FNSI for April

Many thanks once again to Wendy for organising our Friday get together - please pop over to Wendy's blog to see what everyone was doing last night.

I had a choice of projects to work on, but which? So, when in doubt start a new project! And that is just what I did.

I have been cleaning our spare bedroom as we have friends arriving to stay on Monday. We have an old chest of drawers in there and I bought some chalk paint while we were in the UK to give it a new lease of life. This will have to wait until our guests have left but it occurred to me that a pretty table runner on top of the chest would be perfect to show it off and so I got busy with my hexagons. I sorted out all the pale pinks and blues from my hexi stash and then went though my fabric stash looking for the same colours and this was the result of my afternoon and evenings work.

I still have a few more hexies to cut out and then I shall get busy basting.

We have had a lovely display of tulips in our terrasse garden this year.

I took this picture earlier in the week and sadly wind and rain since then mean that they are starting to look a bit bedraggled! But the lovely colour is still there.

Hope your Friday evening was fun.

Piece Yourself Together time

I have had this post written for a couple of weeks having got my dates and Tuesdays all mixed up!

As always, many thanks to Anthea for hosting this linky. Pop over to  Anthea's  blog to see  her almost completed, beautiful table runner and to find out what everyone else has been doing.

I am pleased to say that I actually have something positive to share with you all today!

I was looking for a small hand sewing project to work on over Easter and remembered these hexies that I had sewn together in Spain with the vague idea of making a project folder with them.

I also remembered a piece of Jenny of Elefantz embroidery that I worked a couple of years ago which has been sitting around waiting for a project.
And so I put them together and I now have the outside of my project folder!

Now I need to think about how I am going to finish off the inside - how many pockets I want etc. Hopefully it will not be too long until I can show you the finished folder.

While we were in England we visited Arlington Court in North Devon and I spotted this coverlet in one of the bedrooms.

It was made in the early 19th century and the hexagons are 3/4". Sadly, as you will see from the close up, many of the fabrics have started to disintegrate.

I should imagine that many of the fabrics have faded too. However, it was lovely to see it out on the bed as it had spent many years in a drawer before it was discovered.

I am also linking up with Super Mom No Cape and her
Vintage Embroidery Link

 Happy piecing!

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.