Friday Night with Friends

Has come around quickly again. Many thanks to Cheryll for getting us all together again.

I started the afternoon by adding the eyelets to my new journal cover.

This has taken a while to complete mainly because I used a pink binding on it and then hated it! So it sat around for a while. Anyway, finished now. I used a piece of printed/painted brown wrapping paper, well crumpled and then ironed onto heavyweight pelmet vilene.

The inner corners at the front of the cover hold the journal in place and provide somewhere to tuck notes and stuff for safety.

The back pockets are for my pens and ruler. You can see the offending pink binding - it works well with the inside colours but looked awful outside.

Next up was to machine the borders around my latest Vintage Kitchen block.

Five down, four more to go!

Then it was back outside to continue rubbing down a pair of shutters ready for painting. They are louvered so not the easiest task and one that I have been putting of for at least a couple of years! So of course there is a lot of peeling pain to remove. Not good for hands that sew I can tell you - getting through masses of hand cream.

Anyway I rounded off my FNwF in the evening with some TAST stitching - I had two weeks to catch up on.

The top row is Crossed Feather Stitch and the bottom row Plaited Feather Stitch - they were last weeks stitches. The shape in the middle is filled with Cushion Filling Stitch which was this weeks stitch. Nice to be up to date again.

Since my last post we have had family visiting which was fun. We met up with them on their way down from the coast and went to La Vallee des Singes which we all enjoyed. The smaller monkeys roam free while the larger gorillas and chimps are confined to islands but you still get a good view of them. They all seem happy in their valley!

 

We all loved the ring tailed lemurs - those enormous eyes are so beguiling!

 

These two were not getting friendly - they were making a lot of noise!

 

It was a great day out.

Well this post is already long so I shall pop back again soon with some more catching up.

FNSI, catching up and another goodbye!

Many thanks to Wendy for getting us together again despite internet problems - pop over to Wendy's Blog to see what everyone was working on.

My first Friday task was to complete my TAST sample for the week. I decided a few weeks back to resurrect my TAST sampler and have added a few new stitches to it. This weeks stitch is Woven Detached Chain and I decided that a few would be perfect to finish off the Beaded Barb stitch sample that I worked on a couple of weeks back.

I enjoyed working these and am especially pleased with the longer ones as they take on a bit of a curve adding some life to the arrangement.

Next up was this weeks block in Jenny of Elefantz Scrappy Vintage Kitchen stitch along. I have three of these blocks completed so far. 

To join the stitcheries I decided to pull out some of my 'vintage' ie circa 1980 Laura Ashley fabrics which I think are going to make quite a bold statement when this mini quilt is finished!!

Anyway, I got as far as tracing out the new design onto my linen fabric in between blitzing the house ahead of next weeks visitors.

We then met up with friends for Fish and Chips and by the time we got home I was not in the mood for stitching! So that will become tonight's project.

This months colour for the RSC is Light and Bright blues. I have had to double up on at least one of my fabrics for this as we have already done blues and aquas. Hopefully no more blue to come!

And my swap hexies are winging their way to Australia.

We said goodbye to Mum last week.

It was a lovely service in Mum's beautiful Parish Church with hymns and music chosen by Mum.

 RIP Mum

FNwF August

For Friday Night with Friends this month I had decided that I would complete the next round on my 1797 Revisited quilt. I had been adding hexies at odd times over the last couple of weeks and decided now was the time. Well, time passed and come bedtime I was nearly there but I still had a few to go.
Eventually I finished the round off yesterday evening.

Feeling very pleased as this is the last complete round - I can start squaring off now. First though I need to decide what colour to go for.

Many thanks to Cheryll for getting us together again - pop across to her blog for the links to everyone else who joined in.

Christmas in July!

Cheryll at Gone Stitchin' organised a Christmas in July swap - thank you Cheryll.

A package came for me this week from Spain - Barcelona in fact - from Montse, who does not blog.
These were the contents of my package.

Lots of goodies inside the box.

Thank you Montse.

Montse's favourite colour is Emerald so here are the emerald things I sent to her.

And if I translated her profile right she collects bookmarks hence the 'Little Reader' on the left.

FNSI

Thank you Wendy for hosting our evening again although it was not as I had planned.
Started off well in the afternoon. This pattern

came to me late last year from the lovely Maria. Now I am not a fan of dolls - something about the eyes gives me the creeps - but these don't have eyes! And they really appealed to me. Unable to source a copy of the pattern Maria very kindly sent me hers and I shall be passing it on to someone else once I have finished with it.
So, I had started cutting out the pieces on Thursday, so I soon finished that job

and so out with the machine and on to sewing together the arms, legs and bodies. Which was soon accomplished.

Then came the phone call that I had been expecting - my Mother died peacefully early in the afternoon. She had a major hip operation at the beginning of June and moved into a care home towards the end of the month. But she never really picked up although bravely made it through Dad's funeral. They spent 69 married years together and now they are reunited.

Mum's 90th earlier this year

 

So thank you dear friends for keeping me company yesterday evening.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge

This months colour for the RSC is pink!

 Fortunately it seems to be a colour I have plenty of scraps of. Here is my Dresden for the month.

We have lots of tree frogs around at the moment as it is hot and dry. This one - The King of all he surveys! - was having a good look around this morning.

Linking up with Angela at SoScrappy for Scrap Happy Saturday.

FNWF - July already!

Many thanks Cheryll for hosting our Friday get together. If you click on the link you will find links to everyone who took part - do go and see what they were working on.

It was 36 degrees here yesterday so needless to say after 11am we were hiding indoors! For the first part of the afternoon I was working on some secret stitching - sorry no pics.
It seemed appropriate to spend the rest of my Friday working on the new Jenny of Elefantz 'stitch-along' - the first stitchery design was released yesterday. You will find the free design and more info here

Here is Jenny's design for the first block

So I drew mine up and then thought about colours. First though I changed cookie to biscuit as this is going to be 'My' Vintage kitchen and we rarely have cookies. More 'British' too. Also I thought that the design of the jar would lend itself beautifully to the blue and white colourway of cornishware - an English classic.

 

You would have thought that at my time of life I would have learnt to spell biscuit correctly! And I went on to make a right hash of the drawing - thank goodness for Frixion pens!

Anyway, this is how far I got with my stitching last night and I should be able to finish it off today.

 

 

++++

We said goodbye to Dad Last Monday.

The lovely service was taken by my brother, I read a short bio and my nieces and nephew shared some memories of their Grandad - so a nice family affair. It was good to have all the family together - we are spread around the world! - and to meet up with other relations and friends that I have not seen for some time. My brother picked some great photographs for the service sheet.

Their Golden Wedding

 With his great grandchildren last year

It would have been Mum and Dad's 69th wedding anniversary on the day of the funeral.

RIP Dad. xx