Early Morning Wander

5 am this morning and as I was awake I decided to get up, it's been so hot and with all the downstairs closed up overnight the house felt stuffy, I opened all the doors and windows including the Patio doors and wandered out into the garden, it was soo cool! the plants and flowers were looking good so, I though I would record it here.This is the view that greets me each day from the conservatory

Wandering around there are a few winter pansies still giving it their all in the tubs

This lovely Iris in the pond is quite few years old now but still going strong, it's full of buds and has managed to open up one flower to greet the dawn

Blue Lobelia is everywhere but I love this clump on the rockery by the waterfall which with all the sunshine is looking a bit green, but the birds love bathing here!

Further up the in the borders Hellebore is flourishing

Across the lawn behind the larger rockery the Orange blossom smells so sweet.

Turning to walk back to the house on rear of the rockery is this grass, we don't know how it got here or what its called but its rather spectacular at around 4feet high

and all around the garden in colours many and glorious are the Aquilegia Vulgaris

By now it's time for breakfast and some knitting, I'm currently working on some gloves, a special request from Barbara who lives next door (who bought the yarn then asked me to do it!) This is the first one, now don't get me wrong I like knitting gloves but it's driving me crazy, I do not like the yarn, I've used it before but the quality seems to have changed. In the ball its nice and soft but when I'm using it, it's like knitting with thin string! Plus I've had to run it back to the cuff twice already as I a) dropped a stitch and didn't notice then b) I did the thumb increases on every 4th row instead of the 3rd. I am now only knitting it in the mornings when there are no distractions and as you can see I'm up to the fingers. Yay!

Well I'm going to go now before this turns into a gardening blog with a grumpy knitter writing it! But I'll be back soon with some sewing show 'n' tell.

TTFN

Lx

Didn't We Have a Lovely Time...

...the day we went to Quilts UK at Malvern. 

Yes we did! especially as this year I was 'taxied' there and back by Lisa. We set off early in order to have a cup of coffee accompanied by a bacon roll at our usual 'watering hole'. On arrival we worked to our usual pattern, she shopped and I 'oggled' quilts with a little shopping thrown in. This year I was not disappointed, I took so many pictures it's taken me several hours to get them out of my phone, labeled up and in a folder. I thought I would share a few of them with you here.

As I took so many shots I'll show you a few and label them with the title and the name of the maker.

First up is the Best in Show, not really my cup of tea, but it was very clever.

Latin For Quilters by Moira Neal. Cambridgeshire

Hand painted, Applique, Hand made lace, Recycled, rusted & printed fabric and embellishments.

The next 3 quilts absolutely blew me away, with superbly accurate intricate piecing and stitching.

All Things Bright and Beautiful by Evelyn Walton. Gloucestershire. 

Machine pieced, Hand appliqued Baltimore style. 

Enchanted Stars, Happy Days by Andrea Ashwell. Wiltshire

Batiks, free motioned quilted with some ruler work.

Mauerblumchen - (Wallflower) by Claudia Scheja. Germany

Machine Pieced Carpenters Star and Machine applique flowers. 

This one made me smile. To give you an idea of the humour I have added a close up of one block

A Quilters Tail by Shakesmeer. 

Made to commemorate Shakespeare's 400th anniversary 

The last one is my '15 minutes of fame', after 30 years of patchwork & quilting finally I have 'a piece' hung at Quilts UK.

Westbury Park Quilters Banner. Made by many hands and inspired by the wonderful city of Bristol 

Begun when I was a member of this group, we were given a list of famous landmarks or things relevant to the city and left to use our own techniques to achieve our chosen block. This is what I chose.

I used an image from the Bristol Blue website which I printed off and traced to get the shape of the jug, ditto for the lettering. Jug and central lettering applied using bond-a-web then machine appliqued in place before hand quilting the outline, the rest of the lettering was hand embroidered.

I did a little shopping, buying a couple of small Boutis/Trapunto kits from Sylvia Critcher along with some quilting Wool and 1/4" masking tape, a couple of Redwork kits from designed by Sadie Yeomans  plus a small bundle of fabrics from Farne Designs a fabric supplier who dye all their own fabrics which come in the most amazing range of colours. There were a few bits and pieces too small to list here. To round off the day we finished with tea and cake - why?-  because you have too! 

We arrived home tired and not a little sad with the knowledge that this will be our last show together as Lisa returns to the USA 10 weeks from tomorrow :-((

TTFN

Lx