frayed at the edge

Berwick and Warkworth

 Although we have had some rain today, it is still a bit hot for blogging, so just a very quick description of our visit to Berwick on Thursday, and Warkworth yesterday.

 

The swans were out in force on the river

 

I never tire of taking photos of the bridges

 

the heron's feathers were ruffled by the breeze

 

work on the major money pit continues

 

of course we have to have a photo of the lighthouse!

 

looking from the town walls over the roofs, with Bamburgh Castle on the horizon

 

in Warkworth, we parked by the river

 

and walked along the riverbank towards the old bridge

 

this young man paddled quietly past us

 

but then with a great deal of noise …...

 

dozens of scooters roared past (that's the Northumberland flag on the last scooter)

 

a glimpse of the castle, dominating the skyline

 

it must have been quite a feat to build it with just manpower, no great cranes or machinery to lift the stone

 

I imagined Rapunzel leaning out of the tiny window at the top of the tower, letting down her hair

 

we popped into Bertram's for a cuppa

 

we hadn't been there before, and loved its style, with scrubbed wooden table tops and mismatched chairs

 

Malcolm's coffee came in a plain white mug, but I was delighted with my teapot, cup and saucer.  What was that, you spotted the cake??!!  We shared this banana and fudge cake - delicious!

6&6 in 2018 : July report

 This is a slightly different report this month, but I am sure Meredithe will forgive me for going slightly off-piste from our challenge.  As I mentioned before, I have been doing a lot of quilting for my lovely friend Margaret, the Queen of Appliqué, and if you are a regular reader you will have seen the photos from the exhibition in my last post.  But I thought you might like some details of her wonderful work, and how I did the quilting

 

having quilted-in-the-ditch round every square (and there were a lot of squares!) I then did a very simple meander, which doesn't detract from the marvellous appliqué

 

I could quite happily have kept the finished quilt on the bed in the guest bedroom!

 

the members of Abbey Quilters wear sashes when they are on duty at the exhibition - usually just made of strips of fabric - but of course Margaret had to stamp her own style on her sash

 

with tiny Sunbonnet Sue figures on the front

 

and colourful squares on the back

 

she then made this sash for her friend Ivy, who is the Queen of Hexies

 

I may have uttered a rude word or two avoiding the buttons as I quilted!

 

then she made a sash for Sandra, the Linus Lady

 

how cute is this!

 

then it was on to one of her penguin quilts.  Someone had offered to quilt it for her, but she only quilted the dark green sashing and the tartan outer border

 

which meant the background fabric of the blocks was loose and droopy

 

you can see the difference already, between the quilted left side, and the unquilted right

 

having quilted all the blue parts of the backgrounds, I then had to quilt the white parts.  This was the most wrinkled one

 

what a difference the quilting made!

 

and here is the finished quilt, looking much better

 

if you read my last post, you will know that Margaret made this one after a chance remark from her husband Stan, who said he would need to chain her up to stop her buying fabric

 

she thought it was boring with three windows with bars, so she unpicked some of the stitching on this one and added the dog!

 

her "convict" Sunbonnet Sues are so cute

 

the back of the quilt shows the quilting round the figures

 

a detail of the stitching

 

I was holding my breath as I finished the quilting on the outer black border, as the thread almost ran out

 

and the finished quilt hanging in the exhibition

 

I did manage one new little project this month.  What do you think I made with some fabric and crushed walnut shells?

 

a little pyramid weight, for holding dressmaking patterns in place

 

I hope you have all been busy this month - do pop over to Meredithe's blog, and after reading her post, scroll down to the linky thing to see what everyone else has achieved.

 

 

A girls' day out!

On Saturday morning, Malcolm dropped me off at my friend Sonia's house, as the two of us were heading up to Kelso for Abbey Quilters' Exhibition.   As you know, I have been busy for the last few weeks quilting some of the wonderful work of Margaret, the Queen of Appliqué.  In this post I am just showing you her work in the exhibition, but if you pop in next Tuesday for my end of the month report on the 6&6 challenge, I will show you some details of the both her appliqué and my quilting.  We start with Sunbonnet Sue and Friends.  This is a big quilt, and I somewhat exhausted at the end of each session working on it!

 

Margaret's husband, Stan, remarked recently that the only way he could stop her buying fabric would be to chain her up.  That chance remark led to this whimsical wallhanging!

 

I quilted this one last year, for her grandson Harry.  Only Margaret's imagination could have penguins playing on the beach!

 

this one is a three-person effort.  Margaret made the quilt top (I should have mentioned that all her work is done entirely by hand!!), then someone offered to quilt it for her, but they only quilted the sashing and borders, which left the blocks looking saggy and wrinkled.  That was where I came in, using dense quilting to flatten out the blocks

 

this one has yet to be quilted

 

it's a pity that there wasn't room for this one to be hung, to show it off properly - I hope to quilt to it soon

 

I don't know how Margaret thinks of all these wonderful designs

 

this one is so cute - if she asks me to quilt it, I might just forget to give it back!

 

I can't show you any of the other quilts from the exhibition, as there were signs up saying that photos were not to be put online, but Edith, who as always created lovely floral arrangements for the tables in the coffee shop, gave me express permission to share a couple of photos with you

 

and of course, you know that we quilters always have wonderful home baking! 

 

and to tempt you to come back next week, here is a little sneak peek

We should have known better .......

 .……. than to decide to have a day out on the day that the schools broke up for the summer, because of course that meant that it rained!!  There was the odd spot of rain as we pottered round Corbridge, enjoying the old-fashioned shops

 

you can buy everything you need for the kitchen here (and quite a lot of things you never knew you needed until you saw them in the shop!)

 

there are lots of places to eat, and we finally decided on Café No. 6

 

where we shared this very tasty ploughman's platter

 

the road climbed and climbed as we drove through the rain along the old Roman Military Road, which served Hadrian's Wall.  The sat-nav informed us that we had reached 892 feet above sea-level

 

we called in at The Sill, which has now been open for about a year

 

there are lots of very interesting and informative exhibits, but we were more interested in going up on to the roof to see the scenery

 

normally at this time of year, the fields would be green, but the long hot summer means the view is more brown  than green

 

the rain had gone off, but there were still lots of threatening clouds hanging over us

 

some people who live "down south" like to say that it is "grim up north" ……. but if this is grim, I would rather live here!!

 

on the way back to the car, I stopped to take this photo - a gnarly tree, a falling down bit of wall, and a little bit of higgledy piggledy fence …… and there are even some sheepies in the distance

 

I just had time to snatch this photo as we drove past on the way home - this is the famous Sycamore Gap

 

tomorrow I will be heading up to Kelso with my friend Sonia, to see the Abbey Quilters' exhibition.  That means I will finally be able to show you all the quilting that I did for Margaret, the Queen of Appliqué, so do pop in again on Monday to see her wonderful work.  Have a great weekend, love Anne 

A grand day out!

Last Wednesday, we headed south to Seaburn, to visit the amazing Lucy Locket Land.  Lucy and I were blogging friends some years ago, but we somehow lost touch.  But then I came across her on Instagram, and was delighted to find that she has opened this wonderful shop

 

everywhere you turn in the shop, there is so much to see

 

luscious yarns, cute kits

 

more yarns, more kits

 

and while your head is still spinning from all the gorgeousness ……. what is this?  Another room stuffed with more goodies!

 

this corner has all sorts of patchwork delights

 

while Malcolm enjoyed some coffee and biscuits, Lucy and I talked and talked, catching up with what we have been doing since we read each others blogs.  She has been running some excellent workshops, and I hope to be able to go to some of the upcoming ones.  Malcolm expressed an interest in  a basket making workshop - could we see some competitive basket making!  And totally uninterested in all the talking was the exceedingly cute Pippy the Shop Dog!

 

 

Hot, hot, hot!

Hello everyone,

I've just popped in to say that it is much to hot to think about blogging!!  However you can still keep up with what I'm doing on Instagram (@annetaydon).  I'll be back when the weather cools down a bit!

Love Anne

6 & 6 in 2018 : June report

Oh dear, this is a very meagre report!  Regular readers know that I have been very busy all month doing a lot of quilting for my friend Margaret, Queen of Appliqué.  I'm not allowed to show you what I have been doing for her until after Abbey Quilters' exhibition, so you will have to wait until next month to see her wonderful quilts.  But I can show you this very simple piece of fmq that I did for her.  She had added two borders to this panel of rugby players, and appliqued the rugby balls.  The quilt is going to be auctioned tonight at a fund raising event organised by Margaret's son, to raise funds for the local Mountain Rescue Team

 

I used a large , loopy meander, so that your eye is drawn to the subject of the quilt, and not the quilting

 

all trimmed, ready for the binding.  I haven't seen the quilt since it was finished, as Margaret took it away to handstitch the binding on the back.  I hope it raises lots of money for such a good cause

 

the only other thing that I have worked on this month (I have spent a fair amount of time working in the garden) is some knitting.  I bought three balls of this yarn in a sale ……. oh dear, probably ten years ago!

 

I am knitting a shawl - what else would you knit in the middle of a heatwave!  There are too many stitches on the circular needle to lay the whole thing out flat, but you can see that it is very basic.  When I get to the last few rows, I plan to add some beads

 

so that is my rather poor report.  To see what everyone else has achieved this month, pop over to Meredithe's blog, and as usual, after you have read her report, scroll down and click on the linky thing.

This and that

Jennifer is continuing to make a good recovery after breaking her leg so badly back in March, so yesterday morning we popped down to Morpeth and picked her up, to go out for a cuppa.  We headed to Newbiggin, to try out a new café, only to find it was closed!  However, the second place we went to was definitely open!

 

Malcolm had been here before

 

but Jennifer and I hadn't visited it

 

so we were eager to see if it lived up to Malcolm's description

 

we weren't disappointed, and loved the tiny timers, which told us when our tea was ready to pour

 

the bright sun shining in the window was creating strange shadows on the table!  Jennifer had an excellent cheese scone

 

I had a delicious Mars Bar slice, and for some reason I didn't take a photo of Malcolm's gingerbread

 

back home, Malcolm set about painting the newly-cleaned deck with deck oil

 

by the end of the afternoon, the transformation was amazing!  He is thinking of painting the uprights and the top rails with a bright colour

 

this is my latest orchid, which I bought several weeks ago in the local garden centre for only £5!

 

one of these days I will get round to making an applique quilt with orchids flowers

 

I brought this tiny stapler home from from Indonesia, so I have had it for about 20 years ……. and I have finally got to the last little strip of staples.  I can't remember what the stapler cost, but the box of staples still has the price on it, which works out at about 15 pence!

I am still very busy sewing for my lovely friend Margaret, Queen of Applique, so I won't be here through the week, but I will be back next Saturday, to give you my June report for 6&6 in 2018.  I hope you have a great weekend, love Anne

 

 

 

I have been doing a lot of sewing .......

 ……. but as I mentioned before, there is an embargo on the photos until after Abbey Quilters exhibition next month.  So today we have an update on the garden.  At the front of the house we have this narrow verge with "grass", which is just a pain for Malcolm to cut

 

so he has gradually been digging up the grass/weeds, and replacing it with gravel, under which he has been putting weed-suppressing membrane

 

he has put a wooden batten across the verge to hold the gravel in place, and I will plant some little creeping plants to grow up to, and possibly over, the edge of the little border, to soften the edge

 

the gravelling of the long border is ongoing

 

if only all these little buds would turn into viable olives!

 

the last time we were at the garden centre, we had various vouchers to use, so we bought these two obelisks, one for the passion flower

 

and one for the new climbing rose

 

which has just started flowering

 

this poor thing was flattened last week by Storm Hector

 

but we haven't cut it back

 

as the bees don't mind the flowers being on the ground

 

the apples are developing nicely - I just hope they taste better than they did last year, when they were inedible!

 

I think we are going to have to remove the little holly tree on the right, as it is just too close to the spirea.  Hopefully we can dig it up and replant it, but if not, regrettably it will have to be cut down

 

our little bottle brush has flowered - it isn't quite as grand as the ones that we have seen when we have been on holiday in Australia, but it is a lovely reminder of those wonderful holidays!

 

 

My version of events!

 On Friday I shared Malcolm's photos of our walk, so today, here are my photos.  As you can see, I may have had a slight advantage when it came to camera size!

 

my first photo is of one of the salmon boats on the river - we haven't yet seen them fishing this year

 

a sturdy buttress on the town walls

 

what wonderful iridescent colours

 

this would make a lovely quilting pattern

 

a collection of chimneys visible over the top of the town walls

 

the Watch Tower

 

wild flowers will always find a place to grow

 

Malcolm, I think you were supposed to stay on this side of the barrier!

 

we were on the other side of the town from the lighthouse - the wonders of a very large lens

 

this is Bamburgh Castle …….

 

and this is Lindisfarne.  They are about 15 miles down the coast, which is why they are hazy

 

but despite the size of the lens, it will also take delicate photos

 

of pretty flowers

 

and thistles!

 

this is one of a chain of beacons which were lit to celebrate one of the Queen's jubilees (she has been on the throne so long now, she has celebrated many jubilees!)

 

this photo is for Toffee-apple, who likes eider ducks

 

my version of looking at the lighthouse through the gun port

 

it took quite a few tries to get this plant in focus …… it was only an inch high, growing out a crack in the wall

 

and to finish …….. 

 

of course we have to have some swans!