frayed at the edge

Another guest quilter

Before introducing you to the mystery quilter, some photos from yesterday evening and this morning

the big machine framed the boats

 

a catamaran came in to dock for the night

 

 

the first stitchery is almost finished

 

 

click to enlarge the photo to see how many seagulls were on the dockside and in the water

 

this afternoon, I asked Malcolm if he could pop into the studio for a minute.  Not suspecting that I was being mischievious, he was a bit surprised when I sat him down at the machine, which was set up for free motion quilting.  As he didn't want to lose face by saying that he couldn't do it, he had a go.  He filled in a gap between my doodles.  His doodling was ok, but he had trouble writing his name!

 

when I was having my practice on Sunday, I had trouble with this "c" curve ...... I had to concentrate so hard on which direction I was stitching in, the shapes were decidedly irregular

 

my first two efforts today were an improvement

 

then by my third attempt I finally got the hang of it

 

I thought I would have a go at an owl ........ Malcolm only laughed a little bit at it!

 

then I thought I would have a go at a sheep - perhaps it is as well that the thread ran out

 

after that I settled down to doing some prep for Mrs Billings, cutting out triangles for for the first border (I have done a lot of work on some of the outer borders)

 

while I was busy in the studio, Malcolm was playing with big boys toys in the garage

 

what was he making?  You know that I am going to tell you tomorrow!

Natural born stitcher*

So who was the mystery stitcher?  The story starts five years ago when Sarah and Andy came to visit.  Sarah was the first blogger that I met in real life, and we had a great day when she and Andy visited all those years ago.  So when Sarah got in touch to say that they would be in Northumberland again this summer for a holiday, of course we invited them for another visit.  They were a little bit late getting to us because of a major road diversion, so as soon as they arrived, we set of for lunch at Harestanes.  We were chatting so much I forgot to take a photo of lunch (delicious, freshly made sandwiches).  However, as we walked round the courtyard the camera came out

 

we then went to Mary Queen of Scots House in Jedburgh

 

the next stop was at Borderland Fabrics, but for some reason Malcolm and Andy chose not to go into the shop, and instead went to Border Meringues for a cuppa.  After Sarah did a little bit of fabric shopping, we joined the boys for a cuppa - but we resisted all the cakes and made do with the little meringues that came with our drinks

 

back home, we went out to the studio, as Sarah had asked if I would show her how to free motion quilt.  I had prepared a couple of sample pieces at the weekend, and looked out this book

 

I had a little go at the basic exercises on Sunday

 

so I was ready to show Sarah what to do

 

she took to it straightaway - Andy could only watch in wonder as she effortlessly doodled her designs

 

as she was doing so well, I rethreaded the machine with a luscious variegated thread, and she was off again

 

then, to finish, she stitched this owl on a branch, over her first efforts

 

unfortunately the weather wasn't good enough for us to have dinner outside, but the food tasted just as good eating at the kitchen table

asparagus soup (before the crumbled blue cheese was added)

 

roast chicken and gravy, with charlotte potatoes and Malcolm's green beans

 

meringue with 3-berry compote and cream

 

all too soon it was time for Sarah and Andy to head back to their holiday cottage.  We had a super day ...... and we hope it won't be another five years before we do it again!!

 

we zoomed off down to Stitchin' Heaven this morning, as Anne's major summer sale had just started.  The shop has been reorganised, and looks even better

 

Anne was cuddling a very special customer

 

Anne has started stocking some beautiful yarn, which comes from here.  So if you knit rather than sew, you can pop in to the shop and Anne will make you a cuppa while you decide which delicious colours to buy

 

after Malcolm dragged me out of the shop with rather a lot of fabric, we headed to Wooler.  We had lunch here, sharing a cheese and ham toastie and a cheese and onion toastie - yum!

 

but what was this?  Behind the coffee shop area, we discovered a small but perfectly formed patchwork shop.  It hasn't been open long, so if you are in the area, do pop in and support them

 

from Wooler, we came over to Berwick, so I am writing this post in the flat.  OK, I can here you all shouting "what did you buy"!  First, from Patchquirk, I got this super beach hut furnishing fabric, which will make more cushions for the flat

 

then from Anne's I got : the two white fabrics are for the Father Christmas wallhanging kits; the dark red variegated embroidery thread is for a Christmas project (I bought the fabric for it last year); the bright variegated threads are for stitcheries; the ruler is a handy size that I have been meaning to buy for some time; and the three coloured fabrics are for a Christmas throw for the couch in the flat

 

in case you don't think they are Christmas fabrics, here is a detail

 

of course if we are at the flat we have to have a swan photo (no close up of the seal, as Stuart has borrowed my big lens)

 

and to finish ...... I wonder if the person who parked this big machine on the dock left the keys in the ignition .......

 

*  apologies to Humble Pie for (almost) using their song title

A very good day ......

........ with very special visitors, but right now I am simply too tired to write about it (I may be sitting with my feet up sipping on a nicely chilled glass of wine).  I'll just leave you with this little teaser ....... whose first attempt at free motion quilting turned out like this?

A special weekend

Our visitors arrived after lunch on Saturday

Stuart and Alison

 

their best friends Fraser and Linsey

 

and us!

 

we spent the afternoon and early evening out in the garden, enjoying a glass of bubbles .........

 

........ before enjoying a very pleasant red wine with Malcolm's delicious lasagne (oops forgot to take a photo of the starter!)

 

I also forget to take a photo of pudding - the meringue, cream and compote was eaten, and there was just a little bit of LMP left!

 

Stuart brought us some of his first crop of potatoes.  We had them with dinner last night, and thoroughly enjoyed them

 

the visitors had brought us a box of delicious doughnuts ........ and we were all very, very naughty and had one each for "first breakfast" on Sunday morning!!

 

we went to Johnston's Mill for our second breakfast, just as I did recently.  Then the visitors headed off for home.

 

The butterflies have made a welcome appearance  in the garden, and are enjoying the lavender

 

to finish - the bottle brush was given a good talking-to, as it stubbornly refused to flower.  Unlike thhe wisteria, it did as it was told, and flowered at the weekend .......

 

 ......... but there is room for improvement!!

 

End-of-the-week roundup

I can't believe it's Friday again!  So here, in no particular order, are odds and ends from this week's photos

windsurfers 

 

on a hot sumer's day .....

 

...... you can't beat a cooling bath

 

even wasps use the bird bath!

 

cute

 

cuter

 

is this our good side?

 

free-range chickens

 

the beautiful climbing rose in the front garden

 

in full bloom

 

just going over

 

there were only four of us at patch'n'chat this afternoon, so we had rather generous helpings of our favourite cake!

 

we have very special visitrs over the weekend - I'll tell you all about it on Monday.  I hope you all have a great weekend, love Anne

Slicing and dicing

We had a leisurely breakfast this morning, then pottered back home, stopping off for a cuppa and a scone.  Oh dear, I had left the camera in my back pack in the car, so no photo!

As soon as we got home, I got busy cooking.  I started with a sort of strawberry compote, as the strawberries were very ripe

 

those of you reading this in the UK will no doubt know where my little gadget came from*

 

after slicing the strawberries, I put them in a small saucepan with some vanilla (you don't need to add any water) and cooked them gently until they were soft

 

delicious with all sorts of things ........ if you want to be good, have the compote on top of your porridge, if you want to be naughty, have it with meringue and cream.  It will keep in the fridge for a couple of days

 

we are having beef olives for dinner tomorrow, so next up was an onion gravy to have with them

 

now you have to pretend that the last photo included a piece of pointy sweet red pepper!

 

once the onion and pepper had cooked, I added some hot water and Bisto, then popped it in a jug to keep in the fridge overnight

 

then it was on to tonight's dinner, using this recipe ...........

 

........ from this book

 

I replaced the kidney with mushrooms, and made double the quantity in the recipe, so that I can freeze the remainder for future meals.  I also made two individual pies rather than one between us

 

to go with the pie, Malcolm picked some of his green beans

 

after topping and tailing them, I sliced them finely

 

you might be wondering how a pie topped with filo pastry is in a diet book, but it's because the pastry isn't brushed with butter.  The recipe says to brush the pastry with a mixture of egg beaten up with milk.  I used that the first time I made the pie, but it wasn't very good, so this time I sprayed the pastry with 1 cal spray.  We enjoyed our dinner sitting out in the sun

 

Malcolm's beans  are growing as fast as we can eat them, and my courgettes are coming along nicely

 

but to finish, a bit of a failure.  Our cherry tree has only managed to produce four cherries!

 

* yes it came from Lakeland

 

 

It's usually town v country .........

........ but today we have country v seaside, as we are in Berwick (woo hoo, this is my first post from the flat!)

So lets start with some photos from yesterday's post-lunch walk

 donkeys

 

sheepies

 

the Mintos

 

the Eildons

 

my favourite view!

 

now for some photos taken on our post-lunch walk today

a misty grey sky behind the cliff

 

fishing from the breakwater

 

a small boat passing the lighthouse

 

do the golfers bite?

 

a seaside bee

 

the railway bridge in the background, with the road bridge in front

 

back at the flat, I had to check out the swans

 

and the seal obligingly popped his head out of the water

 

we saw this van and trailer before we went for our walk

 

then when we came back, a boom had been put round the pilot boat

 

but there didn't actually seem to be a problem, and eventually the boom was taken in again

 

I want one of these (please) ....... you can't tell from the photo, but it was going backwards!

 

the new cushions look good

 

and to finish - some things are the same whether they are in the country or at the seaside.  Can you tell which is the country seedhead arty photo, and which the seaside?

A whole lot of sewing!

On Sunday afternoon, I set about finishing my Father Christmas wallhanging, as the college needed a photo to advertise the class.  When I put it on the design wall, I wasn't entirely happy with it - because I had only outline-quilted it, the background was sagging a bit

 

I decided to do a bit of free motion quilting, so this was the time to try out some of the things that I have learned from watching Leah Day's classes on Craftsy.  I was particularly interested in her classes as she uses the same sewing machine as me (most of the other Craftsy teachers use Berninas)

 

I inserted the teflon washer, in the hope that it would improve the stitching, reducing thread breaks and stopping fankles on the wrong side

 

I have always free motion quilted with the feed dogs down, but Leah recommends keeping them up, and reducing the stitch length .........

 

.... to zero

 

I am very pleased with the result, with no thread breaks and nice even stitching.  (Malcolm is delighted too, with how his design turned out!)

 

yesterday I made a start to making cushions for the new flat.  The first two are for the new dining chairs.  I had bought the seaside fabric some time ago, the plain fabric is offcuts from curtains that we bought from Ikea when we moved in here (almost eight years ago), and Malcolm had picked up the seat pads some time ago in a sale

 

it was a simple matter to sew round three sides of a square of patterned fabric right sides together with a square of plain fabric, then stitch across the corners, trimming off the excess fabric

 

the cushion pads already had ties on them, so I simply brought them through the seam

 

the finished cushion

 

next I made two cushions for the couch, using the same fabrics.  A square of the patterned fabric

 

right-sides together with two hemmed rectangles of the plain fabric

 

oops - I missed a photo of the next step!  I stitched round all four sides, then turned the cushion right side out.  I gave it a good press, then topstitched about 2" in from the edge

 

what to do with the leftovers?  That had to wait until today.  I cut out some of the words and strips of plain fabric to put on each side

 

then stitched them together with more strips in between

 

I added a strip top and bottom and squared up the cushion front ........

 

then I made the cushion up using the same method as the others

 

when I was out in the back garden this morning, the swallows were making an incredible racket.  There were nine of them lined up on the neighbours' roof ....... but I could only fit eight of them into the photo!

 

the weather was so good, I went for a walk after lunch.  I will show you the photos tomorrow ........ but here is a little sneak peek!

That's it all over .......

......... for another two years!  It may have taken a whole day to hang all the quilts, but it only took about an hour to take them all down again.  It had started to rain late in the afternoon, so our banner, which was hanging outside, got rather wet.  I brought it home and hung it out yesterday to dry

 

while I was waiting for Malcolm to get home from Berwick, I had some fun trying to take photos of the many bees in the garden  - just as you get them in focus they buzz off to the next flower

 

 

the olive tree is flowering

 

and the grapes are swelling

 

Malcolm came home with some photos of the dock.  Another large ship had come in, this time to be loaded

 

several large lorries came in and parked, spoiling his view somewhat!

 

once the ship was ready to leave, the pilot boat appeared

 

yet again the swans had to make a dash for safety!

 

on Saturday afternoon he was entertained by a great cloud of seagulls

I had to get an emergency appointment at the dentist this morning, as a filling had fallen out (it was soon sorted, and the bill was more painful than the treatment!)  When I parked in Hawick, I spotted this very large gull hopping from car to car 

 

I was a bit early for my appointment, so I walked along to the cauld

 

I was delighted to see a heron standing in the water - there have been few sightings of them this summer

 

 

I'll be back tomorrow with lots of sewing

Somewhat tired!

Oh my, it has been a busy day, so I shall rattle through today's post.  Limited photos from the exhibition, as a lot of peope don't want photos of their work shown online, but I can share these ones with you

Maureen to the left, me to the right

 

 

me and me!

 

Kathryn's elephants, all in silk

 

a beautifully beaded detail

 

this is also Kathryn's work

 

 

remember the landscape I made for the competition, with the mutant sheep on the tropical island?  Well, amazingly, it didn't win!!  This is the winning entry, from Rineke

 

Edith did lovely flower arrangements for the tables

 

and you may have noticed some tasty cakes as well

 

I intend to spend the rest of the evening with my aching, weary feet up on my footstool, watching tv (the final of Mastermind is on later) ........ and I may just have a glass of wine (or even two!!).  Then tomorrow I will head back to  Kelso to do it all again ....... it is so enjoyable chatting to the visitors to the exhibition, and hearing their compliments. Malcolm is enjoying his week in Berwick ....... he has been for long walks, has found lots of seaglass for me, has had his hair cut, and has bought lots of tasty stuff at a food festival!

Time to go and pour a glass of wine!  I hope you have a great weekend, love, Anne