It's not Finished

Just trying out a new set up on the computer. Hubby has been playing!! Enough said. Managed to completely change how we load up photos. I have been trying all week and couldn't understand why blogger wasn't accepting my photos. See, that's my excuse for not blogging - it's either his fault or blogger - it couldn't possibly be me!!

I had a load of flying geese around and didn't want to waste them. After taking it into a club meeting, I came away with a headache as the gang had all given me so many different ideas on how to put them together. Came home and hubby just said "put them together like this"...........

So I did!! Doesn't it look nice and fresh?

Lots of changes coming up in our household. A house has been found, offers have been made and accepted, surveys have started - blimey, my own house!!! Trying not to get too excited!!! It's not working though.

Christmas? Been there, done that.

Happy New Year to you all. Hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year. It seemed to go quick, but also quite slow - that doesn't make sense I know, but Christmas seemed to go quite quickly but then the kids seem to have been off for ages.

I had a lot to blog about before Christmas and never managed to get round to it, so I am on catch up abit now. December is table runner workshop days and these were some of the end results. I love table runner days as they are busy and everyone's working on different things. The only trouble is now of course, that I can't remember who did what.........



I think this one was Bea's:



This is Rebecca's frienship braid from last Christmas that she has managed to finish. The great thing about it is that it is reversable!

December was an incredibly busy month family wise, with trips away to various places by hubby. Aside from those, we had another first in the household. Youngest son attended his very first rock concert!!

He loved it, and a great first concert too at Wembly Arena. There were three bands on that night, and Black Stone Cherry were second on. We missed the first one due to traffic getting in to London but we only really wanted to see these guys. Once they had gone off, he had had enough and wanted to go home. We did stay to see most of the headlining band, Alter Bridge, but we had all had enough just before the end, so slipped out early as we still had a 2 hour drive home. We were the first out of the car park I think, and on route home before everyone else thought about getting out. He slept all the way home and woke as we pulled into the drive and said "Are we home already? That was quick". I wish!

More tomorrow hopefully.

A Mixed Bag

Well, it will be a mixed bag really. Christmas is hurtling towards us a fast rate of knots - have you started your shopping yet?? Big Sis, if you say you have finished I will scream!!!

Anyway, the Great British Bake Off continues to inspire some members of the family:



Not good for the waistline if you are trying to cut down before Christmas. What do you mean? I couldn't possible say no, that would be rude!!

Preparation for Christmas Table Runner day continues as well. Designs have been decided, now I just have to make the dam things:

And in case you think all is neat and tidy; it isn't.........

I can't even dare show the floor surface surrounding the table, it's shocking really. This was taken on a good day too.

And finally, I am so proud of my littlest lad. He has worked long and hard for this and it is well deserved - a blue belt entered the household last week after many sessions of Judo. We are very pleased for him, the only trouble is he will start to compete in matches.........I have trouble watching my youngest getting pummelled and beaten all colours of the rainbow. Luckily I am working that day, so I have the perfect excuse not to be there!

It's been a while!

Oh, my poor neglected blog, it's been a while hasn't it? Where does the time go? I can never understand people who say they are bored and have nothing to do - I don't have enough hours in the day to do what I want to do.

Anyway, I am here, for now anyway.

The quilt frame is empty at the moment, although I am determined to crack on with some Christmas presents this week. I have a quilt that I want to quilt ready to go, and one in pieces that will be another one. So my plan is to get on with those as soon as I can.

Work wise, I have a half square triangle workshop this week, which I am looking forward to. Love half square triangles! They are so versatile. Then it is just the Christmas Table Runner workshops before Christmas - they are always a hoot.

This is a project that has been on the go for at least two years, if not more. It is for my Mother-in-law, a wall hanging. Hand pieced stars, that were then appliqued onto a background. Is it just me who uses kitchen bowls for quilting?? This project would have been finished before now, but I was really struggling as to how I was going to quilt it. I would pull it out and look at it and wonder what to do, loose interest and it would get put away again.

When I eventually decided it was quite simple really. Large interlocking circles around the outside of the stars, with stipple quilting in the spaces they create between them. This kitchen bowl turned out to be exactly the right size.....


My pin cushion then proved to be the right size for the curves on the stars themselves.

Who needs all those fancy quilting tools????

Summer Ends! Autumn Begins!

It's officially Autumn - did you know?? Could you tell the change from summer to autumn? Difficult isn't it? Well, the summer has finished, the kids have started to go back to school - only one so far, but I have high hopes for Monday morning!! It seemed to go quick, the summer I mean, and our holiday already seems a long time ago.

Italy was wonderful, with plenty of ups and downs. The downs included landing on Saturday and not getting our suitcase until Wednesday teatime. But apart from that, there was plenty of this:

DD had pizza EVERY DAY just about, especially when we were in Rome. The villa was an hour north of Rome, and then we had four days in Rome at the end.

There was loads of this:

And as a result, there was loads of this too:

The poor chambermaids at the hotel must have hated us. We walked miles!!! But it was worth it for things like this:

We spent a fortune on ice cream. It was very often used as an incentive - you know, when we get here you can have an ice cream, when we get there you can have an ice cream. Grandparents had very kindly given them all some ice cream money - I think we may have tripled that allowance!!

Mr Drum enjoyed it anyway!

Summer Begins!

Many thanks to anyone who bid on the Help For Heroes Knitted Heroes, and many thanks to the winner of the big ones - you know who you are, and you are a complete star!! We managed to raise nearly £90, which isn't a huge amount but every little bit helps right??

Right, back to business. Work is nearly over for the summer, last classes have taken place and now prep starts for the new ones in September. Kids have broken up from school - it's early days but the first couple of days have been okay so far - no major outbursts. You know it won't last, give them a couple of weeks and they will be fighting like cat and dog!

I am in a finishing mood - makes a change. My dear sister-in-law has only been waiting for a quilt for well over 10 years, okay maybe a lot more than 10 years! I have finally managed to do some thing for her. Nothing fancy and I am ashamed it has taken me so long. After long discussions with Martha about the colours I was using, she suggested this perfect thread for it. It looks great on the quilt.



A close up of the quilting:

I saw these at a friends house and knew I had to have a set - mission accomplished!

Coming out of hibernation at last - another computer virus!! Doomed we are.

Anyway, look at these:

How fantastic are these?? And they could be yours, and you could help raise money for Help for Heroes at the same time!! What more could you want???

These wonderful creations were made for our shop window to raise money - instead we are trying them on Ebay to try and raise a bit more. These are individual, and very unique items, you will not be able to find these in the shops. Hand knitted and the larger ones took over two months to complete.

Just go to Ebay and type in Knitted Heroes and they will come up. There is a Chelsea Pensioner, a sailor and also a RAF figure. So go on, please make a bid....... you know you want to.

If anyone out there would like to put it on their blog too, please do - the more exposure we can get for them, the better. It would be a shame for all the hard work that has gone into them to go to waste, and we want to raise lots of dosh for H4H!!

All proceeds will go to Help for Heroes.