Hooray - it may have taken a long time, but finally today I finished the zebra cushions for Stuart! It's so good to cross another thing off the to-do list.
posed on my favourite chair!
I like the effect of the faux chenille
I used the same fabric as the binding on the opening on the back
Next on the agenda is to finish the gnomes - hopefully next time you see this ........
....... it will have been transformed into three Christmas gnomes!
...... and Mia is gorgeous too!! Yes, I know you can't really call a six-foot tall young man a baby - but he will always be my baby!! Emma took these photos last night when Stuart called in to give Mia her quilt and shawl and forwarded them today so that I could pop them on the blog
Stuart, Mia and cute quilt
Stuart, Mia and her shawl
the two gorgeous babies!!
Get ready to say awww - the baby quilt is finished!!
There was some feverish sewing after dinner last night, so that it would be ready for Stuart to give to Emma (along with the shawl) when he goes to see baby Mia next week. He had some photos to show me - she is absolutely gorgeous, with a fantastic head of dark hair! Watching while I stitched was Stuart's amazing fish, Charlie - he posed beautifully when he saw the camera!
Today I shopped...... but not quite until I dropped!! Of course before indulging in a serious bout of Christmas shopping, you need the have a decent breakfast, which can mean only one thing - a trip to Aromas for possibly the best bacon roll in the world.. You can see a photo of the last one I had (and read about my last trip to Falkirk) here ( you'll have to read almost to the end of the post before you see the bacon roll - but it's worth it!!)
After a successful bout of retail therapy, I headed off for lunch at yet another garden centre (delicious cream of broccoli and sweet potato soup), stopping along the way in the town of Bo'ness to take this photo of two very famous bridges
You can just make out the Forth Road Bridge (to the left of the lamppost), with the Rail Bridge behind it. Next time I go up to see Stuart, I will have to make sure I have time to go along to South Queensferry for better photos.
To finish, I have some photos which I took yesterday when I was at the Falkirk Wheel. Outside the Visitor Centre, there were some large lumps of rock ...... but then I looked more closely ......
I was going to say which one is my favourite - but I can't decide!!
First, of course, I have to start by revealing the Christmas cake, after it was unwrapped!
mmmm - rich and delicious!! Several times between now and Christmas, I will drizzle brandy over it, so it will be even more moist. In the past there have small disputes over the icing of our Christmas cakes, as I don't like marzipan, but this problem has been resolved - no marzipan under the icing, and marzipan fruits on the top for Malcolm!!
While we are on the subject of cakes ..... of course there was cake yesterday at patch'n'chat - in fact there were two -
a border tart
iced ginger bread
Yes, I had a piece of each!! We could have eaten them in style, as the table in the shop has been laid to show off Christmas place mats
If you would like to make these mats, do check out Borderland Fabrics' website, to get in touch with the shop to buy the fabrics.
Now on to today - we set off this morning for the village of St Abbs over on the east coast. It was a beautiful morning and we had a lovley run over. We were heading to another event organised by local wool shop Woolfish - a cornucopia of all things woolly. Malcolm came in to have a cup of coffee, but then he left me to immerse myself in all the wonderful woolly goodies. (he went for a walk along the clifftop - taking lots of photos for me, which you can see tomorrow in Shadow Shot Sunday!!) I haven't yet taken photos of the things I bought, but of course I did take photos of some of the stalls. First is the exceedingly colourful stall of my lovely friend Lindsay
Every time I see Lindsay she has made all sorts of different, interesting things, and they are always beautifully presented.
The next lot of loveliness was on the stall of Janis Embleton - all sorts of super handwoven delights
And then I succumbed to the most beautiful hank of pure silk lace weight yarn from fyberspates - I will have to knit something very special with it
Unfortunately the llamas and alpacas weren't there today - I know I showed you photos of them when we were there in the spring, but you can never have too many photos of such lovely animals!!
....... with our new neighbour! He's gorgeous - young and handsome, with beautiful big eyes ....... and oh, you should see his muscles!! Would you like to see a photo of him?
isn't he lovely!!
I was slightly worried when he came over to the fence - he is very big!!
Now I have some lovely news to share with you. Stuart's colleague Emma gave birth to a daughter yesterday. She is called Mia, and Mum and baby are both fine. I took another photo of the hat and socks ......
and now I can tell you what I have been knitting over the summer, which has been a closely guarded secret, as Emma reads the blog .........
........ a shawl. It's not quite finished, I am just sewing on the last of the edging, and then it will be washed and blocked (stretched). It's knitted in two-ply, so it's quite fine ...... and it's a well travelled shawl, as I knitted quite a lot of it on holiday!
When Emma told Stuart she was pregnant, he promptly said that I would make a quilt for the baby!! So today I had a browse through my stash, and came up with four very different ideas
very, very bright
tasteful pastels
fun cows
very cute sheep
I can't decide which one to choose - perhaps you could leave a comment and tell me which one you prefer!
This week's word for 'weekword' has been chosen by Leenie - do pop over to her blog to find out what word she has chosen - and maybe you could join in this week!
Some time ago, I had a post called easy peasy tutorial - it didn't attract a lot of interest at the time, so you can imagine my surprise, when in the last few weeks it kept showing up in my stats. A little bit of investigation has revealed that the tutorial is listed on this blog, which comes from Buenos Aires, Argentina!! I have no idea how I ended up on the blog (I don't mind!!) - so I have e-mailed the writer of the blog to ask how she found out about me - I'll let you know if I get a reply!
Today had been another miserable day, grey, wet and increasingly windy, so this afternoon I was quite glad to retreat to the studio, especially as the Malcolm had lit the log burner for me! Last night I finished the tea cosy - here it is sitting on the teapot
As you can see, it is a little bit big, so I decided to felt it - I put it in a bowl of hot soapy water, then gave it a good pummelling (for once ignoring the rule about only squeezing handknits!) I also washed (but not in hot water!) the baby hat and socks that I knitted recently (the baby is due next week). I took them all out to the studio to dry in the heat of the stove
Oh dear, Typepad had thrown one of its periodic hissy fits and won't put in the photo - but I think (I hope) if you click on the red cross you will see the photo! If you can't see it, it shows the tea cosy, the socks and the hat warming themselves in front of the stove - the best place to be on a miserable afternoon! The tea cosy still isn't quite the right shape/size, so once it's dry, I will use a bit of needle felting to tweak it into shape!!
Malcolm made the dinner tonight and I wondered why he was shouting at me to bring the camera, when he was dishing up .... well this is why - he was so delighted with how his fish pie had turned out!!
mmmmm - it was delicious, and the sliced potato was a nice change from mashed potato on the top!! And on the subject of food - of course there is a photo of yesterday's cake - the patch and chatters think it's hilarious that Annette's cakes have a fan club!! So here it is - a yummy peach flan with cream .....
I was so excited when I opened the post this morning - my lovely friend Sarah had sent me a belated birthday present - just look at what she sent
a wonderful set of stamps - with pictures of post boxes!! And .... the folder has lots of interesting photos and info
thank you Sarah - it is a super present!!
I was in a charity shop in Jedburgh this morning, when I saw this little cross-stitch kit - priced at only £2.50 - needless to say I had to buy it!
This afternoon, I met my friend Lorraine to go to knit'n'natter. I hadn't seen her for ages, as she went on holiday just when we came back! We had rather a lot of news to catch up on - including hearing about what she got for her birthday last month - a new sewing machine! However I did manage to do some knitting in between chatting, drinking tea (and eating a toasted teacake!). Malcolm recently bought me this tea cosy book (sorry about the marks on it - I accidently splashed it with wax when I was blowing out a candle)
I foolishly said to Malcolm that I would knit him whichever cosy he wanted - and some of them are very elaborate! But being a man of tast and refinement, he picked a very simple one. It should actually be knitted in a paler blue, but this denim blue aran wool was left over from a jumper I knitted for him last year
not bad for an afternoon's knitting (and I've started the other side!)
If you've ever bought a book from Amazon, then you'll know that you get e-mails for ever more suggesting other books you might like to buy. Usually I delete them before I'm tempted - but last week I got an e-mail saying that people who had previously bought a book by Jan Brocket might also like to buy Cath Kidston's new book. I made the mistake of looking at the new book .... yes, I bought it!
As well as all sorts of lovely projects, there is also a kit to make the bag on the cover - I think that might go to quite near the top of the to-do list!
Do you remember some weeks ago I made a quilt top with some of the left over fabric from Oliver's quilt? Well, this afternoon I decided to quilt it! First I had to decide how to quilt it, and as the bright colours made me think of summer, I decided to use a sunflower. This meant I had to make templates - first a circle for the centre on the flower, then another with the petals added. I used card from a cereal packet (we quilters were recycling/upcycling cereal packets long before it became fashionable!)
I then marked sunflowers randomly on the quilt top, including some half-flowers on the edges and in the corners, using a chalk pencil
Next I layered the top with some lovely fleece that I bought yesterday at Borderland Fabrics - I would call the colour buttermilk
I stitched round the flowers using a lovely variegated yellow thread - this photo shows the stitching on the fleece
But I wasn't just stitching flowers this afternoon, I was also taking photos of them! I picked these three flowers from a late flowering fuschia, then had fun arranging them, first on their own
and then with this tiny fan, which was given to me by a lovely Japanese lady whom I taught how to quilt when I was living in Indonesia!
And lastly, for all the fans of Annette's cakes, of course I have a photo of yesterday's wonder - one of her light as air sponges, with jam and cream ... yum, yum!!
..... and the stove is lit - so it must be time for the first meeting of Kist for the autumn/winter session! (for new readers, Kist is my house group - it stands for k1 stitch two, and is also a Scottish word for a chest, particularly a hope chest)
of course I didn't bake the goodies - maybe one day .......
lots of magazines, books and patterns to look at!
We were a small group today, as Lizzi and Lorraine are both on holiday (although more members are going to join us soon!), so it was just Alison, Tricia and me. We had a great day, knitting, sewing, blethering, drinking tea, eating cake ..... Alison was working on a wonderful piece of embroidery - she had first drawn and painted the picture on paper, using special paints and crayons. She then put the paper on to the fabric and ironed it, transferring the picture. The colours are wonderful ....
Tricia did a bit of quilting on a bag she is in the middle of making, and she also did a bit of knitting, but the star of the day was her beautiful quilted and embroidered cushion ......
The stitching is lovely, and the colour of the embroidery is echoed in the edging. And ..... the back is so lovely, it is really a reversible cushion .....
So what was I doing? Well ...... yes, it was those chickens! I cut and stitched the rest of the strips I need for the sashing, then I embroidered the legs and beak on this little chook ...
Yesterday was a lovely day, so we decided to go for a walk in the park. Of course the new camera had to go too, so that I could continue to explore the wide variety of settings (although sometimes I have to fall back on the 'intelligent auto'!!). We sat outside the little tearoom for a cuppa (the tearoom closes for the winter next weekend!) and I was able to take this photo
These tress are just starting to change colour, but when we walked further through the park, we saw these lovely trees ........
...... with a beautiful mix of autumn colours.
Back home, I went out to the studio to do some sewing. Although it was a bright sunny day, it was a bit chilly, so I lit the woodburning stove for the first time this autumn/winter
Now that the chicken blocks are well on the way to being finished, I decided to make a start to the sashing strips - there is quite a lot of work to be done on them! Of course I first cleaned the sewing machine and put in a new needle. Then I assembled some of the fabrics needed for the sashing
I chose the four fabrics on the right, from which I cut lots of strips
I sewed the strips together in pairs, then sewed the pairs together
It was good to be sitting at the sewing machine after such a long break - even if it was just basic sewing!!
Some of you may have noticed that my comments on your blogs show me with a different ID ..... blogger/blogspot keeps telling me there is an error in my ID when I use 'frayedattheedge' .......
hopefully it will sort itself out soon!
