Rainy Sunday, Sunny Monday

Let's face it - Bank Holiday weekend was a bit of a let down weather wise. Sunday was so wet I don't think I even set foot outside. Instead I made a quilt!

This is made from fair trade fabric that I bought at the Festival of Quilts last year with some plain blue added. I intend hand quilting it with a variety of threads.

Monday looked brighter, although it was freezing, so we set out for Nymans gardens near East Grinstead, which is owned by the National Trust. Gorgeous rhododendrons and lots of bluebells made it a colourful experience.

We went looking for lunch and found another, possibly even lovelier, garden almost next door!

High Beeches is a privately owned hillside garden with lovely trees and streams and lots of colour at this time of year.

Whatever you're doing this weekend hope it goes well!

New things

It's always to start something new - I think it helps keep us young.

Here's my new patio allotment - well this year's anyway - I've had it going for a few years now. It's very convenient - just outside the back door - easy to water and collect the veggies when they are ready! I'm growing tomatoes, runner beans, courgettes and broad beans so far. 

Also new are these patches which are the start of a bag. I bonded the circles on and am machine blanket stitching around them. I will sew them together and construct a bag, maybe adding a button or two?!

I am also obsessed at the moment with all the new growth in the garden - some of it looks like it's been quilted! This is a leaf from my pot hostas - in a pot so the snails don't get them (they always do in the end, but it slows them down!)

'Let's blog again - like we did last summer...'

Well  - 2 summers ago actually! I seem to have been very remiss in not blogging for 2 years!! not sure where that time went. Anyway I've decided to have another go and see if I can keep going this time! 

So what have I been up to lately? Here's 5 things I've been doing in the last few weeks.

1. Making things for my new Folksy shop! 

Please take a look sometime.

2. Making a Block of the Month from the fabulous Quilt Room in Dorking - I'm on Month 3 of the Civil War Tribute quilt - looks like it will be gorgeous when it's done.

3.Enjoying using my new camera - especially on Macro mode.

4. Pampering my ageing cat who loves the warmer weather.

5. Still rooting round charity and antique shops for finds like this vintage French linen and threads found in Lewes.

Oh - and updating and changing my blog appearance so it (hopefully) looks better.

Thanks for dropping by - I promise not to be away so long this time!

Green

I love green! especially at this time of year in the garden as there are so many shades of green and so much life and growth. Everywhere you look plants are bursting with life and all the rain means everything is a vibrant shade of green.

Of course there ae exceptions! this is my purple acer in the front garden.

Fabulous Florence

We took a week's break in the school holidays and travelled to Florence - our first visit. We had a new camera to try out and hence took a lot of photos! It can very cleverly help you make a panorama with some sotfware back on the laptop and this is the view from Piazza Michelangelo - it was snowing back in England but we were in the beautiful sunshine.

This amazing view of Santa Maria Novella church is the one that greeted us from our apartment window! Just 5 minutes from the train station and the main sites of the city it was the perfect place to spend a week.

Our camera loves taking night shots - this is the Duomo at about 9 o'clock taken with no flash. it is an extraordinary sight for the amount of detail in the marble facing as you can see below.

My favourite place in Florence is Piazza della Signoria - a square near the Uffizi containing a unique outdoor sculpture gallery, including the famous 'David' by Michelangelo. It's very busy of course but a special place.

The interiors are, of course, equally spectacular. This is the dome of the Duomo painted by Vasari and depicting the last judgement.

Below is some painted detail from a wall inside Santa Croce church.

Of course there is loads more - I'll save it for another post!

Embellishing fun!

My lovely friend lent me her embellishing machine for a few days - what a lot of fun you can have with that! The piece above started as a section of a felted jumper onto which I fused wool, felt pieces and braids. The design just kind of grew organically and then I machine stitched on top for some more texture and sewed beads on to finish it off. I have to find a use for it now!

This piece is felt, wool, and wool fibres fused on by the machine onto scrim which is very fine and loosely woven. When the piece is turned over and you run the embellisher on the back some of the fibres show through to give more texture.

After I had embellished the whole piece, I cut it into sections, then repostioned them and, using the embellisher, worked over the joins so them met together again. This gave the piece added texture and interest. It seems the only limit is your imagination!

Venice colours

Take a look at this gorgeous wool I bought in the lovely Loop shop in Islington, London! (http://www.loop.gb.com/) It's so amazing I shall have to have it sitting out in my workroom for a while until I decide how to use it. We had a great day out on Saturday - first finding the Loop shop and a great little antiques/junk market - then seeing an exhibition in the Tate Modern. It was so spring-like we sat outside several times for coffee etc. It struck me afterwards that the wool at the bottom of the picture is Venice colours - below are a couple of pictures of the book I made after visiting Venice last year. Those colours have obviously got into my system!