frayed at the edge

It might not be a John Deere .......

....... but this tractor panel is going to make a wonderful quilt for a special little boy

 

before I tell you who is visiting us next week, I have to tell you who sadly won't be joining us.  My very special blogging buddy Meredithe was to visit us next week, along with her husband The Golfer, but sadly Meredithe's Darling Dad has recently passed away, so of course they have had to cancel their trip.  So when I get together next week with my other very special blogging friend Thimbleanna, I am sure we shall shed a tear and raise a glass to our wonderful absent friend.  We have a very packed schedule, so you will have to wait until next Friday to find out what we got up to ...... no doubt there will be sconnage along the way!

Have a great weekend, love Anne

 

Discombobulated swans!

When we arrived at the flat on Saturday there was a large ship in the dock - it was very good of the two drivers to park their lorries to frame the ship and give an indication of its size

 

then in the early evening, a line of swans which was sailing majestically into the dock suddenly veered off to their left

 

why?  Because they were about to be run over by the ship

 

which was being shepherded out of the dock by the pilot boat

 

soon it had headed out to sea past the lighthouse

 

and the pilot boat had returned to the dock

 

since we bought the flat, we have watched this development taking shape when we have been walking round Berwick

 

as the show house is now open, Malcolm suggested that we pop in and have a look round ..... a little bit naughty as we have no intention of buying a house there!  There were too many people downstairs to be able to take photos, but I took some upstairs

 

it's that time of year when the air is full of seed heads

 

for some reason, Malcolm wouldn't let me go into this exhibition!

to finish, a clue to the identity of next week's visitor ....... she is American, and her first name is almost the same as mine!!

 

 

 

Slightly delayed!

Thank you all so much for your good wishes while I have been a bit under the weather.  I suffer from a recurring pain in the right hand side of my face, which doctors and dentists have been unable to diagnose or cure, despite both MRI and CT scans.  So when I have a flare-up it is just a case of waiting for it to settle down again.

 

So, on to cheerier things!  A selection of photos from our walk on Saturday afternoon

 

Birds

 

 

Hedgerows

 

 

Beach

 

 

Old doors in garden walls

 

to finish ....... the baby quilt will be heading off to its new home tomorrow, ready for the arrival of the Lovely Grandchild

Oh dear!

Still a bit poorly, but don't worry, Malcolm is taking very good care of me!  I just popped in to share this wonderful photo with you, which Stuart took recently.  He then had fun with a photo editing programme ....... fabulous!!

Just a quick hello!

I've just popped in for a moment, as I am feeling a little bit under the weather.  Hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow!

Friday again!!

The days just seem to be whizzing past at the moment ....... but I don't mind, as it bring me closer to meeting a very special bloggy friend - but I'm not going to tell you yet who it is!!  After all the sewing photos that we have had through the week, today I shall share with you the other photos that didn't yet make it into the blog!   First we have a pale sunset

 

then a much more colourful sunset

 

out in the garden, the bottle brush has flowered

 

the clematis which was the first to flower in the spring has decided to flower again

 

Malcolm repainted the planter that he made some years ago, and I bought some new plants for it

 

if you don't like snails, scroll quickly past the next photo!

 

the other morning, there were so many starlings on the phone wires that I couldn't fit them all in one photo!

 

as I was taking photos of the starlings, a flock of swallows flew past in the distance

 

we had our favourite Friday cake, the delicious apple and sultana one

 

to finish, I have a very special treat for you!  The lovely Margaret recently entrusted me with some of her spectacular quilt tops, as I had offered to take photos of them for her.  All her quilts are entirely hand sewn and embellished ...... hour and hours of work.  She has given me permission to share some of them with you .......

 

there is a bit of a mixed forecast for the weekend, but perhaps we will manage to have a walk on the beach.  I hope you have a good weekend, love Anne 

A varied batch of sewing

First, we have the latest stitchery to be finished - I think this is number 18.  I have to admit that some of the circles should have been satin stitch spots, but the more I do satin stitch the less I like it!

 

as all the pattern packets (there are eight of them) are over at the flat, I had to remember to extract this page from one of them to bring home, as I want to make a start to trimming the stitched hexagons to size, and also start cutting out the larger fabric hexagons ...... they will be the backing fabrics, and will also fold over to the front, in the fashion of Japanese folded patchwork

 

then, second, I made covers for two seat pads ....... I had previously done two for the dining chairs in the flat, and when we bought two folding chairs for when we have guests, I had meant to cover the other two, but hadn't yet got round to it.  Fortunately I was able to buy more of beach fabric

 

then for the backs, I used the offcuts of the Ikea curtains that we have in the flat

 

the two covers cut out and pinned ready to stitch - the unpinned area at the top is the opening for putting the covers on the cushions

 

after stitching, I cut off the corners on the opening edge

 

then, for the two corners on the front edge, I flattened out the corner and marked a line where it measured an inch

 

after stitching, I trimmed off the points

 

I also stitched along the seam line on both sides of the opening, to give me a straight line to turn in and press the seam allowance

 

I had left the ties on the cushions, so I just had to stitch the opening shut

 

and here they are, two cushions with their new covers

 

now, the third lot of sewing! This morning I added the borders to the Lovely Baby quilt

 

and made the binding

 

I taped the backing fabric to the table

 

and covered it with a layer of lovely soft cotton wadding

 

then I added the quilt top and pinned all the layers together, ready for quilting this afternoon

 

I had a trial stitch on a scrap of fabric and wadding, to check that the tension was ok

 

I quilted the centre panel ........

 

with a large loopy meander

 

I finished this afternoon's session by making a start to the straight line quilting on the border ...... not much more to do now!

Another Lovely Grandchild!

Recently, Liz revealed that she is to become a Lovely Grandmother ....... which of course means another Lovely Baby Quilt!  After an exchange of emails, a squishy parcel arrived in the post, containing these lovely bright fabrics

 

I popped the squares from the charm pack up on the design wall

then spent some time moving squares around to get a pleasing balance.  But as always happens, the more I moved them, the more I ended up with two similar squares together.  I summoned Malcolm and he moved a few round, still with the same result, but eventually we reached this arrangement

 

assembling a quilt like this is very straightforward - I started by sewing the first two rows together

 

then repeated that with the third and fourth, then the fifth and sixth rows

 

I then sewed these pairs together into rows

 

after that I sewed the rows together in pairs

 

and finally stitched all the rows together

 

I had intended to do some more work on the quilt yesterday, but unfortunately domestic duties got in the way.  I had a huge basket of ironing to do, as I hadn't ironed last week because of all the decorating and organising of the studio, then I did some cooking for the freezer, and lastly I remembered I had to filter the limon-ginno

 

and bottle it

then I noticed that the one developed olive had fallen off Malcolm's olive tree - oh no, catastrophe, we had high hopes of our own estate-bottled olive oil!!

 

and worse was to come - some nasty little beasty had nibbled it!

 

I trimmed off the nibbled bit, but for some reason Malcolm declined to taste it (I don't like olives)

 

it even had a perfectly formed stone

 

so back to the Lovely Baby quilt.  This afternoon I measured, measured and measured again, just to be sure, before I cut the strips for the binding and the borders, leaving a large enough piece for the back of the quilt

 

I then put that aside to do some other sewing, but I'll share that with you tomorrow, and end for today with our delicious lunch, which we had at Born in the Borders ..... we both had the sausage and bacon sandwich

 

and how stylish was my cuppa?!

Rescue me!

When this little boat let off a flare, we thought it was just as a signal

 

but then we realised that they were acting as if they were on fire, when the lifeboat arrived and turned the hose on them

 

but the event we most wanted to see was a demonstration of the breeches buoy, which you can read about here.  But there was an great deal of standing about

 

then there was a flurry of activity

 

this boat joined in the action

 

there was a great deal of hauling on ropes

 

this poor chap obviously drew the short straw, and had to get kitted up ......

 

and go into the water to remove vast amounts of seaweed which had fouled the ropes

 

at last everything was sorted out and the breeches buoy was attached to the ropes

 

and sent out across the water

 

at the other end, the short-straw chap had a bit of a struggle to get into the buoy

 

 

and was then pulled back across to the shore

 

while all the rescuing was going on, the lifeboats were whizzing back and forward, creating waves

on dry land, I thought this little boy was going to need rescued, as when he got almost to the top of the climbing wall he froze!  Fortunately, he got underway again and completed his climb

 

I'll be back tomorrow with some sewing! 

All at sea!

Yesterday afternoon, we walked along to the Lifeboat Station

 

to enjoy all sorts of fun

 

the Festival was declared open by the Mayor

 

as well as the Berwick lifeboat, the Eyemouth lifeboat had come down the coast to join in the festivities

 

then there all sorts of watery events ...... I'l start with the raft race

 

the race was won by the Mexican Bandits ...... but when they lifted their raft out of the water after the race, perhaps they should have been disqualified for rafting under the influence!

 

this crew was the Jamaican Bobsleigh Team ....... you might think the man on the left is a roguish looking chap - but he is a respected Berwick business man, whose firm installed our solar panels!

 

but the rafters didn't just have to contend with paddling their unwieldy crafts ...... the lifeboats were having fun whizzing past them setting up large waves

 

the Salmon Queen and her attendants were there too, and went out on the lifeboat

 

I did think about jumping into the water to be rescued by all these fit men

and there were craft of all shapes and sizes on standby

 

but I decided to stay on dry land!  With all the excitement, we were in need of refreshment and retired to the tea tent, where we had earlier seen the Mayor enjoying a cuppa

 

no scones, but we shared two delicious, sweet and sticky traybakes

 

I still have lots of photos to share with you, but they will have to wait until tomorrow.  But I have something very cute to end with ....... we called in at The Hirsel for lunch on our way home today, and Malcolm spotted these four little swallows crammed into their nest