Busy at home and fun at the Malvern Quilt Show

I have been busy with cross stitch and patchwork these past days along with lots of gardening as the weather has been so beautiful:
Here is a Scarlet Letter pattern "Circling Alphabets" which I cross-stitched in a variegated thread as an eighteenth birthday present - I was really pleased with the effect of these threads:

I also finished a single quilt for a 9 year old, fun and girly - this now has to be quilted but again I was really happy with how this turned out:

Our Wisteria is fully out now and looks and smells amazing - it is just a pity the flowers don't last long:

On Friday morning I set off with my friend Lyn and off we drove to Malvern for the Spring Quilt Show.  We had an easy drive - 182 miles in under 3 hours - we were parked up drinking coffee in the warm sunshine before 9 oclock!  We had the best of days - lots of great stalls offering great temptation! - and much inspiration with the exhibited quilts.
Here are just a small selection of my favourites:  the talent on show was inspirational:

I could go on and on... and on....they were all so lovely!

On a totally different note, here are our baby Blue Tits:  they are difficult to photograph well, but we know we have 7 babies out of the 9 eggs:  they hatched last Wednesday so this is Day 6, they have quadrupled in size and wriggle about like little martians!

Mum and dad Blue Tit are in and out constantly feeding them, and Mum keeps turning them around in order to make sure they all get fed - it is just wonderful watching them.

Thank you for dropping by My Quilting Life - have a great week everyone and hopefully the sun  will shine over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Progress

I have been busy this week making a quilt for my expected granddaughter - it is fun finding fabrics that are relevant to Dot and Maarten, I just hope that they will love this when it is finished. The backing will be pieced too, so double sided!

I have also been cross-stitching the Prairie Schooler ABC and I am really enjoying this huge sampler - I imagine it will take me about a year to complete!

I am sewing it 3 letters across by 9 letters down - as we are fast running out of wall space I believe (mistakenly??!!) that it will be easier to find a home for this if it is long (60 ins I believe when finished!), rather than wide!  It is on 32 count Antique White Jobelin - so lovely to sew.  I work from right to left hence the C is my first letter!

Our Blue Tit is now sitting on 9 eggs!:

We spend so much time watching her:  there is nothing more fascinating than nature!

She fidgets around, turns the eggs - flies off for some food, returns - and then the male pops in and feeds her too.  Absolutely addictive - the best gift idea ever!

Dot's friend Grace (originally from New Zealand) came over from Paris (where she is currently living) last week - last year I made a quilt for her but she hasn't been to London to collect until now:  she was so thrilled so I thought I would just share a couple of photos of her unwrapping her quilt:

I think she likes it! So wherever Grace travels in the future she will never forget us!

I have planted up my pots this week - I just have the hanging baskets left to do.  It is still quite cold at night so I am keeping a close eye on everything.  I also bought lots of vegetables ready for planting today - leeks, sweetcorn, cauliflower, runner beans etc etc - home grown produce is the order of the day.  Fingers crossed!  I will keep you updated - the Wisteria is about to flower too - this year it is covered so when they are out I will take a photo and show you.

I hope everyone has a good weekend - a Bank Holiday here in the UK so please let the sun shine!
Thank you for popping by and catching up with My Quilting Life.

More Busy Days ....

I am behind with posting once again - life has just got in the way recently.  However, I have been productive so I think it will be easier to work backwards and catch up:

Over Easter we had my beautiful Goddaughter Ginny and her 3 boys aged under 10 to stay, along with her parents:  full on family fun.  Little Freddie will be 7 next month so I had made him a fun "boys quilt" for his bunk bed:  it was a Big Success:  it had pirates, dinasaurs, outer space, musical instruments etc. etc:

Easter egg hunts, dens in the forest, fun in the garden:  all good.

The previous weekend I was in London and managed to catch up with all three of my children.  Dot is looking radiant:  here she is with Maarten having just unwrapped the most beautiful shawl that my dearest friend Lise has knitted for their baby:  a true heirloom:  it is absolutely gorgeous.

We went pram/buggy/car seat shopping - all so exciting!
I then went over to Borough Market:

I love this place, full of the freshest food:  fruit vegetables and flowers and cheeses etc. etc.  - with a wonderful view of The Shard:

Some years ago when The Shard was under construction I sat on a bench in Borough Market having a coffee, and a man came and sat beside me and told me all about The Shard, and how his business was a company which would clean all those windows - whenever I look at that amazing building I think of that conversation - and how overwhelming a task it must be!
I then caught up with Fran and Angelo, and met their beautiful cat MiuMiu:

and then Robbie came over:

It is very rare for me to see everyone, so I was Happy Happy!

Towards the end of March my 94 year old Mother was taken ill and rushed into hospital with Gastroenteritus.  I rushed up to Nottingham on a Saturday afternoon and arrived at the Queens Medical Centre after 5 hours of anxious driving.  She was so so poorly.  But they fixed her up on a drip and sent her home 3 days later - she arrived home at 7.45 pm, far too late for someone so frail and weak.  Not good.  But slowly slowly she has got a bit stronger and after my weekend in London I then drove to Nottingham again to spend a few days with her.  She has good days and bad days - but we have more care coming in to help now - she is absolutely adamant that she wants to stay in her own home so that is where she is bless her.  It is not easy getting old.

I am still busy sewing the "Noah's Ark" sampler and I have also just started the Prairie Schooler "Alphabet" - this is a BIG project but I know I will love it.  I will post updated pictures of these next time.  I have started a patchwork quilt for my granddaughter too - so little time for housework!!!

I had a super fun time at Cowslip recently:  Mary Berry was visiting again - we had a dinner and talk on Wednesday evening, and then a wonderful food demonstration and delicious lunch eating what she had cooked!  As always it was wonderful to catch up with her, she is such an amazing lady - I just LOVE her!

Here I am with Mary and my friend Nicola (Scarlet Letter Years) who drove up from Poldhu Cove.

Spring is here (most of the time) - and our great excitement is the fact that Blue Tits are nesting in our Camera Bird Box.  It is such fun to watch the nest being built!:  the TV is permanently on the nest!:

She should be laying her eggs anytime now.... so  I keep on watching!  I will try and take more pictures as things progress!  They are a bit dark but I hope you get the idea.
I trust everyone is keeping well and busy and had a lovely Easter break - thank you for reading all about My Quilting Life.

Scarlet Letter Years in London

As some of you will already know, the Scarlet Letter Year was the inspiration of Nicola Parkman in order to celebrate her 50th birthday, her love of cross stitch and to encourage us to sew as many SL samplers in a year as we all could find time to do:  the year has come and gone with so many beautiful samplers completed.  Then came the idea of a trip to the V&A Museum in London with an organised viewing of the originals of some of the SL pieces that had been sewn by the on-line group.  Tuesday 11th March was the day:
Here we all are getting to know one another over coffee in the V&A:
From right to left:  Jo, Elaine, Nicola, me, Elizabeth, Vittoria, Nicola's sister - then on the far left is Jennifer.

Then last year a wonderful idea came from Krista who is based in the USA, and with the help of Elaine and Jo those of us who were sewing away were asked to sew a motif from one of SL samplers about 4 ins square. Then all the submitted squares would be sewn together to make a Memory Quilt for Nicola!  Elaine was the amazing lady who volunteered to put the quilt together - she did a wonderful job, it was quite exquisite, a future heirloom which I know Nicola will treasure always. This was a Big Secret, she had no idea until Tuesday!

Here is Nicola unwrapping and discovering this amazing gift:

Identifying the different samplers from which the squares came from!
Then another surprise:  Marsha who runs Scarlet Letter also wanted to contribute to this occasion, so she sewed one of her reproduction samplers as a gift for Nicola:  WOW!:  This sampler is Betsy Davis:

There was also a photo memory book showing how the quilt was put together with details of who had sewed each square and from which sampler it came from:

After much chat and a look around the V&A shop and lunch we went over to the Clothmakers Centre at Baron's Court which is where the textiles from the V&A are now kept.  Although we were allowed to take photographs of the samplers these are only for our personal use so sadly I am unable to show these on the Blog:  we were given an amazing magnifying glass with a light with which we could see every minute detail of these antiques:  the stitching was exquisite.  We were also shown the oldest sampler in their collection which is dated 1595.
Here I am head down with magnifying glass studying a sampler:

Here are Jo and Nicola outside the Clothmakers Centre - a GradeII listed bulding:

It was a truly memorable and eventful day.  It was so good to meet with others who have been involved with |Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year - and of course the main reason for doing all of this was to thank Nicola for everything she has put into the project which has been such an amazing success, and I am sure it will carry on for many years to come.  We all have so many more Scarlet Letter samplers that we wish to sew.
Now I am back in Devon - my Country Life sampler awaits me - I hope you have enjoyed sharing our day.

Quilting Retreat

I have just had such a fun few days - last Friday I went to Eastbourne with my two friends Lyn and  Lise for a wonderful weekend of quilting.  The sun shone, our workroom over looked the sea and I have started making a great quilt called American Beauty in reds black and creams:

I am really pleased with how this is looking - very dramatic.

Busy friends working away, and our view over the sea:

And here are some of the quilts brought along for a Show and Tell: plus some of Di Taylor's beautiful quilts from her classes held in Godalming:

Time to say goodbye, and a huge thank you to Di for all the planning and organisation that went in to making this such a successful fun weekend:

Altogether we had a Big Fun Weekend with some glorious weather:  here are Lise and Lyn at Beachy Head before we went home:

It was just so good to get away and catch up with quilting friends, and meet new quilters,  So many different ideas on colour schemes and different designs - all inspiration.  Here's to the next time!