8 am walking the railway

Early morning start today but determined not to let the rain stop us going for a walk.

Due to the rain we decided to walk along side the railway starting at Brampton Crossing. It’s a nice flat walk and reasonable underfoot. The big bonus is there is always something interesting to look at. The local railway enthusiasts seem to have an endless line of train engines and carriages they are restoring.  What stories these carriages could tell!

Gloomy rainy day but we have the walk to ourselves.

A little Roe deer was too quick for my camera as it darted off into the undergrowth.

The end of the walk for us today

Very tempted to pick a bunch of these pretty ox eyed daisies, but will leave them for others to enjoy.

As we approached the car park I spotted this frog/toad, I never know the difference, but he/she was very green!

Time to head for home and a hot chocolate.

Martin Moore Wood

Today is the day we go out in the car for the first time in 90 days!  It was so liberating just to drive down to the Brampton Valley Way Car Park, about a mile from home, cross the road and walk through the Martin Moore Wood.

We had never been here before, but passed it lots of times n our way to walk along the old railway line.

What a pleasant surprise, lots of tracks and only met one other person with a dog.

We will definitely be going again.

Start of the walk, on a well trodden tail.

The lady with dog that we met [safe distance] told us about the bench surrounded with oak trees.

I could sit here all day, but I have left bread rising at home!

Lots of dog roses

Sad to leave but we will be back.

Growing fruit and veg

I don’t have a lot of room for growing fruit and veg, but like to try my hand at a few.

Along  side the garden wall is now a Raspberry patch and they are growing like mad. We usually get enough raspberry’s to see us through the year.

They are an autumn raspberry but seem to start fruiting earlier and earlier, I have already picked a few [and eaten them before even getting back into the house!]

I have two compost bins and as soon as one is full I plant a courgette in it and the first flower has just appeared.

There will soon be lots of courgettes and I must search out the recipe for a zucchini [courgette] loaf. 

If any one has a recipe please send me it.

Just outside my black door I have a raised bed that started life as a herb garden but never did very well, so last year I planted runner beans in it and they produced lots of snap beans. I have done the same again this year and they are just climbing up the poles.

The first one to the trellis wins a prize !!

The wire mesh is to keep the cats off until everything is well established.

My two rhubarb plants have not done very well this year, but I picked enough to cut up and boil down, add two packets of sugar free jelly to make 5 bowls full. I love rhubarb cooked like this.

Sunday Church and ABC quilt

Sundays are a little different these days with an hours church service via Zoom.

It is so nice to be in the company and to be able to see other members of the Church of Latter Day Saints Ward I belong to.

My ‘Church’ set up, scriptures and iPad perched on a home made tissue box!

Although these are terrible times for many people, there is so much goodness being shown by neighbours and volunteers.

We all pray the Covid 19 virus will be kept under control very soon, and we can get back to our church meetings, jobs and seeing our families.

Talking of seeing our families, my neighbour, who I hardly knew before the pandemic, has become a life line helping me out with shopping, collecting prescriptions etc. They also became grandparents for the first time four weeks ago, but are unable to see the new baby while the restrictions are still in place. I offered to make the baby a quilt, and have spent every morning this week working on it.

Starting the alphabet quilt, with a theme of grey and a little blue and white. 

The machine embroidery letters each consist of 4500 to 5500 stitches, using Batik grey with fleece letters.

I machined simple quilting around the blocks in grey thread.

The quilt is backed with blue fleece to make a nice snuggle blanket.

The completed quilt, with the baby’s name and date of birth machine embroidered on the last block.

June is busting out all over

June is busting out all over... and here we are still in this pandemic and trying to get back to some sort of normality.

We have been enjoying some wonderfully sunny weather.

Chris decided to get on his knees and hand weed the drive and path around the house, a massive job, but it is looking really good.

We seem to have a grass snake take up residence around the pond, I tried to take a photo but he slid under the decking.

I would really appreciate it if he moved to someone else’s garden.. I really do not like snakes, but they are a protected species.

My friend Robina sadly passed away this week, she had been ill for some time. I met Robina when I was ten years old, 65 years ago! And we enjoyed each other’s company, even going on a wild holiday to the Lake District together when I was about 15, she was older than me so my parents let me go.

After she married and had twins she moved to the USA with her family, but we kept in touch and visited each other a number of times both in England and the USA, she will be sadly missed.

While sorting out her belongs her daughter found a bobbin I had given her, on one side it says “when this you see remember me” and my name and the date on the reverse. A happy memory that she kept it, even though she did not make lace.

Yesterday should have been our IAM craft meeting, as we still cannot meet I set up a Zoom meeting. Two members were unable to join us, two had a problem with Zoom, but the rest of us had a good time. Seeing and hearing each other was a real tonic, we even managed to have a ‘show and tell’.

Time to start the day today and rain is forecast,  the garden is in desperate need. A beautiful sunrise from the bedroom window.

Stay safe everyone, and if you have a moment I love to hear from you in the comments, they are all read by me before they appear on the blog.

Let there be Light

I struggle with the lighting where my embroidery machine lives, and I hate to move it. A bit of research and I found strip lighting for a sewing machine, well I guess you could use it for other things too.

Amazon Prime to the rescue, they delivered it the day after I purchased it, Two for less than £10.

The blue tape peels off and the light is then stuck to the inside of the machine. 

Before

After.

It does not show too well in the photos but it has made a huge difference to being able to see where to line up the 

Machine embroidery letters I am working on for a baby quilt.

Some times its the little things in life that make all the difference.

I’m on a roll!!

Yesterday I needed to make bread and decided instead of two loaves I would use half the dough and make rolls.

No two are the same size or shape... I would not win The Bake Off, but they turned out reasonable well, and we had two of the smaller ones each for tea.

Today we will have Hot Dogs with the rest of them for lunch.

My plan to fill an empty wall space with mini quilts is jogging along.

The one with the boats on was made on a residential workshop in Leicestershire many years ago.

The very small one is the only one I have not made, it was bought in an Amish shop in Ohio.

The quilt just above Teddy who was also hand made by me [on a Belgian workshop] is made with half inch 9 patch squares and fussy cut animal prints.

I don’t remember when or where I made the centre mini quilt.

Ocean Scene and the flower block are this months makes, see previous blog posts.

Now I am eagerly awaiting for a book to arrive from the USA published by Laundry Basket Quilts. I think it has patterns for about 30 mini quilts... that should fill the wall if I make them all.

One of my IAM group sent me a picture of bluebells she had picked in her garden to cheer me up in this pandemic ‘stay at home’ time, I liked it so much I am using it as a screen saver... thanks Maureen. 

Day 75

Day 75 of staying home, so time to celebrate, we are still well, have enough food and keeping busy.

OK I wish things could be different and we could pop to the shops when we need something, wander around Supermarkets food shopping, instead of having everything choosen from a picture on a screen and delivered to our front door step.  Most of all I wish we could see the family and our friends, attend workshops and meetings, plus of course be able to go to Church and on holiday.

KFC has just started offering a delivery only service, so I ordered a take away which was promptly delivered and went down a treat. This is the first time I can actually remember ordering a take away, we would normally just drive and collect our food.  It was so easy I may do it again next week.

A large KFC bag of chicken and chips left on the doorstep, no physical contact, thank you.

Ocean Scene

Longing to see the sea, and unable to use my sewing machine for long, I looked for an embroidery machine project as this does not involve using a pedal and causing me pain in my side.

I found the perfect pattern on Sweet Pea Machine Embroidery, Ocean Scene hanger/runner.

As I am working on filling a space on my wall with miniature quilts I decided to work on the smallest size 5x7 hoop.  There are five panels to sew out using the appliqué method before stitching the fancy stitches... all this is done in the hoop. Luckily I have lots of blue fabric in my stash and it was fun choosing the colours. When all five panels are sewn out 75170 !!! Stitches in total, it is a small job to sew them together on my ordinary machine, and I am getting better at using my left foot on the pedal.

The first hooping panel, four more to go.

Next to the pond I can dream it is the beach and the waves are pounding on the shore.

Like most of us I have been feeling a bit down with day 74 of staying home and no end in sight, so a change of craft is a good tonic.

I really enjoyed sewing this design and may do another. I am thinking it would look good with a golden sunset, what do you think?

I love to hear from you and All comments are read by me before they appear on the blog.

The Ups and Downs of a day

As mention in my last post, the sewing machining really caused me so much pain which got worse as the day went on. However with my left foot I managed to make a small quilt for my ‘tiny’ collection. 

I also made a couple of loaves.

The rest of the day was spent either sitting by the pond or just listening to Stephen Fry’ Mythos reading on an audiobook.

Think this is a Wagtail, I really need to learn the names of the birds in my garden.

Two, there were four before I took the photo, frogs having a party.

A Blackbird drinking from the bird bath.

Chris was suddenly busy with controlling people going out doing Welfare Checks and I did not see him until Ten O’clock, usually the evening are fairly quiet for the 4x4 rescue service.

Surprise early evening Richard turned up with Eleanor, they walked down the side of the house and we sat in the garden 6ft apart. It is the first time I have seen either of my granddaughters for 3 months, I so wanted to give her a hug, but could not because of staying safe. They were only here about 1/2 an hour but I had happy tears when they left, it so cheered me up.

Richard and Eleanor 6ft away.

The evening Clapping for the NHS and other much needed workers ended my evening at 8pm, before watching TV and bed.

Thank you for the comments I much appreciate.

Please note they are all read before appearing on my blog.

Thursday

Clapping Day so must be Thursday, the days roll by in a blur.

Decided to do some machining this morning on a miniature quilt I want to make, but the pain in my side is just too bad when I use my machine, so tried to use my left foot on the pedal instead..  it is so difficult and frustrating using the wrong foot!  Guess I just need to keep hand sewing.

The Flags came out yesterday and they are a picture.

Such a delicate flower.

Talking of ponds we had a visitor yesterday a snake ! Half scared me to death. We think it is a grass snake about 15 inches long. Tried to catch it but was not successful, so guess it’s still in the garden. I hope it decides it would prefer to live somewhere else. Needless to say I did not have my camera with me as it swam across the pond.

Labyrinth Quilt

The last couple of days I have spent some time in the New Summer House sewing down the binding on my Labyrinth quilt. This is not my favourite job but I prefer the hand finish to a machine finish.

The weather has been wonderful and as long as I have a shady place to sit, either near the pond watching the fish and newts plus the hundreds of tadpoles, or sitting in the Summer House I am happy.  Chris is the sunbather and likes nothing more than lying in full sun listening to music on his head phones.

I took my supplies and a drink to the summer house and worked on my quilt listening to an audiotape from our local library, they have a free service and I have enjoyed a number of books. I am listening to Stephen Fry’s book Mythos read by Stephen himself. I find his voice so nice to listen to, and have always loved the stories of Greek Mythology. I really admire the work that must have gone into writing this book.

The backing of the Labyrinth quilt, made from fabric found in my cupboard! 

Still a lot of decorating to do in the Summer House, but it will have to wait until we can venture out again safely.

The carpet from the old summer house almost fits and will do for now.

Difficult to get a good photo, so I hung it on my washing line.

The Long arm quilting design is also called Labyrinth, thank you Janie.

Considering I only started this quilt at the start of Lockdown and had to wait for the fabric ‘Dimples’ to arrive and then after sewing it together arrange for my son to take it to the longarm quilter and someone else to pick it up... it probably is one of the quickest quilts I have ever made.

I now want to work on miniature quilts, no more large ones!

Bread

Another successful bread making session. I use a slightly adapted recipe called Amish White Bread. I cut the sugar content in half and the first loaves i made were too sweet for us. I now have the recipe exacted as we like it, so I even went as far as to laminate the page.

After the yeast has started bubbling I place it and the flour in my Kenwood mixer, which must be 40 plus years old bought second hand from a friend, who is in fact on her second or third mixer since she sold it to me.  Next it is left on the windowsill in the sun for less than an hour to rise, looks like something from Quatermast, remember that programme ? I always watched from behind the sofa !!

I then knock it back by hand and put it in two tins, leave half an hour and then into the oven for exactly 30 mins with two large ice cubes in the bottom for steam.

Bingo two perfect loaves, one to eat now and one to freeze.

.

Sliced ready for tea time. I need to perfect my slicing as every slice comes out a different size even though I use an electric knife.

I usually get Chris to slice the whole loaf and then it’s stored in the Bread Bag.

All comments are moderated by me before appearing here. Please keep in touch, I love to hear from you.

Early morning walk

8.30am and time for a walk to the post box, important to remember friends birthdays, even if I am running out of birthday cards!

While putting on my trainers I admired my tulips, every week I can get a food delivery I order a bunch of their cheapest flowers, the past three weeks it has been tulips for £2.50 from Sainsbury or Tesco [cannot remember which], previously it was daffodils. Each week the tulips have been a different colour, love these dark purple bunch that arrived 4 days ago.

It’s quite nice out this morning, the extremely cold wind seems to have died down a bit, and even though its uphill I make it to the post box. Asthma and being unfit and overweight make going up even the smallest incline a struggle. We walk around the estate admiring other peoples gardens.

Audrey your birthday card is on its way.

Back home I water my new plants that were delivered yesterday, they will make a nice display under the ugly Laurel tree, which we do not want to remove as it fills in the edge of the garden and stops people walking all over it.  Maybe when we get back to normal I will have another plan for it.

Geraniums, pelargoniums and Petunias that will hopefully cover the space in flowers and brighten up a dull area.

Now its time for a hot chocolate.

Love to hear your comments, all are read by me before posting to the blog to stop scammers.

Butterflies and days

Last Saturday was Sunday and yesterday was Wednesday but today is Friday !! Am I loosing it or have I got lockdown fever ?

Here we are half way through May and still no end to the Covid 19 in sight.

Most of the time I enjoy being at home and working on my crafts and the garden, but sometimes it all becomes too much, but I think it is the same for everyone.  A new area of garden was cleared and dug over by Chris and I would love to just get in my car and go buy plants but I cannot. A little research on Market Place and someone local is selling just what I want, she will deliver them today and I’ll leave the money in an envelope for her... no actual contact.

My son took my Labyrinth quilt to the longarmer [is that a word?] as he drives near her home on his way home from work, and yesterday one of the guys delivering food parcels with the 4x4 rescue service was near enough to be able to pick it up for me.  I have the binding cut ready so now the two just need to get together and then it will be another finish.

To continue decorating the new Summer House I am thinking of attaching butterflies to the walls, and made a couple of samples on my embroidery machine to see what I think. What do you think?

Two are 3D and one was a free bonus ME pattern I received this week.

It has been years since I made the 3D butterflies, and was a real struggle remembering how to make them. Luckily I could look through old blog posts and see I made a quilt for one of the girls and attached  a selection of 3D butterflies.

Keep safe, stay in everyone and keep well.

If you have time to leave me a comment I would love to hear from you.

Day 62 of Stay at home

The weeks and days roll by in a blur, if it was not for the food deliveries there would be nothing on the calender.

I really got out of sync last week, and for probably the first time I did a load of washing on Sunday, thinking it was Saturday. I never wash on Sunday the Lords day! I hope He will forgive me.

Most days I can stay upbeat but sometimes it is hard to see an end to this virus and normality returning.

Today started out well, with an early morning walk around the cemetery, it is nice that people say ‘good morning’ where once no one spoke.

The company refunding us on the RV hire from our cancelled Route 66 trip have said the refund is going in the bank today. It seems to have taken an age, but so nice to know we are getting it, now if the insurance and British Airways [I am going through the complaint procedure with them] will do the same we will be really happy bunnies.

Progress is being made on my La Passion 1/2 inch hexagon quilt.

In the background small 1 1/2 inch squares are having freezer paper ironed on to them.

Next box contains shapes ready to tack into shape.

The other box contains plain squares cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces ready for the freezer paper treatment

My Fiskars cutter is in action cutting the hexies  from the freezer paper strips.

It’s all go at the moment in the Happy Room.

We like to eat our main meal midday, while the Solar panels give us free electricity, and to be honest it gets the cooking over and done with !

We have fallen into the routine of having a game of UpWord after the meal. This game has not seen the light of day for years but we both enjoy it.

You can tell how old it is by the Midland Bank, which no longer exists, £20 Bronze cloth money bag that holds the UpWord tiles.

Stay safe everyone and if you find the time I love reading the comments, which are all read by me before posting on the blog.

Bunting for the Summer House

The last piece of the bunting has been sewn out on my embroidery machine, I now need to back them and attach a ribbon string.

I have so enjoyed making them and it has certainly taken my mind off the worries of the Covid 19. 

VE Day

My small contribution to VE Day

Churchill waving to the crowds as the treaty between Germany and Britain is signed, bringing an end to WW2.