Memories of my aunt

 Edna W Harris 21 Oct 1924 to 30 Jul 2015.

Sadly today my Aunt died. She was my fathers youngest sister, and I have such wonderful memories of her and her husband Uncle Jimmy.
Part of Christmas was always spent in their large dining room, sometimes twenty plus around the table. November the fifth, bonfire night, was always a big celebration where family and friends stood around a large bonfire in their garden. We all took fireworks to make a wonderful display and Aunty made her famous bonfire toffee. Every Christmas she would make me a jar of lemon curd, and loved to collect the little things I used to hand make for her.
She is the last of that generation of my family. I am glad she managed to reach her 90th birthday and we all gathered to see her. May she rest in peace.

Aunty Edna, photo taken my my dad.

Notre Dame High School trip

I am having a "declutter " session and came across these two photos.

My guess is I am about 15 years old, just look at the hair !!  and where did I find two boys to ride around with ? We all had to wear our school blazers, but luckily the dresses, shoes and hats were left at home.

I'm sitting at the far back, showing my knees!

Do you remember the beehive hair style? I worked really hard on mine.

A bit of catching up

Where have the last few days gone? I'm sure the days were longer when I was younger.
Since my last post we spent the last day of our holiday at Wroxham Barns and Potter Heigham, both great places, although the store in Potter Heigham is now so large it was a job to walk around and see everything.  There is a nice sewing shop in Wroxham Barns and I managed to buy a set of bag handles, well actually I bought three sets, they were so nice!

Friday we returned home to enough laundry to open a Launderette... having to take our own towels and bedding, although not a problem, did mean there was a lot of washing.

Saturday we were out for the day at Gaydon Car Museum to attend a Land Rover Defender day. When we arrived we were asked if we would like to park in the main arena as they wanted as many LR Defenders in there as possible. This was a great advantage as it is quite a walk for me from the car park. After a stroll around the museum I went back to the car and worked on my crochet while Chris oohed and aahed over the displays. It was a lovely warm day and the 99 ice cream he brought me went down a treat.

Shaun the Sheep Land Rover

I want one! A two seater red monster

Cars from the movies

Lady Penelope's pink Thunder Birds car.

The sun comes out

Yesterday we decided to have a restful day and luckily the sun came out. Most of the day was spent working on my Lily Pond crochet blanket.

We ventured out to the 'on site' resturant/cafe for lunch, we were the only ones there. The scampi and chips were excellent. Chris then went for a long walk around the camp site to the beach and back.

Our outdoor chairs had their first airing and we sat outside enjoying the warm sun.

 

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Green Lane and Byways day

Leaving the chalet we drove to Holt, about an hour away, to venture into the wilds of Norfilk.

Chris decided to travel the "fords" route we had tried a few months ago. The lanes crisis cross a number of streams and waterways, some are suitable for an ordinary car but most are too deep unless you are in a 4x4, some are just plain crazy! It's the plain crazy ones we like the most.

Many of the lanes were very overgrown with tree branches scratching the sides and roof of the car, more battle scars to add to the collection.

The weather was rather grey but other than a few spots of rain it was most dry. Hares were scampering across our tracks, always a fun thing to see. Everywhere we drove there were banks of Oxide Daisies and beautiful red poppies.

 

A few hold ups as we travel these narrow lanes, firstly a bad accident caused us to a long diversion route and then tree cutting blocked our way, but it was fun watching the guy in the cherry picker cutting off branches and shredding them.

A quick stop at Walsingham to use the facilities and listen to the beautiful music coming from the Sanctuary. It is such a peaceful place full of atmosphere. A group of about 20 students were doing the Stations of the Cross.

Approaching the scariest water crossing, quite wide and next to a working mill stream gushing in from the left hand side (my side as a passenger!)

 

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The Potters Wheel

Today we had a trip to Gt Yarmouth Pottery. I had prebooked a morning of "having a go" plus touring the museum. It is an amazing place set in the town wall. Originally the Old Herring Smokehouse built using the timbers of wrecked ships. We were greeted with some of the history, before making our way to become master potters. Ernie the potter was a delight while he told us stories and explained what to do.

After the pots were made, we had a drink and then took a tour of the building. If you ever get a chance to have this experience I fully recommend it. BUT be quick they are retiring at the end of the year and it will never be the same.

A careful drive back to the chalet to let my pot and Chris's jug dry out. Brilliant day.

 

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Fathers Day

The family came for a visit today and we had great fun with the granddaughters and catching up with all the news with Richard and Jacq. I forgot to take many photos, but here are a couple.

Father and son washing up!

Jacq and Eleanor !!

Me and Abigail taking a Selfi

 

 

The beach is far below the cliffs, the family went to enjoy the sand, but I stayed on the cliff top with an ice cream. Well it would not be a holiday without an ice cream.

 

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California Sands

Friday we set off for a week in a chalet at California Sands, Gt Yarmouth. Having never been in a chalet before I was so pleasantly surprised at the amount of space and the fairly new facilities. 415 California Sands is spotless and has everything we need, including being in a peaceful spot.

 

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BSK Bedford Day

Just home from another great day at BSK Bedford. Six of us spent the day machine embroidering different patterns. The walls of the room we use are covered in ideas that we can use. Plus the fabric is a reasonable price and always a good selection.
I could not resist buying enough to use as a backing for a quilt I am making, even though I told myself not to buy anything today as I am going on holiday tomorrow.  Just shows I never listen even when I talk to myself!
The designs I sewed out will either be a bag or a cushion probably for my gardening sister.

Walls lined with ideas

What to choose next?

Caz [ the teacher] wandering past a display of machines

A back and front for a bag or cushion made by me.

Granddaughter

Wow just look at my eldest granddaughter performing at a Gym Fest.

Such long legs!

Hamtune Quilters

Just a little update on my knees and the pain I have been having. I saw the Specialist on Monday and was very surprised when he sent me for knee and hip X rays. However it turns out sometimes knee pain can be caused by your hips.. bodies certainly work in strange ways. I'm happy and relieved to say the new knee joint is fine and still stuck in place :-) however the arthritis in my hips and knees although not severe is not helping. The muscles in my knees are swollen and by taking it easy should repair themselves. I go back to see him in six weeks. I will continue to rub Weleda Arnica oil into them, which I am sure is helping bring the swelling down.

Last night I attended the meeting of Hamtune quilters. Susie Corke was the speaker, and the talk was titled "My Quilts".
What a wonderful and varied display of her beautiful work, from her very first quilt to her latest UFO. Most were hand pieced and hand quilted. I forgot to take my camera but managed to find a photo of one of her prize winning quilts. The photo does not do the quilt justice, it was magnificent in real life.

Harrogate Quilt show

843824 stitches

I cannot believe how long it has taken me to machine embroider Nature Sketches by Anita Goodesign. My Brother 4000D machine has been going almost non stop for days.

There are 20 blocks and I rewound the bobbin 37 times !! For the fun of it I made a note of the number of stitches... yes... 843824. I also used two complete reels of Marathon thread for the dark grey flowers in every block. Goodness knows how many different colours of thread I used for the butterflies and birds, but I could do with an assistant [or fairy godmother] to come and put them all back in their correct boxes!

Having said all this I am really pleased with the blocks and hope to incorporate them into a single bed size quilt. My thoughts are to make a load more blocks with different coloured borders [ same Dimple fabric as the grey] and put simple machine embroidery quilt designs on them.

Machine embroidered birds and butterflies

This block is the same size as the small blocks above.
I have lots of colours of this Dimples fabric
Thinking of making enough blocks like this to complete the quilt
Unless I can think of something else.
Any ideas?

Bobbin wound 37 times! Two reels of Marathon thread used and an empty spool of bobbin thread used.

Land Rover days

Friday we took off for Aldershot to spend the night in a Travel Lodge. The hotel was next door to a Morrisons Grocery store, who serve the best fish and chips in their cafe, so we ate in style.

Saturday up bright and early for a breakfast again in Morrisons before heading further south to Dunsfold.

In 1968 Brian Bashall, a Land Rover enthusiast started the collection with a 1962 ex military vehicle. This later became a trust called the Dunsfold Collection of Land Rovers and to date owns 123 vehicles.

Once every two years the collection is open to the public and many private owners also bring their old and interesting Land Rovers. In fact this year was noted as being the largest collection of Land Rovers ever!

I managed to walk around some of the exhibits but then took a seat back in the car with my crochet, while watching all the strange vehicles arrive. It was a great day.
Here a few photos of my favourites..

Row upon row of Land Rovers

Patchwork idea?

Love the paint job

Chris next to the LR strong enough to hold an elephant!

Poppy Patch

Thursday was Poppy Patch sit and Sew day. I attend this meeting twice a month and it is always fun and somewhere to learn something new.  A few of us have been attending for quite a long time.

Cushions, smocking and bottle covers are some of the workshops they offer.

The new owners, Sam and Mary seem to have settled into their new roles as shop owners, having taken over from the previous owners that started the company in 2000.

Only draw back for me is the stairs to the workroom, which means I can only take my little Singer Featherweight sewing machine as I cannot manage a heavier machine. Having said that it is amazing what I can accomplish on such a small machine.

Having spent most of the week on my embroidery machine I did not have anything ready to take to Poppy Patch so grabbed a Moda Jelly Roll, that had been sitting on my shelf since last year [ or maybe even the year before that!] and decided I would find something to do with it.

I sewed sets of five  jelly roll strips together and then cut them into 10inch blocks. Next I randomly sewed the blocks together rotating every other one and managed to make two quilt tops [probably for Linus].

30 x 40 inch top

40 x 50 inch Moda 3 Sisters Lario Jelly Roll

Lily Pond update

The week has gone by in a blur of noise!  I have been using my embroidery machine from 7am to about 4pm every day for the past three days.  More photos later.
Luckily the project I am working on has a sewing period long enough for me to do something else. To add to the noise of the machine I made a couple of loaves of bread in my bread machine, which is also noisy. Also made a ginger and banana cake in my Kenwood, yet another noise!
Thank goodness today I am going to a sit and sew where the only noise will be human voices.

My evenings have been taken up with working on my Lily Pond CAL [crochet along] and I managed to complete pattern #4 and made a good start on #5, the flowers. I love working on this project and learning lots of new techniques. There are only three more patterns to collect, so I will be on the look out for another CAL, or I may start the Sophies Universe CAL.

If you know of a crochet CAL please leave me a message about it.

Lots of ends to sew in!