Inspiration with Lynette Anderson, and more!

Well, I have just spent over an hour updating my Blog and somehow just lost it all - what did I do wrong - that is so annoying!  Well here we go again - Take 2!
I realised this weekend that it is a month since I have updated, so apologies all round and hopefully I can show you some bits of inspiration.
Inspiration was in abundance last night at Cowslip Workshops:  Lynette Anderson is over from Australia and has spent this weekend teaching at Cowslip, and last night she held a "Show and Tell" and a slide show.  What a lovely lady:  very bubbly and full of life and so interesting: here she is holding her wonderful "Pond House" quilt:

and here is one of her beautiful Scandinavian Christmas quilts, along with some smaller pieces, bags slippers and a display of her amazing buttons:

Cowslip as I have mentioned before is a place of quilting treasures, and last night was no exception.
Jo Colwill provided a wonderful setting for us quilting addicts to enjoy some great quilts.

I have been hanging some of my latest Noah's Ark cross-stitch pictures, and I am getting quite a collection:

I have just collected a small Birth sampler for Otto, who lives in Australia so this will be winging its way across the world next week wrapped in much bubblewrap!:

I have shown you this before, but this is Otto's quilt which I hear is a big hit!

Dot (youngest daughter) came down to Devon for the Easter weekend and we had such a good time - lots of fun and a great day out in St.Ives on Good Friday.  We set off early and it was a glorious day - we sat by the sea eating fresh crab sandwiches and local ice cream, and then had some culture - we visited the Barbara Hepworth House and Garden which is owned by the Tate Gallery.  This has been preserved since her death and the garden is full of her amazing sculptures. 

At the end of March I spent a few days up in Cobham with my dear friend Lise, and we caught up on each other's projects and with friends:  here is Lise (standing), and her Irish Setter Storm with a good friend Maureen who came down to see us from London, and Lynn:

My three children drove out from London on the Saturday and we spent a wonderful afternoon at Claremont Gardens, a NT beauty spot just outside Esher. It was during that early heatwave and we had such a lovely afternoon feeding the ducks etc.!

And I also managed to meet William who was born in  January:  on my previous post I showed you the Noah's Ark sampler I had made him:  here we are having a cuddle and him enjoying his quilt:

I am curently cross-stitching a great design by Jardin Prive called "Sampler aux Bouquets I, II and III" - it is lovely - each design can be an individual sampler, or they can be sewn as one long one - which is what I am doing:  it is looking gorgeous and will be over with the framer next week!:

So, there is my update:  all I need now is to tidy my Studio (yet again) and start a new quilting project - which after last evening's view of Lynette's quilts is something I am really looking foward to doing.
Happy creative stitching!

Spring and Finishes

Well this week I have collected three framed pictures, and dropped off three more to be framed - I think I am their Number One customer at the moment - lots of Noah's Arks!  This one is for William whom I will be meeting for the first time next week, very excited about that. 

This one I think I shall keep, I just love it and it can be part of my Noah's Ark collection. 

I have just finished this one for Ida:  looking forward to seeing it framed.

 

 I have had quilts out on the washing line for a freshen up, and have been moving various pictures around which is always good fun:  they get a new lease of life in a different room.

This is one of my favourite quilts made with oddments and bits from various patchwork classes - it all came together so well, I just love it.
Spring is well and truely here in  Devon - when I awoke yesterday I found I had new neighbours in the field next to us:  they are so gorgeous and it is always good to see the cows back out in the field!

And I think our 14 year old Tabby cat - Reg - thinks he's a plant!  He is such a "human" cat! - our dear friends Lyn and Bob came for Sunday roast last weekend, and Reg sat with Lyn throughout the meal.  She is luckily very fond of cats!  You can hear him asking:  Where's my plate of roast pork?!

I am now about to totally blitz my sewing studio - and hopefully that will inspire me back into my fabric pile - I feel that I have lost my patchwork drive, but with luck a couple of hours fondling some of the glorious fabrics I have in my stash will bring it all back. 
I am currently reading the wonderful children's classic "Pollyanna" - I am now playing the "Glad" game. I am so fortunate in many ways and hopefully it will help me banish away - even if only on a temporary basis - the huge amounts of stress that have filled my life in the recent months.  There is nothing I can do about the stress - so I will be "glad" that I have a wonderful family, good health and amazing friends.  Thank you Pollyanna for this reminder.

Sewing and cooking!

Just before I drive up to Nottingham tomorrow I thought I would write a quick update.  I realised that I have not shown any finished quilts (apart from baby ones) for some time - so here is the quilt I made from the fantastic Debbie Mumm fabric which I purchased at the FOQ last summer - it was a design I had never seen before and I just loved it:  it is warm and cosy as it is flannel and perfect for cold winter nights:

I have found it difficult deciding what to give my Mother for her birthday this year - I sewed her a gorgeous sampler for Christmas:

but this time have chosen a book all about our Queen's 60 years on the throne - lots of pictures and easy for her to pick up and put down!
I have been excited about finding started but unfinished Noah's Ark samplers, and have already completed one of them which can go off to be framed when I return next week:  it is lovely and I had such fun sewing the animals:

Meanwhile we have played much Scrabble by the fire these past days - I am ahead on the scores so far! - and have been enjoying the new issues of Vogue, with some lovely photos taken at Elizabeth Taylor's childhood home which my eldest daughter Fran was involed with, and also the new French magazine Simply Vintage - although my French is poor it is really quite easy to understand the projects - I want to make almost everything, it is just lovely!

 I hope to be able to share some photos of my trip next time, plus I will take some pictures of the quilts I have made for my Mother over the years.  This morning I have made some delicious and nutrious soups to take with me plus some yummy lemon drizzle cake and a fruit cake, I hope these will tempt her small appetite.
Have a good week everyone.................

Log Fires and Marmalade!

As it has been very cold and damp this week I decided to sort through my cross-stitch patterns and projects, and I found several half finished pieces - why did I not complete them?!  There are two Noah's Arks and a gorgeous half finished Quaker design - so I have promised myself not to start anything new until these are finished!  I have also had a major sort through of all my threads - DMC, WDW, GA etc. and now have them sorted by number and/or make - so finding my colours will be so easy - I should have done this a long time ago.
I have this week finished a sweet little Noah's Ark - this is for William:

and I also have sewn the bonus pattern from BBD Loose Feathers Winter, and made this into a small memorial sampler - a neighbour from my years in West Horsley Surrey died last year on his 85th birthday, so when I next go to Surrey I shall visit his wife and take this - it will last longer than flowers and I know she will love it:



So no new starts now until my half-finished finds are done and with the framer!
As it has been so bleak I decided to make Marmalade - the Sevill oranges are not in season long so I need to make the most of them, although I always freeze some each winter in case we run out before next January:  the smell is always so good and the larder shelves look happier full than empty:

I was watching BBC1 Breakfast this morning, and Don McLean (American Pie) was on:  he made me smile as he was commenting on the fact that we in the UK make so much fuss about the "small" amount of snow we have had - compared to Maine USA - he apparantly has a snow plough on the front of his vehicle so he can get out and about - horses for courses as they say!  We have had no snow down in our part of West Devon, but we did have minus 10 degrees on our front porch the other morning:

I am off up to Nottingham next week for my Mother's 92nd birthday, so this weekend I will do some baking and make some nutrious soups for her:  hopefully it will be a chance to catch up with my sister and her husband and also some long-standing family friends - and I will be able to do much sewing too as she is not able to get out these days. 
I will now go and light our log fire, and maybe a game a Scrabble this afternoon?  Sounds good to me!

2012 Projects

I am determined not to slow down this year, and already have two completed projects to show you.
I have finished Loose Feathers from Blackbird Designs and picked it up from the framers yesterday - very pleased with the end result, and maybe will put some small handles on the sides of the frame so it can be used as a tray as we are running out of wall space! - meanwhile it is propped up in the window looking lovely until I decide:

Some time ago I decided that a patchwork door curtain would look good over our kitchen door, so I had fun picking out novelty fabrics from my stash and making it - however, it has sat in my studio since before Christmas as I am no good at putting it altogether with the lining, inter-lining etc., so I found a lovely lady in Tavistock who was happy to do this bit for me - and I picked that up yesterday too. We found a curtain rod with finials in the workshop so Rod put that up, and now we have a door curtain, just in time for this bitterly cold weather - it looks fantastic - should have done it years ago!

So a good start to 2012 - have taken "Gingerbread Cottage" (Country Cottage Needleworks) to be framed, and I am now busy cross-stitching a sweet Noah's Ark sampler for one of the new babies - plus have two baby quilts to make for expected babies, and then I will move on to one of several UFO's which are lurking in my Studio - I am determined to finish these off before I start something new - I wonder how long that resolution will last?  Watch this space!

A busy two weeks

Two weeks ago I needed a boost, so I drove over to "Cowslip Workshops" just outside Launceston in Cornwall and spent a peaceful afternoon catching up with my dear friend Jo Colwill who runs this idyllic patchwork haven.  Some of you will have seen Jo on Channel 4 when she helped Kirsty Allsopp with her patchwork on the recent TV series.  "Cowslip" is just one of those wonderful places where you can forget all your troubles and just revel in fabric and inspiration!

This is the view of Launceston castle from Cowslip - if ever you are down in West Devon or Cornwall this is a "must visit" place for all patchwork lovers.  And there is the added bonus of superb food in their organic cafe.

I have finished Ida's quilt using lovely bright flannels - Carole at Butterfly Quilters long-arm quilted it for me, and I found a fun alphabet panel for the backing.  It looked great and I gather it has "hit the mark" with Ida.  I even managed to get her name down the middle - "Ida" is so easy to insert being just three letters!

Little Ida will be flying off to New Zealand next month to meet her Grandparents, so I have just finished a very little cotton quilt which I hope her Mum and Dad will find useful whilst travelling - although the flannel quilt is lovely, it is too big and bulky for long distance travel so I am hoping that they will find this little treasure fits in and around their luggage and daughter a treat and becomes invaluable.  Name in the middle again!

This past week I have been in Cobham, Surrey staying with my dearest friend Lise - she had to have her 5 year old hip replacement replaced again - one of those faulty ones we have been reading about - so I have been her Chief Nurse!  We have had such fun - much reminiscing, entertaining all her visitors, coffee and cakes and wine, etc. etc. - I left her walking so much better and hardly needing her stick at all.  She is just one of those extra special friends that mean the world, true gold - she taught me patchwork 31 years ago, then cross-stitch - so she is my "teacher"!  She is so proud of all my creations now.   I sewed her this sampler many years ago which says it all: 

Now I am back home - it is cold and wet and bleak and there is snow on Dartmoor!  So - we are off down the pub for a pint of cider!  Meanwhile the roses are still blooming in the garden even in January - what a strange world we are living in!

Thank you for reading - I love your comments, so keep them coming!







Just another day in the Tamar Valley.

It is a beautiful day in Devon - it started off misty, and we could only just see the River Tamar at the bottom of the garden:

But as the day has gone on, it has just got better and better:

The Tamar Valley is so beautiful and is looking at it's best today.  It feels as if Spring is just around the corner.

I have just posted a baby quilt off to little William, who was born on Monday morning to a very special couple - new babies are such a joy to make for:

It has a lovely Winnie the Pooh backing, so hope he will love and enjoy kicking his little feet on this one!

I have also contined with my major tidy up of "Ward Cottage":  another reorganised bookcase, and the kitchen dresser is looking good too.  My favourite cookery books got sorted - so Mary, Delia and Jamie - along with Susan Branch - are all neat and tidy and easy to get to!  What would I do without Mary Berry in my kitchen - she is the Aga Queen.  She taught me to cook -  I just love her.



The sun is shining into my studio, making it very warm and inviting, so I am now off to give it a major make-over, and then I will start on another baby quilt, this is for Ida who was born just before Christmas.  I bought this gorgeous fun fabric at the Festival of Quilts last summer - and cannot wait to get started.  My first start of 2012 -  I am a bit late with this one - so hope Ida will forgive me!

So a new blade in the Rotary cutter, a new needle in my Bernina - and away I go!