I had intended to spend the day in the studio sewing, but that didn't happen! Malcolm had a day out arranged with his sister, Jennifer ...... but then the man from the company that installed the boiler phoned to say that one of the boys who installed it would come to the house first thing this morning to fill the hole in the wall, and do the final testing. This meant I had to stay in the house until he arrived and carried out the work, so I decided to make some rhubarb and ginger jam
bottle last year's sloe vodka
and redcurrant gin
of course once the jam was ready I had to do a taste test (delicious)
I took my toast out to the garden to take the photo, putting the plate on the new table which Malcolm made yesterday (I must get him trained to take photos!)
we have had a change round of the garden furniture, so we needed a little table to sit between the two steamer chairs on the deck
I used the table later to take this photo
when I finaly got out to the studio, it was a bit late to start sewing, so instead I worked on a couple of designs. First was the June block for Lucie's A is for Applique challenge. The theme this month is the birds and the bees. This is the first draft of my block - I need to do more work on the birds!
I then did some work on the wallhanging that I showed you the other day, using the Moda squares for the borders. The idea came to me when I was writing an email to Meredithe ....... I was complaining about havinng to do the shopping and the laundry, when ........
but I do have sewing to show you, from the weekend. I have finished stitching round the tree and fence on Lillyanny, and have also stitched the birds (yes, Anne, more ends to sew in!) The next stage will be to satin stitch the birds' legs
I finished the Baltimore block for Abbey Quilters
so what was the detail of, that I showed you yesterday? We were given a challenge at Abbey Quilters to make something on the theme of clowns. It has to be ready for next Tuesday, the last meeting before we have our summer break. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, so after a quick internet search, and employing Malcolm' drawing skills ........ may I present my wallhanging "I found Nemo!"
this is an example of my "sideways" thinking, as Nemo, of course, is a clown fish!! I found some fish beads that I got years ago when we had a holiday in Western Australia, and some shells that I bought in John Lewis (a big department store) in Edinburgh!
to finish ..... the ongoing swallow war! You might have seen a scarecrow, but have you seen a scareswallow? This is Malcolm's creation to keep the swallows out of the garage - it looks as if it has a nasty weapon, but it's just a trowel which Malcolm had taped to a pole to reach something in the garden. It certainly scares the swallows. and it gave me a scare when I opened the garage door yesterday, forgetting that it was there!!