frayed at the edge

A bit of this and a bit of that

It was such a lovely sunny morning, we headed out early to go to Kelso ....... we had planned to go for lunch before I went to knit'n'natter, but decided to go for a walk in the sunshine as well.  We weren't the only ones enjoying the sunshine - this duck's plumage was shown of beautifully in the sun

 

We were delighted to see that this dog was much more concerned with keeping the river bank tidy, picking up plastic bottles, than the humans who had dropped the litter

 

We went somewhere different for lunch - I don't why we have never got round to eating here before!

 

Lunch got off to a good start when first my tea arrived ........

 

..... and then Malcolm's coffee, in very pretty china

 

Then the food arrived - we had both chosen the mushroom, caramelised onion and brie on a toasted bagel ....... yes, it was as delicious as it sounds!!  (and the presentation was wonderful too!)

 

I was busy in the studio at the weekend.  Having made a quarter of the templates for the Farmer's Wife blocks ....

 

....... I started sewing and have made the first two blocks

 

I was also doing some more machine quilting on my row quilt (which had been neglected for several weeks!)  I have a confession to make ....... when I did my sample, I had to alter the tension as the dark thread in the bobbin was coming up to the right side.  Having fiddled about with it until the dark thread didn't show, I then started quilting ......... but it wasn't until I had done quite a bit that I noticed that the cream top thread was showing on the back (it didn't on the sample).  I had done too much to contemplate unpicking it ...... so I have rather an unusual effect on the back!!

 

Yesterday I did more prep work on my hexagons, cutting out lots of papers - it was quite relaxing sitting there snipping away, listening to the radio and enjoying the warmth of the stove (the only discordant note was Christmas adverts on the radio!!)

 

I also did some more work on the Baltimore block - I seemed to have got bogged down stitching so many leaves - but now I just have another two to do!

 

I have also been getting organised to make a batch of cards with the orchid photos - although slightly different to the ones I made for the swap.  I am using single fold cards, and have to trim the photos as they are slightly the wrong size for the cards.  Then I use a little gadget that clips the corners - it's amazing the difference it makes to have rounded corners

 

I am making the cards as I have a table at the end of November at the Southdean Christmas Fair ..... I will have to knuckle down and get lots of things made.  Fortunately the lavender from the garden has dried, so I will be able to make more lavender bags and coasterswanted to send him the hare

To end, something special in the post again today ...... I had ordered two of Gretel's latest lino cut prints, and Gretel had emailed me to check that I did want two, and that it wasn't a glitch in the order.  I replied that I did indeed want two, as one is for Stuart's Christmas ...... he had admired my little hare when he visited on my birthday.  The wonderful Gretel promptly replied that although she know longer had any hares for sale, she would pop one of her own stash, meant for presents, in with my order, as a present for Stuart ........ I had mentioned in a previous email to Gretel that Stuart had recently taken up running, and as Gretel has too, she wanted to send a little something to a kindred spirit (oh dear, now Stuart knows what one of his Christmas presents is!)  Thank you very much, Gretel ..... and I love the plump little elephant too!

All can be revealed!!

I've mentioned a couple of times that  I had signed up for Mousy Brown's swap, which she was holding to celebrate the second anniversary of her blog.  The theme of the swap was simple - celebration, two, mice and friendship ....... and you had to fit whatever you were sending your swap partner into an A4 envelope!  My swap partner is Alyson, who lives in Corwall, is crafty and has a two year old son - but she doesn't have a blog so I couldn't read up more about her.  I posted my parcel off to her on Saturday, and now that she has received it, I can show you what I sent ...... some things I made, and some from my stash.

a set of cards with photos of beautiful orchids, taken in Singapore

 

lavender coasters - the lavender if from our garden

 

teeny tiny gift tags and parcel decorations

 

fun socks

 

a fun musical candle

 

a fabric brooch

 

a set of wooden crochet hooks - Alyson has been learning to crochet

 

scrapbooking stickers

 

The last thing to be squeezed into the envelope was very special ....... a very cute little knitted mouse for Alyson's little boy!

 

Now, of course, I am going to be camped out on the drive watching for the postman bringing my parcel from Alyson ....... you know that I love getting things in the post - especially with foreign stamps like this one ......

 

....... which was on my (slightly belated) birthday card from Lee - she makes such wonderful cards that I have been known to steal borrow some of her ideas!!

 

Sunshine!

Yesterday was bright and sunny, so we headed over to Harestanes for one of our favourite walks.  I was able to take lots of photos for next weekend's Shadow Shot Sunday. and still have lots left to share with you today

the bees were enjoying the sunshine too, both on this plant .......

 

....... and this one

 

the mild weather has confused this rhododendron into flowering at the wrong time

 

this mushroom has been well and truly nibbled .......

 

but I think it would be wise to  avoid this one!

 

I was going to show you more photos from our walk, then some photos of the garden, but they just kept vanishing ...... and now this block of text won't budge from the right!  So on with the knitting update - I've made a start to the shawl, but it needs a lot of concentration, so I have also started a pair of socks

 

 

I love the colours in the shawl, like autumn berries ........

 

..... which brings me to the last photo I am going to attempt to include.  We picked some brambles yesterday, and Malcolm made a very tasty apple and bramble crumble, which we had with some custard ...... we very rarely eat puddings, so this was a real treat!!

 

Shadow Shot Sunday

After a rather mixed week weatherwise, the sun has just come out!  But I have a rather different shadow to share with you this week, which I took on Tuesday night.  It is a floodlit shot of Kelso Abbey, followed by a sunlit shot of part of the same view that I took some time ago.  To see what other shadows have been found around the world, pop over to Hey Harriet, where Tracy has been working hard as ever to bring us this wonderful meme.

 

Blame the one-click!!

You know that I bought Malcolm a Kindle for our Silver Wedding.  He is really pleased with it - although he does still read 'real' books.  Then we bought one for Stuart as a combined birthday/Christmas present ..... and he really loves it!  My friends Anne S. and Tricia also love theirs.  So when I got an email from Amazon telling me that they were launching a new, cheaper Kindle ........

 

Yes, that one-click button did the deed, and this arrived in the post this morning

 

It's smaller and lighter than Malcolm's and can hold fewer books - but I really don't think that's a problem, as it has the capacity to store 1,400!

Friday of course means cake at patch'n'chat, but we had to make do with shop bought cakes, as Annette is away on holiday!  Still, we all tucked in to the choice of fruit loaf .......

 

....... and Swiss roll - I don't know when I last had a piece of Swiss roll!

 

I'm off to play with my Kindle get on with my knitting!  I hope you all have a good weekend, love Anne

A pleasant stroll

Now that it is dark in the mornings, I no longer go out for a walk ........ I torture myself on the cross trainer and rowing machine instead.  But I miss walking, so today I went for a walk after lunch (I strongly deny that I was trying to avoid doing the ironing!)  Usually I head up the hill towards the church, but for a change I went downhill.

Although it is still reasonably mild, most of the horses now have their blankets on

 

The sheep, of course, have their own woolly coats to keep them warm

 

And sometimes all you need is Mum

 

Along the way I was able to indulge my liking for gates ......

 

...... and falling down bits of old fences

 

It wouldn't be a walk in the country without one of these thundering past ........

 

....... and there are a lot of tractors about at the moment with these attachments on the back for cutting hedges - although as you can see our road has yet to be done

 

This sparrow was perched in the hedge across the road from us - he obviously didn't know that all the other sparrows in the neighbourhood were in our front garden, waiting for the feeders to be filled

 

I hope he arrived in time to share in the feasting on the fat balls!!

 

I have finished making/extracting from my stash a little pile of goodies to send off to my partner in Mousy Brown's swap.  All that is needed is an address label on the envelope, then it will be off to the post office on Saturday to send it. 

 

For lunch today we had homemade soup (I had apple and parsnip, Malcolm had pea and ham) and some of the sourdough bread we got yesterday - it was delicious!!

Only the best will do!

How is this for a posh carrier bag?

 

So what were we buying - a duke or a princess ..... or even the castle itself?  No, we were shopping in the deli at the coffee shop!  We got a wonderful chicken and leek pie (which was less than half price!)  We've had one of these pies before - it had lots of chicken and a lovely creamy sauce, so we are looking forward to enjoying this one

 

We also got a sourdough loaf - yes, I could bake one, but when we were standing in the queue we could smell the bread, so it just had to come home with us!

 

When we got home, there was a parcel sitting on the front doorstep.  It didn't quite have an exotic stamp on it ....... although it had come from that very exotic part of the UK..... Wales!

 

....... but it was full of wonderful things!  Three balls of delicious sock yarn, two free patterns, and a lovley little cotton bag to keep my knitting in

 

Yesterday I wound the laceweight yarn into a ball, using the swift and the new ball winder, which make the whole process so much quicker and easier

 

The pattern says to use a circular needle, but unless I need to because of the number of stitches, I would much rather knit on straight needles

 

I had a busy day yesterday - you can see some of what I was doing on the table ........ more hexagons prepped (in the centre)and templates made (in the bag on the right) - but I can't tell you what else I was doing until after I have sent off my envelope to my partner in Mousy Brown's swap.  (And why is there a piece of pipe lagging on the left of the table?)

 

Out in the garden, there are still little bits of colour.  We got this clematis earlier in the year

 

It had a few flowers on it when we got it, but then it sat there all summer sulking.  Now it has buds on it and one flower has opened!

 

Across the garden, the two clematis on the trellis are still flowering profusely, with lots of buds still to open

 

I keep meaning to look in my plant books to find out what this climber is

 

For some reason this little fuchsia doesn't flower in the summer when the others do - it waits until the others flowers in the border die back

 

This last rose is clinging on

 

The hellebore is confused, and has started to flower again!

 

The nuthatch was back on the peanut feeder this afternoon - and still determined to show me its bottom!!

 

When the robin wan't looking, these cheeky sparrows had a bath (you can see the water that has splashed over the edge!)

A little bit country

I usually watch tv at the weekend when I am in the studio, but on Saturday I was listening to music - my wonderful new Lady Antebellum cd (it's that buy with one click on Amazon .... it is just too easy to look at something, and before you know it, you have bought it!!)

 

 

I have done quite a bit more stitching on the Baltimore block - I have done all the leaves on the outer left hand side

 

 

I got out the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book, which I bought at the quilt show in Harrogate, and the fabrics that were left over from the row quilt

 

 

Included with the book is a cd with all the templates needed to make the blocks

 

 

This meant fetching the laptop from the house and plugging in the printer (I need to tidy my desk!)

 

 

There was only one template on each page, which was a bit annoying as some of them are very small

 

 

What was that - you want ot see more of the ruler (I won't embarrass Malcolm by telling you that is is actually his ruler!)

 

 

The next stage was to get out some of my stash of cereal packets, and some clear sticky backed plastic

 

 

I cut out the first template, leaving a margin round it - don't worry about all the paper I will have to cut off, it will be used for shopping lists etc

 

 

The first template - only another 105 to go!!

 

 

Yesterday we had plain brown sparrows to finish - but today we have a colourful blue tit

 

 

 

Persuasion

Berwick Quilters held their exhibition at the weekend ....... and Malcolm didn't need too much persuasion to go, when I reminded him that there is always wonderful home baking at quilt shows!  I don't think he was disappointed by yesterday's selction (I should point out that we shared the cakes!)

 

 

There was a wonderful display of quilts ......

 

 

....... and Malcolm promptly spotted this owl

 

 

This is the quilt that my friend Katy made for her husband, featuring his wonderful Highland cattle

 

 

She also made this very cute teddy bear quilt

 

 

Another very, very cute quilt ...... I love the elephants!

 

 

I forgot to find out who made this amazing miniature quilt show - the detail is fantastic, given how small it is

 

 

Also on a very small scale is this bed - it is about six inches long

 

 

The quilt show was held in the village hall in Horncliffe, which we hadn't been to before, so we went for a walk before we headed for home.

The first thing to catch my eye was this tablet in memory of a former minister in the village

 

 

I was also able to add to my collection of post boxes - you can tell from this one that we were over the Border in England, as Scottish post boxes don't have ERII on them (she is the first Queen Elizabeth of Scotland)

 

 

Malcolm spotted this doorway - we thought perhaps the door hadn't been used for some time!!

 

 

The knitting update - I have finished my socks ........ but when trying them on - oh dear, they make me itch!  Hopefully they will be ok once they have been washed

 

 

I couldn't decide what to knit next, so had a potter round my stash and found a kit with this pattern, which can be knitted as a wrap or a triangular shawl (sorry, it wasn't the best of photos on the pattern)

 

 

I haven't decided yet whether to knit the wrap or the shawl, but as I have still to wind the yarn into a ball, I won't be starting it until Wednesday (I'm out at Abbey Quilters tomorrow evening)

 

 

To finish ...... I have great admiration for wildlife photographers who spend days, weeks, months, even years waiting for their subject to appear - I get bored after five minutes waiting for the birds  

 

 

Shadow Shot Sunday

There are no shadows to be found today - it is very grey, damp and dreary.  I have gone into my archives and pulled out my file of shadow shots from our holiday in Majorca in May, so I can still join in the shadow shot fun over at Hey Harriet

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mirror in this last photo is mounted on a wall, so that approaching traffic can see if there is anything coming the other way ....... but it also provided a reflection of the shadow on the building facing it