frayed at the edge

A rather different Friday

You know I have my Friday routine ....... after breakfast I do the housework, have a shower, then head off to patch'n'chat.  But today that was changed for two reasons, both of them unpleasant.  First, I had an appointment at the dentist this morning, so no housework, then second, Borderland Fabrics, where we go for patch'n'chat, was flooded on Wednesday, so of course the shop is shut.  Having survived the dentist (an impression, unpleasant, but not painful), I decided to treat myself to lunch.  You might wonder what sort of premises there could be up this close

 

and the doorway isn't particularly inviting

 

but what does the exterior matter, when they serve food like this!  Creamy scrambled eggs, served on toasted bloomer, with smoked salmon, creme fraiche and chives, with a rocket garnish ..... and even an arty balsamic drizzle (we won't mention the tomatoes, which were left on the side of the plate)

 

after lunch I walked down to the river, to see how it looked after Wednesday's floods. You can see a tree suspended between the wall and the bridge, with cables dangling down

 

in this photo you can see the residue from where the path was under water

 

there was much less water going through the bridge, and there wasn't the frightening roar that there was on Wednesday

 

the water wasn't pounding the wall today

 

and the level was much lower here

 

although there was no patch'n'chat, I wasn't deprived of cake this afternoon, as Malcolm and I shared this last wedge of our Christmas cake

 

this morning we were battered by Storm Gertrude, and the forecast for the weekend is atrocious, so we have decided to stay at home for the weekend.  No doubt I shall spend some time in the studio, with my wonderful stove to keep me warm

 

we have our fingers, toes, eyes and anything else that can be, firmly crossed for, first, the Murray brothers ....... Andy in the final of the singles and Jamie in the final of the doubles, then second, Gordon Reid who is in both the singles and doubles wheelchair finals.  Three Scottish players in the finals - pretty good going for a small country!!

Do remember to leave a comment to be included in the draw for the giveaway for my 7th blogiversary.  I hope you have a good weekend, love Anne

 

A small diversion

As usual on a Wednesday we headed out for lunch, planning to go to Milestone Garden Centre.  However Storm Jonas has dumped an awful lot of rain on us, and we had to turn back as the road was closed by flooding.  We decided to go into Hawick instead, and after parking we walked over to look at the River Teviot.  It was getting near the road on this side

 

and was just starting to go over on to the road on the other side - both roads were closed to traffic, as were several others through the town

 

the river  was roaring under the bridge

 

and pounding against the wall

 

it was frightening watching the speed of the water going under this bridge

 

at the other end of town, the River Slitrig was flooding

 

the house in the middle has a "for sale" sign on it, but I doubt it will sell any time soon

 

this is where we sometimes see a heron sitting on rocks!

 

we have never seen so much water going through here

 

it was a relief to pop into the Damascus Drum for lunch, to get away from the constant roar of the water.  This is my cheese and pastrami toastie.  Malcolm had a cheese and pickle toastie, but as it looked like mine, I just took one photo

 

it's not often that you see a tractor in the town centre!

 

I got Malcolm to drop me off at the bottom of our road, so that I could take these photos.  The water running off the field has formed streams

 

which run into this drain

 

which comes out here

 

and then runs into the stream

 

which flows under the road and on down the hill

 

as I walked on up the hill, the clouds parted and there was some blue sky!

 

BillytheFarmer's stable yard is flooded

 

Malcolm went out later with his big spade and dug a drainage channel in the verge, so that the water would run away off the road.  He has to do this regularly, as the council no longer do it

 

but the moss on this section of wall likes the rain!

 

I forgot to include these photos yesterday.  We had popped into Berwick Garden Centre for a cuppa yesterday on our way home, and I bought this bucket, which has some tasty nibbles in it .......

 

....... but the main reason for buying it was the price!  This has to be the bargain of the year - a quarter of the original price.  We will probably use the bucket to create a miniature herb garden to put on the deck, and of course we will enjoy the nibbles

 

don't forget to leave a comment to be included in the draw of my 7th blogiversary giveaway!

A tale of two scones ........

....... but before we get to the scones, we'll start with Abbey Quilters' sewing day on Saturday.  I had layered up two identical small quilts for Linus, and soon had the machine set up ready to do some fmq

 

as the quilts are small, it didn't take too long to quilt the centres

 

using a little loopy flower stitch, instead of my usual lazy meander

 

Sheila was working on her little wallhanging ........ as you can see, her leaf blocks, unlike mine, are the correct size!

 

Sandra H had made this cute quilt top for Linus (it is actually deeper and brighter than this photo shows - my camera just doesn't like blue!)

 

Margaret had her first go at foundation piecing, and soon got the hang of it, producing this tree block

 

Val, as always, made sure we had plenty of fuel to keep us sewing, with her wonderful cheese scones

 

and delicious carrot cake - there was a slight oops with the icing, as it has stuck to the clingfilm covering the plate, but of course that didn't stop us from tucking in

 

after lunch, I changed to the walking foot and stitched in-the-ditch between the centre and the border

 

by the end of the afternoon, all I had left to do was finish the binding

 

so, why are we called Abbey Quilters?  Is it because we meet in the Abbey Row Community Centre

 

a magnificent building ......

 

........ which was a school

 

or is it because of the Abbey?  (actually, I don't know!!)

 

and now to the scones!  We didn't have a scone yesterday, after our walk on the beach (I'll tell you about that tomorrow), but when we popped over to town this morning, pausing on the old bridge to take a photo of the seal and a heron .....

 

........ we went to the delightful Mielle Patisserie

 

where we shared one of their delicious Provencal scones

 

but then this afternoon, we popped over to Wooler for a potter round the shops, and went for a cuppa (I forgot to take a photo of the coffee shop).  We were only going to have a drink, but then we saw scone with jam and clotted cream on the menu!!

 

and to finish - I realised yesterday that I had, yet again, forgotten about my blogiversary!  I have now been writing this nonsense rubbish informative blog for seven years!!  I am sure when I started it, Malcolm thought it would last for a few weeks, or months at most, but here I am, still rabbiting on.  Through blogging I have made many friends ...... mostly online, but some are now firm friends in the real world.  So, to celebrate, I think I'll have a little giveaway, as I haven't had one for some time.  What the giveaway will be, I don't yet know - I will have to wait until I have a hunt round the studio!  So all you have to do to enter is leave a comment between now and next Monday, when I will employ my random number generator (aka Malcolm) to pick a winner.  I'm quite happy to post the parcel anywhere in the world, so everyone can enter ........ and if you leave a comment everyday, then you have more chances!!

 

Return of the mojo!

I don't know what happened to my knitting mojo.  I think it went on holiday and has been sunbathing on an exotic beach, being brought bright pink cocktails, full of fresh fruit, by handsome young men!  But eventually it dragged itself back home and I finally finished the socks I have been knitting for rather a long time.  Here they are soaking, before being put on the blockers 

 

why are you shouting at me?  Oh, that's why, the not quite matching socks.  I have to admit that I just couldn't face working the rest of the pattern, so finished the second sock in one colour ......

 

........ but you won't see that when I wear them with my snazzy new boots, which Malcolm gave me for Christmas

 

and as I waited until after Christmas to get the boots in the sales, I was thoroughly spoiled and got these ones too.  I love the way they look as if I have already worn them for months

 

 having finished the two colour socks, I had a look in my stash and came up with a ball of sock wool which I bought on our last holiday in Australia

 

although the pattern says child's first sock, it has been sized up to fit an adult

 

I am really enjoying knitting this pair

 

and it won't be long until they are finished

 

I have even bought another ball of sock yarn, to knit another pair!

 

I may have been slightly influenced by the smart packaging when I bought these needles 

 

and look what I found when I opened them - tiny test tubes!

 

and so to the Friday cake - Annette's deliciously spicy fruit loaf

 

I am looking forward to our sewing day tomorrow - I hope to get the two little quilts finished that I layered up yesterday.  Then we will head over to the flat on Sunday.  I hope you have a good weekend, love Anne

Fingers firmly crossed!

Well, after spending a great deal of time on the phone to both our broadband provider (me) and our landline provider (Malcolm) ........ and getting nowhere .......... Malcolm did some research online, and we hope we have now solved the problem (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday's posts were composed when we were over at the flat, where the broadband speed is much better, and scheduled to appear).  I will be delighted if all is well, as I want to get back to my Monday-to-Friday posts, now that all the busy-ness of the festive season is over.

So, what better thing to start with, than this morning's breakfast.  I know I have shown you my tractor egg cup before, but I love it so much I thought it deserved another appearance!

 

over the past few weeks, I have layered several quilts, using safety pins

 

I use the edge of my nail on my first finger of my left hand, which isn't very good for it ...... and last week my poor abused nail broke (I can't recall when I last had a broken nail)

 

so I decided to invest in a gadget which closes the pins

 

which will save my poor nail from further damage

 

across blogland, people have been choosing their word for the year, but I have chosen a phrase ....... small bites.  Let me explain.  I have mentioned before that I work most efficiently when I spend a set amount of time working on each of several projects in the course of the day.  If I plough doggedly on, trying to finish something, I get bogged down and my work gets slower, and I get fed up and put that project away.  So I have decided to give my method the title of small bites.  The idea came from the answer to "how do you eat an elephant?" ....... "one bite at a time".  So this afternoon, I layered two small quilts for Linus, as we are having an Abbey Quilters sewing day on Saturday.  The photos above with the pins give you a glimpse of one of the fabrics, but you will have to wait until next week to see the quilts.  I also looked out these leftover strips from a jelly roll to make the two lots of binding

 

next I got out my panda block.  I had asked Alison if she would like it, as she loves pandas.  She had said yes please, and we decided that I would make it into a cushion

 

I ran a line of stitching round the edge to keep it stable.  I just used the blue thread which was in the machine, as it won't show when the cushion is finished

 

having trimmed the edges, I looked out this lovely dark green fabric from my stash, for the back of the cushion and the binding

 

then I looked out my somewhat neglected Mrs Billings

 

and pinned the first row of diamonds in place, ready to applique them

 

and finally ........ I just couldn't resist it any longer!  I looked out these wonderful fabrics which I bought when I spent the wonderful five days with my crazy mad adorable Australian quilty friends in October 2014, and one of them, Mrs Mac, gave me some extra fat quarters to go with them

 

so, what was I going to do with them?  Well, I chose this fabric and this stitchery

 

I drew round a template to give me a bigger hexie than the stitchery to cut out

 

on the ironing board, I centred the stitchery on the wrong side of the fabric, pinned it in place, folded the first side of the larger hexie in half, and pressed it

 

I then folded it over on to the stitchery, and again pressed it

 

I continued folding and pressing until all the sides were done, and pinned in place

 

as always at this time of year, I am determined to only use fabric and thread from my various stashes, so I looked out this beautiful blue thread.  I will stitch the border in place with big quilting stitches, then work a line of smaller quilting stitches about a quarter of an inch in from the border

 

so, it was altogether a very productive afternoon!  Do pop in again tomorrow, as I have some knitting to share with you!!

 

All sorts of sewing

 

Shortly before Christmas, I saw this post by Jenny of Two Crafty Brownies, and decided that I had to make an angel for the tree.  I pulled out these bits and bobs from my various stashes 

 

and started by cutting out my circles

 

and making my yoyos - but now you will have to pop over to see how Jenny makes the whole angel!

 

here is my little cutie on the tree

 

I got this cute panel and spotty fleece from the lovely Sandra, our Linus lady

 

the spots from the fleece showed through the panel, so I got a piece of thin wadding from my basket of wadding offcuts

 

it didn't take long to have the quilt layered .......

 

ready to quilt with my favourite big lazy meander

 

Sandra was delighted with the finished quilt!

 

I looked out my revolving mat to start trimming the stitcheries to size ...... I had cut them out too big, to allow for the embroidery pulling the fabric out of shape

 

when I started cutting I changed my mind about which ruler to use.  It makes it so much easier (and safer) to be able to turn the mat on its base as I cut each side of the hexies.  I stuck little sandpaper spots on the template, to help keep it in place

 

they are looking good on the design wall

 

with all the problems last week, I didn't get to show you photos from the Abbey Quilters' meeting.  These are three of the members waiting for the meeting to start, and looking at all the things I had brought to demonstrate

 

and committee member Val demonstrated what she does best ....... baking!  A delicious cake

 

and even more delicious scones!

A walk on the beach

On Sunday morning we headed out for a long walk on the beach, and of course the camera went too!

is this a replacement for the lighthouse?

 

no, it's still there!

 

there is still a lot of stuff on the beach from the bad storms

we thought this looked like a dolphin - but it was too heavy to take home

 

there are lots of washed up traffic cones .....

..... and tyres

 

old wood, rusty nails and a long shadow - excellent!

more old wood

 

old wood and rusty bolts

 

an arty shot!

 

a long shadow of the old wood ......

 

..... and a longer shadow of me!

 

this would look good in the garden, but again it was too heavy to lift

 

alas the cafe was shut

 

an interesting rock formation

this has worn away to show two kinds of rock

 

an interesting piece of pink rock jutting out from the grey

 

this should also have a warning that the water is freezing!

 

this shows how much sand was washed up on to the promenade during the storms

 

yummy - a Devon scone made with buttermilk, enjoyed after our walk

 

and to finish.  I have had these Timberland boots for more than ten years (I bought them in Singapore!).  They may be too shabby to wear for best, but they are excellent for walking on the beach!

Food, food .......

 

....... and more food!  Although the uploading of photos issue isn't fully resolved, I have managed to upload a batch of photos ....... all about food!  First we have the delicious lunch that we had on Wednesday.  We couldn't make up our minds if we wanted the scrambled eggs and goat's cheese, or the French toast with bacon and maple syrup ...... so of course we ordered one of each and shared

 

back home, I set about making a start to Thursday's dinner, using this new book.  Don't worry, I'm not embarking on any sort of weird exclusion diet, the book is full of delicious ordinary, family-friendly recipes which incorporate "smart carbs"

 

as soon as I read this recipe, I decided to make it

 

although I have never, ever used (or eaten) buttermilk before.  You can also see what I was listening too on my Kindle

 

all ready to go in the fridge overnight

 

skipping forward to Thursday, this was taken with flash, so looks a bit of a funny colour, but it was very good ...... which was just as well, as the recipe made a double quantity, and the other serving is now in the freezer

 

back to Wednesday, at the same time as preparing the chicken, I also made a big pot of stovies.  Lots of sliced potatoes and onions, and left over pot roasted brisket and gravy.  Purists will say these aren't proper stovies, but it is one of those "traditional" dishes that there are all sorts of versions of

 

just the thing for a cold winter's night, and we like ours with a squeeze of HP sauce (again, the photo was taken with flash, so the colours aren't true).  And don't worry, we didn't eat that enormous potful - there are two more portions in the freezer

 

we had more snow yesterday, so I didn't go to patch'n'chat today, as our road was covered in deeply rutted snow and ice this morning, and after last Friday's adventures, I thought it might be more sensible to stay home!  The forecast isn't very good, so we probably won't get to the flat this weekend, so I might have to spend the time in the studio sewing!  Whatever your weather, have a wonderful weekend, love Anne 

 

 

 

Busy stitching!

I have been busy stitching away over the last few weeks,including making some samples for the next Abbey Quilters meeting, where committee members are going to give hints and tips, and demonstrate gadgets.  I started with making binding, then stitching it on, but I have shown you that several times, so we'll start with making bias stems.  The first version uses a bias bar.  This makes a heavy stem, but it wastes material

 

I started by cutting a 1" strip on the bias, which makes a stem a quarter of an inch wide using this method

 

folding the strip in half, wrong sides together, I stitched it just a fraction over a quarter of an inch from the fold

 

then comes the wasteful bit, as you have to trim away half the seam allowance.  I have tried cutting a narrower strip, but it is too fiddly to stitch such a small seam allowance

 

the bias bar is then pushed through the tube, and the seam centred

 

the last stage is to press the tube as you slide it off the bar

 

I used this method years ago when I made this small quilt

 

the second method is using bias tape makers, which are available in different sizes

 

again I cut a 1" strip on the bias, but the difference this time is that it made a stem half an inch wide.  You simply insert the strip into the maker, then draw the maker back along the strip as you press the folded edges

 

this is my preferred method of making binding, it's quick and economical with the fabric

 

I used this method when I made these two samples ...... it was only when I went to use the photo that I realised that I should have put the pieces the other way round, so that winter, spring, summer and autumn would have been in the right order!

 

the third method is for when you want your stem to come to a point.  Again, I cut a strip on the bias.  I folded it in half and pinned it in a curve on a piece of background fabric

 

I would normally hand stitch the seam, but to save time I did it on the machine.  I started with a wide seam, then gradually narrowed it to a point

 

like the first method, this one is also wasteful of fabric, as you have to trim the seam allowance

 

after trimming the seam allowance, you fold the stem over, and stitch it in place.  I have just pinned it, so that I can show what to do

 

you can see the finished stems on this piece, which I made some years ago

 

I then thought I ought to make a start to this wallhanging, which several of the group are making

 

it didn't take long to make the first two leaf blocks

 

and then the next two blocks

 

then there was a slight oops, as I realised that I should have made three leaf blocks!

 

after piecing the remaining blocks, I put them in their places on the design wall

 

and realised that there was a major oops!!  I had misread the pattern, and made the leaf blocks too big.  What to do - I could make another three, or I could pochle* the pieces of background fabric which link the pieced blocks together.  So I started by sewing the bottom row together, which gave me the width to work to

 

then fitted the other pieces in

 

I added the applique pieces, using fusible web.  They will be stitched with buttonhole stitch

 

I have also been working away on the stitcheries when we have been over at the flat, and have completed another three

 

*the lovely word pochle has various meanings, including to cheat (particularly at cards), but in this instance it means to fudge or fiddle the sizes to make it all fit together

 

and just to return briefly to the snow ....... I wasn't the only one stuck in the snow on Friday

 

this photo from one of Saturday's newspapers shows the village of Denholm, which I drove through on my way home.  I have never seen such big snowflakes!

 

although it was raining rather than snowing when we went out on Saturday (in Malcolm's car, which shrugs off bad weather!) it was still very cold

 

and to finish on a happier note - the first sconnage of the year!  An exceedingly delicious cheese scone

 

 

 

It's definitely looking .......

...... like Christmas now!  The tree is up

 

and there is, of course, a driftwood tree too

 

and some other cute decorations

 

the mirror in the kitchen is looking festive

 

and the cake has been iced and decorated

 

Stuart and Alison are coming down for the weekend, and we will have a somewhat topsy turvy celebration ........ we will have Christmas dinner tomorrow, and Christmas breakfast and present opening on Sunday!

 

All that remains for this year of blogging is to wish you a Happy Christmas, and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

Love Anne