Speechless (er, I mean Wordless) Wednesday

"Don't worry" he said, "I'm just going to drill a hole" he said!

OOPS!

Can you spot the mistake? I got 'sew' excited sewing the berries on...

...I didn't realise I'd sewn them in the wrong place until they were all sewn down!

The original doesn't call for quite so many berries!!

Now I just need to decide whether I am going to take the extra berries off OR whether I am going to increase the number of berries and leaves (and vines) on my border..

Well it will be my quilt after all.
Any thoughts?

Wordless Wednesday

Perhaps a few words...

(Paper-pieced white borders on:)



(Painted for Linus:)



(Why I decided not to walk up the lane to meet the school bus:-D )

Thoughts for Thursday

I am a bad blogger.

I still have no computer of my own after mine decided to die on me and I can't decide between getting my car fixed or a new computer, so at the moment I have done neither!!

I am also a bad quilter (it seems).
This past weekend was the Great North Quilt Show in Harrogate and I normally try to go most years if I can, but this year I just couldn't decide what to do. I was practically crippled by my chaos! My sewing room/space has been such a mess for so long that I decided no new fabric and no more inspiration until it gets sorted. So off to Ikea I went instead. I bought some groovy tressels for my sewing room and DH cut up a door and voila! I have a new smaller table. (We are working on the principle that if you have less horizontal space you have less mess LOL)
It is still in the process of being tidied, but it feels better already (probably just to me and not to anyone else's eye!!)

So in the interests of being a good quilter again, I picked up my Carolina Lily and have decided to crack on with the borders...


The photo below shows that I am indeed English-Paper-Piecing the entire quilt including borders:
Attaching borders has meant that I have had to cellotape large amounts of paper together...


Next I will need to cut the fabric and baste it on the papers. Then stitch the borders to the main body of quilt. Then applque the leaves and vines etc.... I may be a while :-)

The garden continues to feed us despite the most amazingly diverse weather which has included stormy nights and gusty days (where both portable greenhouses were sent flying. My poor cucumber plants needed repotting after their pots got smashed in a gale, but they are still bearing fruit regardless of the elements!)
DH has declared he is bored of the marrows/squashes so forgot to check them for a few days. I was delighted when I went to have a look myself:
A bumper crop of six!


I'm not sure they are the most interesting vegetables to eat, but they are prolific! LOL

Out of England...

Last week we went to the South Lakes Wildlife Park. The weather was glorious and I almost felt like I was back in Africa (except for the motorway right next to the park LOL)



There were quite a lot of animals and the park is great with the cafe overlooking the giraffes...



There are many viewing decks for humans to observe animals (and vise versa)...


Lots of monkeys on both sides of the fences :-)





Only a week or so left of the 'summer' holidays now. I use the term summer very loosely: On Sunday we installed a water butt and 2 days later it is overflowing!
Still we have had a few train trips to the beach. The boys enjoy it no matter the weather!

(Above they are standing in the rain waiting for the train!)




On another trip, we had sun, but lots of wind too. That's ok at least we're at the beach!! There are some amazing bird sculptures around and we enjoy looking out for them along with collecting stones, broken shells and driftwood that we later leave behind because Mummy and crutches and pockets full of stones don't go together at all well!



The vegetables love the rain and sun combo of the English summer :-)



Crutches and all, I decided to do a little painting...


It took 3 coats to get rid of my graffiti! In future I'll have to find another way to show my love LOL!

Oh, how the garden grows

It's best when all is quiet
that's when I like to try it
use a computer quick as you can
and a blog post can happen without a plan...

YES! I am still computerless:-( I don't know what is wrong with the darn thing, but hey at least I am getting lots of housework and sewing done.

The garden continues to flourish despite a distinct lack of sun (and my own lack of gardening know-how!)



We are not quite living off the land, but we have had some lovely crops. We are still waiting for some tomatoes to ripen up. Green tomato chutney here we come if they don't LOL. (speaking of which I have just made 2 batches of red onion marmalade - yum!)



The peas have been great. And DH and the boys seem to get there pretty quick when any are in need of picking!

We've had about 4 courgettes and they have been a gazillion times better than supermarket ones ;-)

The bees are back and we are so happy to see them!

DH's brocolli has been tasty even though they look so funny. Massive plants and small florets. (We are quite competitive with our vegetables LOL)


His whole patch is amazing!

Our first cucumber.....! (Mine actually LOL)

His first 8-ball or as we call them in South Africa: 'gem-squash'

And lots of sewing... Photos of that to come and a website even! This no computer-thing is at least good for something!

Just to say...

...I'm not ignoring my blog, but my computer has broken again!! Then I came down with a nasty bug and spent about a week in bed. I'm better now, but my computer still isn't! The vegetable patch is doing well and we've eaten our first courgettes already - yum!

On the leg front, I am still on crutches, but managed to drive for the first time yesterday! I'm very pleased about that. It was a bit sore, but no pain, no gain as they say.

I hope to blog some photos next time when I figure out how to download them on this pc that I'm borrowing :-)

So behind..

July already and I've not blogged stuff from June!!

Here goes!!!:
The white corners are in! After a fruitless search for the white rose print, I just ordered some plain Kona white fabric and got on with putting the corners in on my Carolina Lily, the English paper-piecing way.


Now I need to add the borders which I plan to do with papers in as well although that may be tricky. I have pinned the corner flowers ready for stitching together and then appliqueing onto the white. Slow and steady as they say...



The garden is coming on a treat. We could do with a lot more bees, but the mix of hot weather one day and rainy weather the next means everything is thriving.

My roses:


The peas taste good, even if some people are impatient (early) pluckers!!:


Strawberries waiting for some sun:


First courgettes: (Yippeee!)


First cucumber: (Double yippee!!)



I found a wallhanging I had started donkey's years ago. I offered it to my neighbour for a new member of her extended family...

All she has to do is stitch some of the iron-on flowers and butterflies down and add a binding...

(one UFO off my list LOL!!)

The Levens Quilt show was held on the last weekend of June. I went with my neighbour and was very restrained. I only bought one FQ of brown, a box of pins (always need pins!!) and a holiday apron kit type thing. The quilts were great. Here are 2 of my favourites:
L OV E D this one:
And this one: (nice and scrappy yet a nice limited palette)


Then (also in June) was the school Sport's Day which went by in a whizz: :-)



Egg and spoon: (oops! LOL)


Spectators:

Winners:


A nice surprise:
(Although I was informed that "it's only for picnics, not for the bed" - maybe she thought I didn't like it!! I did, it's cute!)

That's all folks. See you in August at this rate:-)))