Coliseum.

This is the Palazzo Senatorio on the Capitoline Hill with the bronze (copy) of Marcus Aurelius in front of it.

The original was cast in the second century AD.

From behind the Palazzo there is a splendid view of the Forum.

This famous statue of Romulus and Remus is to the left of the Palazzo.

Also on the Capitoline hill is the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli and these two singers were practising Panis Angelicus and it was lovely to sit and listen.

It also gave an opportunity to look at the beautiful ceiling.

Piazza Venezia.

Guarding the Eternal Flame and tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Vittorio Emanuele Monument.

A glimpse of the Pantheon built in AD 125

and the inside of it's magnificent dome.

Roof top gardens

Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona

Castel Sant'Angelo across the Tiber.

Tucked away down a back street near our hotel was the church of Santa Prassede where we found these beautiful mosaics.

A tiny side chapel had it's walls and ceiling completely covered

and there were more in the apse.

Thank you for taking the time to look at these pictures - next up St Peter's and the Vatican.

FNSI for October

Goodness this months FNSI has come round very quickly!

Thank you very much for hosting Wendy after your busy week.

Following last months FNSI I was visited by Tracy the Outback Craftaholic. And I am so pleased that I was because of course I returned the visit and found myself another great blog to follow. Not only that but Tracy had a giveaway that I could not resist entering for and yes, you have guessed it, I won! And I am so, so pleased.

I thought this Gail Pan book would be good and it certainly is. Lots of lovely Christmas projects to stitch. The book arrived last weekend while we were away and I could not wait to get started. My first project was soon traced up and stitching commenced. So appropriately that is what I was doing yesterday.

And this is as far as I had got when I had to give up and go to bed last night!

I had two friends visiting in the afternoon - Linda who is completing the quilting on her first quilt - a goosey gander lap quilt and Babs who was planning a hanging tote to store her rulers and cutters. She made a good start on one of the patchwork pockets for it too. So a lovely gossipy productive afternoon raced by helped along with tea and chocolate cookies.

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I have finished all the patchwork now on my hexagon table topper - all it needs is some lining fabric and maybe a few tied stitches to hold the layers.

I am very pleased with the way that the edging has worked out.

And of course I still love the back! I shall be sorry to cover it up.

I am still sorting through my pictures from Rome - had to take my second best camera to save weight and it does not have a viewfinder. So although the quality of pictures it takes is good, in brilliant sunshine, which is what we had, it was not always easy to see what I was taking!!

However, we had a fabulous time and I shall tell you all about it soon.

Hope you are having a great weekend.

TAST

This weeks TAST stitch is Fern stitch which is an easy stitch to work and has lots of possibilities. I have just embellished mine with pistil stitches but all sorts of beads and flowers could be added.

Here you can see it next to last weeks TAST stitch which was triple chain. My row is a bit wobbly but this is a very useful seam decoration with lots of variations to play around with. I particularly like the angled version.

TAST and catching up

First of all the latest two TAST stitches.

Last weeks TAST stitch was 131 Beaded Lock Stitch and I have two versions at the bottom of the picture, aligned and offset.
This weeks TAST stitch is 132 Kikos flower. This pretty stitch can be worked with varying numbers of petals. I have added a stem to it to make it a proper plant.

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I made good progress with my mini hexagons while I was in UK and have reached the outer edge. I have started adding hexagons to the outside now to turn over to form the edge.

Since I have been back I have received three lovely postcards.

The first to arrive was this one from Judy

depicting birch trees. The foliage is made using some of Judy's lovely dyed wools and is very textural and tactile.

Then came this card from Fiona

with some of her beautiful quilting inside each flower.

Then finally this scrumptious card from Jeannette 

we agreed to swap cards on the theme of poppies. Jeannette has fused organza onto felt and added poppies, seed stitches and beads.

This is the card I sent to Jeannette

Shibori dyed cotton onto which I made a gold Markal rubbing of a poppy seed head and this was emphasised with hand stitch.

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In August Philip found this huge caterpillar in our garden

which he identified as being the caterpillar of the Deaths Head Hawk Moth.

The caterpillar was imprisoned and fed and after about a week turned into a chrysalis.

Then today, this is what we found

a Deaths Head Hawk Moth! Isn't it amazing.

Well, if you have made it to the end of this post, thank you for your perseverance!

Hope you all have a great weekend - we are off to Rome next week for a few days and looking forward to our trip very much.