Preparing for Halloween

This morning was spent getting ready for Halloween.

The girls had already made spooky night lights.
We used clear plastic cups and added a spider or cockroach then wrapped them in cling film and inserted a night light.

This morning was spent cutting the pumpkins to shape, a really messy job!

Yukky messy job !!!!

The Halloween display

Christmas Trees

Today we filled the car with "stuff!" and took it to Emmaus the Charity shop. The girls love it there as they have a toy section where they both bought toys and games.


More fluffy toys and games !

After lunch in a restaurant the afternoon was spent watching a movie and then back in the Happy Room to make a Christmas Tree decoration. First they drew the design on paper then cut it out in green felt. Poured out all my buttons onto trays, then sewed on as many as they could onto the trees, backed them with another piece of green felt and a ribbon loop.

Christmas Tree decorations

Banner Day

Abigail and Eleanor are here for three days as they are on half term.

Today was spent mostly in the Happy Room making banners for their bedrooms.
Both girls worked really hard, drawing their names on Heat-n-bond and then ironing it onto fabric.
After some time choosing fabric from my stash they set to work sewing around the edges of the banners and finally using a fancy pattern on my Brother 350 decorating their letters... Well done girls.

Abigail sewing on Mr Pfaff

Busy Busy Busy

Eleanor sorting the threads

Eleanor sewing on Caz the Brother sewing machine



E L E A N O R





A B I G A I L



Hamtune Quilt Show

Saturday 26th October, Hamtune Quilters held their Autumn Fair and Quilt Show.

There were lots of nice quilts on display, and raffles and a cake stall etc. in aid of the Air Ambulance Service.

I liked this formal quilt

Such a lot of work!

Some of the items worked by the group this year.

Machine Embroidery demonstration

Lace Making display

One of the many quilts

The main raffle

One of my quilts

A first attempt at Patchwork!

SLOW COOKING

I am not known for my cooking, it takes such a time and I have other things I would sooner be doing.
BUT I saw a slow cooker book advertised and thought I would give it a try.

Stephanie O'Dea in 2008 started a Slow Cooker blog and promised to blog a recipe every day of the year. Now she has brought out a book covering the 365 recipes she and her blogging friends made.

On Sunday I cooked a beef joint using one of her recipes.. delicious and cooked with no liquid [didn't know you could do that!].

Yesterday I cooked Chicken in Cranberry, something I would never have thought of. As I cannot eat onions I substituted carrots and cooked enough for two meals and the taste of the cranberries with the chicken and carrots was so good, it took a lot of resolve to freeze the second meal and not eat it today.

I have plans for one or two more of her recipes making enough to eat and freeze. That way when I go in hospital for my knee replacement I wont have to worry about cooking for a while the meals will be ready.

Busy evening

The evening was so busy I forgot to take any photos!
The evening project was to make small wallet style purses, one to keep and one to give away.

Friend Penny and Penny from church came to help with the sewing, and I took along two of my sewing machines. About a dozen ladies arrived some having never even used a sewing machine, I cannot even think what my life would be like if I did not sew.

It was a great evening and some managed to make two purses and even start to use a sewing machine.

Some of the purses I made

Instant Iron carry bag

For a long time I have been meaning to make a bag to carry my hot iron in, but never seemed to get around to it.
This evening I am teaching a workshop on purse making at Church and while packing up my things ready to go, I thought I really should have made the iron bag... SO...

I found everything I needed in my stash, and quickly cut out the heat proof wadding, with a spare piece to re-enforce the base, marked it up and layered it with a thin piece of wadding and some pretty utensil fabric.

To save time with the binding I attached it from the back and brought it forward to the front and machined it down. I would normally do the reverse and sew it down by hand.

A couple of pretty buttons bought on my recent trip to Spain and an instant iron holder in about an hour!



Iron holder bag




Just what I needed



Cheering myself up!

In August I saw the Specialist to arrange for a knee replacement, and need to see him again for the actual operation date, but twice he has had to cancel the appointment as he is now ill. These delays have caused me to feel very down, as I would really like to get it all over and done with.
Also today would have been my Mum's 99th birthday and I really miss her.

In an attempt to cheer me up, Chris took me to buy new plans for the tubs outside my Happy Room. I intended to buy some pansies or something similar, but could not pass up these fabulous huge chrysanthemums. I love them and they remind me of holidays in France and Belgium, when we would often bring them back home at this time of year.

Tonight is a meeting of Hamtune Quilters with Ruth Jarman as speaker, she is always very entertaining, so I will go to the meeting.

Sunday 40th and 42nd

Christine 40th lunch with Andy

Waiting for our food!

Abigail with her new "toy"

Jackie, Jacq and Eleanor enjoying the party



Yummy!



New knitted dresses

More presents!

L to R Abigail, Jacq, Heather, Richard, me, Chris and Chris

Sunday we celebrated Jacq's sister Christine's 40th birthday at Overstone Manor for lunch.
Then onto Richard's to celebrate his 42nd birthday complete with pass the parcel and pass the jelly games and a Teddy Bear cake!

The POOL party



Fun in the main pool



Water fountain in the side pool



fun fun fun



6 & 10 year cakes



Food table




The party starts



Lets eat!

Happy Birthday Abigail and Eleanor

Saturday was the joint birthday party for Abigail 10 years and Eleanor 6 years.
The venue was Rushden Swimming pool, which was booked for the girls to invite all their friends.
18 children aged 6 to 10 and about 10 adults attended. The younger children have to have an adult with them in the pool.
It was great fun for everyone for an hour messing about in the pool, then time for the tea in a side room that we had prepared with lots of food and cake.

Amish Cross Stitch progress

I have been very busy working on my Amish cross stitch sampler.
I just do not seem to be able to leave it alone!

Thought I'd show you my progress since coming back from Spain, where I started it.

Duston Quilt Show

I am just back from a very nice quilt show at St Francis Church Duston Northampton.
These are a few of the quilts I really liked.. although all were very nice.
The cake stall was overloaded with lovely cakes to buy, and an idea place to buy a birthday cake for my son's birthday on Sunday.

Love the blackwork picture

What a fun Christmas wall hanging



The perfect fit for the altar, love the bobbin lace on the bible.



Guess it's THAT time of year again.



A very pretty applique quilt



I bet this quilt was fun to make.

Christmas ideas

A to Z fun for any child

Family Tree Quilt



My tree printed from my Family Tree programme




SIX generations of photos




My first sewing machine!




An uncle & Gt Grandfather

 As there has been quite a lot of interest recently in my family Tree quilt, her are a few photos.

The photos, right back to all eight Great Grandparents were printed onto fabric.

I used prepared sheets mostly but some were made using freezer paper stuck to fine cotton, all went through my cheap HP printer.

As the photos were all different sizes I just added strips of fabric until they all fitted together.. no plan! just luck.