frayed at the edge

The cutting room floor

Since I started my blog, I have taken hundreds of photos, and of course I have used quite a lot of them.  But there are some photos which are still languishing unseen in my folders ... perhaps they are a bit blurred, or the moment for that story passed, or something better cropped up later in the day to change the plans for that day's post .... and there are also all the photos from before blogging! However,  unlike bit-part actors, whose moment of glory ended up on the cutting room floor, some of these photos are finally getting their moment in the spotlight!

We'll start with cute animals .....

 

 

 

 

 

 

then a bit of falling down fence

 

 

my latest pillar box

 

 

a bit of sewing

 

 

a bit of knitting

 

 

there has to be Scotland's (other) national drink

 

 

a little bit of (a previous) garden

 

 

a (holiday) sunset

 

 

swallows getting ready to fly off to sunnier climes

 

I hope you have enjoyed my trawl through the archives ... and now I have a present for you ..... a little bouquet of flowers and grasses which I picked from the hedgerow this morning, when I went out for my last three mile walk - I certainly have got my legs fit for the holidays!!

 

No doubt while we're away we will have the occasional glass of wine .... and as always I'll raise my glass and think of family and friends and say

 

cheers!!

Tuesday Treasures

 

 

Yes, my laptop is a treasure to me (and it's on my lap in this photo!)- along with my broadband connection and my camera!  For years I have kept in touch with friends by e-mail (I have had my e-mail address since 1997!), but once we got broadband, I was able to start writing my blog, and the world has opened up!  When I started writing it in January, I thought it would be read by friends and family who felt obliged to read it ..... but over the months, the number of readers has gradually increased, and I now have blog friends in America, Australia, South Africa, Norway, New Zealand ..... and of course, recently a blog friend became a real-life friend when Sarah came to visit!!

Writing a blog also means taking photos, and although I've always taken holiday and family occasion snaps, I now pay far more attention to my photos, and have developed an interest in taking close-ups, such as this one I took this morning

 

conker and beech nut

 

Also this morning, I took this photo to e-mail to Mattenylou  in America - she has discovered that one of her relatives was born in this building!!

 

Hawick High Street

 

I may have mentioned (several times) that we are off on holiday this Thursday - first to Australia and then to Singapore.  We will be away for five weeks, so my trusty laptop is going with us - mostly to keep in touch with family, but also hopefully to do some posts and let you know about our adventures.

 

But don't worry, I'll be back tomorrow with another instalment of life in the glorious Scottish Borders!!

Warning signs

there are warning signs

 

then there are WARNING signs

 

and then there are

WARNING SIGNS

 

 

We were in Northumberland today visiting Malcolm's Dad, and on the way home, Malcolm kindly took us on a detour so that I could take these photos of beautiful heather (although it pains me to admit that it isn't Scottish Heather!!)

 

glorious!!

 

 

 

 

 

Shadow Shot Sunday

I think there has been a conspiracy against me for the last two weeks - when I have been out and about in neighbouring Borders town, it has been cloudy and/or raining!  So again today's shadows are from the house and garden - except for the first one, which is, of course, the cute dogs that I promised!!

 

These are our two gorgeous dogs, Bonnie the poodle (1978-1994) and Honey the cocker spaniel (1986-1997).  They both loved to lie in a patch of sunlight!!  We still miss them .....

 

my reward for cleaning the studio - a nice shadow of the Dyson

 

I have cheap and cheerful plastic chairs in the studio - but good for shadows

 

to take a shadow shot you need a shadow camera

 

the garden gate

 

the winter jasmine on the carved owl Malcolm bought in Indonesia

 

and of course, to end, a shadow/reflection shot!

 

Head over to Hey Harriet to see a montage of the best of last week's shadow shots and to see who is taking part this week

 

ps - I finally managed to put the SSS button on my sidebar, but it's a bit too big - any advice please, on getting the size right? 

A perfect scone

As ever, yesterday morning saw me leaping out of bed at 6.30 to head out for my walk.  I've shown you lots of photos of the Eildon and Minto hills, but not Ruberslaw, the hill behind us, as the sun is usually behind it.  Finally yesterday morning I was able to take a photo

 

When I got to the bottom of the hill, where I turn to head back home, a car drew up and and elderly man got out.  He expressed surprise that I was out and about so early.  I explained that I went for a walk every weekday morning, to keep fit.  He then said that when he retired he started keeping black sheep, to give himself a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  He then heaved a bag of feed out of the boot of his car (a very cool and trendy black Mercedes!) and we went over to the gate to look at the sheep.  He called to them to come over to the gate, then got them to stand and pose for a photo

 

The ewe at the back was supreme champion at the Royal Highland Show at Ingliston, one of the other ewes is her daughter and another is her granddaughter!  The one on the right is the tup (ram) - the elderly gent couldn't quite find the right expression to tell me why the tup was there ... eventually he hit on the word 'mate'!!  He then headed into the field to feed them and I headed home for breakfast.

 

In the afternoon, as always it was off to Jedburgh for patch'nchat at Borderland Fabrics.  I took along the strips I had left from the 'jelly roll' that I bought for Oliver's quilt.

 

I had decided to use them to make a quilt for 'Project Linus', which gives quilts to sick children (named after Linus in the Peanuts cartoons, who is always seen clutching his blanket).

 

I started by selecting six strips and stitching them into two lots of three, which I then crosscut into squares.  I realised I needed more squares and did the same again (sorry, forgot to take a photo of the second lot!)

 

All the squares cut and laid out ready to sew together .... but then there was a slight pause, when we had to go and eat Norrie's wonderful scones ( I had butter and strawberry jam on mine)

 

We were also offered a slice of Annette's light-as-air sponge, but we were strong and went back to our sewing!

 

By the end of the afternoon, I had the squares sewn into strips.

 

On the way out to the studio this afternoon, I was sidetracked by this lovely butterfly, which sat and posed on the buddleia!

 

A quick bit of sewing, and the strips were joined together

 

The last stage was to add borders, then I went out into the garden to take an arty shot of the quilt top draped over a steamer chair - but as fast as I focused the camera, the breeze sprung up and moved the quilt!  Eventually I managed to take my photo ....

 

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for Shadow Shot Sunday - especially if you like cute little dogs .....

Weekword

 

When I was 12 or 13, I went on a camping trip with the Girl Guides.  But not a great organised trip with lots of fellow Guides - this was just two Leaders and three Guides, camping in a field.  It was the last weekend in September - and it rained almost all of the time (that's because it was the local 'holiday weekend' - guaranteed to make it rain!!).  Nevertheless, we had a good time.  I learned how to lash sticks together to make all sorts of useful things, how to lift a sod of grass using only a knife, make a fire in the hole, then replace the sod later and, most importantly, how to use the tentpeg mallet to bash flat the lumps under the groundsheet that made for an umcomfortable bed.  Not quite so nice was having to use a latrine - a trench in the field which you had to stand astride, then throw a spadeful of earth in when you had finished - although there was a canvas sheet round it for privacy (but no roof, so it was a soggy affair).  But the worst thing for me was the supper on the Friday night when we arrived.  I'm not a particularly fussy eater (in recent years I have eaten crocodile, alligator, kangaroo,emu and shark!!) but there are two things I really, really don't like - Heinz Cream of Tomato soup and Heinz Spaghetti.  Supper wasn't just both of these - it was both of them stirred together in one saucepan - who thought of that as a delicious meal?  I went to bed hungry .....

 

ps - my drawing skills haven't suddenly improved - I had a little help

to see more weekwords, visit Nicky

 

Have a lovely weekend, love, Anne

Teeny tiny socks

I've made a start to the little baby socks - it's funny knitting such tiny things when I'm used to knitting adult ones!

The six rounds of the rib.  To give you an idea of how small the socks are, the needles are only five inches long!  They are lovely bamboo needles, which I bought here

  

the fourteen rounds of the cuff

 

the fourteen rows of the heel flap

 

On an entirely different subject, I wish I could paint, because if I could, I would paint a still life of this plate of fruit and berries, picked this morning from the hedgerow and garden

 

And another change of subject ...

 

don't worry, you haven't fallen asleep and woken up in December - this Christmas card was included in a fund-raising pack I received from the British Red Cross (although Malcolm said he saw Christmas cards for sale in a local garden centre last week!!)

And one more thing totally unconnected to today's title .... no matter how hungry I was, and no matter how keen I was to forage for free food, this little fellow is safe!!

  

 

Tomorrow is 'weekword' - do come back and see what I have to say on the subject of camping!

Beatiful baby knits

I know there has been a shortage of knitting content recently, as I am working on a special project that I can't yet share with you, so I thought that I would look out something to take with me to knit'n'natter that you could see!  One of Stuart's colleagues, Emma, is expecting her first baby, so what better knitting than cute little baby things.  A quick look through some patterns and my stash produced this

  

Oh dear, I don't know why Typepad sometimes does this, but I think if you click on the red cross, you should be able to see the photo ... so, to continue ....

A special project needs to be put in a special bag to go to knit'n'natter, so what better than this knitted bag

 

it is knitted with strips of fabric

 

it was a kit which included the trim, cord and button

 

this is the same fabric used to line the bag

 

So did I finish the hat this afternoon..... well, almost ... I just have to darn in the ends.  I did do it slightly different to the pattern - I knitted it on four needles (so there is no seam to sew!) and I finished it with an i-cord tied in a knot.  Next on the list is a tiny pair of socks ...

Tuesday Treasures

If you read my recent 'weekword' for wanderlust , you will know that I love to travel.  Of course I couldn't do that without a passport, and I treasure these two old passports, with their reminders of all the wonderful places I have visited

 

I had these passports when living in Indonesia and just after we came home

 

In 1998 I was staying in Singapore while there was political unrest in Indonesia.  Stuart came out to visit during his summer break from university, Malocolm managed to take a week off from work and we went to Sydney.

 

a busy year travelling back and forward to Indonesia!

 

one of many visas

 

our trip to New Zealand before we came back to Scotland

 

my first trip to Houston to the International Quilt Festival

 

The Indonesian visas took up so many pages of my passport, I had to get a new one, which was issued by the Embassy in Jakarta.  This caused so much comment at Immigration (especially going into America) that I eventually got another new one, which hasn't got many stamps in it yet ...... but of course will soon have lovely Australian and Singaporean stamps, when we go off on our wonderful holiday next week!!

aDORAble

It didn't take too long today to think of a name for my woodland fairy - an adorable little Dora!  I worked hard yesterday at the Woolgathering to get her finished - today I just had to add her floral crown and her flowers - as she is a Scottish woodland fairy, she has a little bouquet of thistles!

 

sitting in her woodland glade

 

lovely golden curls

 

ready to fly away .....

 

...... but only as far as a cosy perch on the shelf - it has been a bit too wet and windy for her to be out in the woods today!