I have busy all afternoon in the garden, sweltering in the sun! It is still very hot, much too hot to sit and blog!! So I will just wish you all a wonderful weekend ........ it is a holiday weekend here in the UK, so I will be back on Wednesday with the end of the month update on my progress with 17 UFOs in 20127. And if you too are enjoying hot weather, why not join us with a glass of cider (mine) or a beer (Malcolm's)
Love, Anne
One of our favourite walks on holiday is along the Pine Walk in Puerto Pollensa, where most of the trees lean out towards the sea
further along the walk is this little wooden jetty - I am sure I take a photo of it every year
I was intrigued by this deck chair, all alone on the sand - I wonder who left it there?
I wasn't tempted to try out any of these little boats ........
........ I would only go out on one as big as this
oops - one of the lovely twisted trees has sneaked in .........
........ and here it is from the other side!
I took this photo of the shadow of the tree, rather than the tree itself
these ones have a bit more growing to do
I expected a little elf or gnome to pop out of the holes in this tree!
I mentioned that there may be some food tonight ........
how about a delicious selection of tapas
or a freshly made pizza
perhaps washed down with a refreshing glass of wine
I couldn't finish my pizza, so they kindly popped it into a box for me to take away (we had it for lunch the next day)
and this was the view as I ate my pizza - more of the wonderful trees
we rarely eat burgers - but if you are going to eat a burger, then do it in style!
and to finish ...... are you tired of wishy washy pastel baby clothes? Then how about these two fabulous outfits!!
Hello, my lovely peeps ........ did you miss me, because I certainly missed you! I have about 270 photos to sort through, so here is just a quick taste of our holiday. We were delighted with this year's villa - it's probably the best one we have rented over the years
we had breakfast sitting at this little table
lunch and dinner at this big table beside the pool
and we may have sat here to enjoy a glass of wine
the pool was excellent, and we swam quite a few lengths over the three weeks, especially in the last week when the weather turned very hot (even the locals thought it was hot!)
as always, I thought of you all, and raised a glass to say Cheers!!
I'll be back on Wednesday, with photos of the stunning scenery (and maybe some delicious food!)
After colouring in the leaf, the next stage is to cover it with the kitchen paper, and iron it with a very hot dry iron. Any loose colour will come off on to the paper
repeat with clean paper, until no more colour comes off. The colour is now set into the fabric, but probably wouldn't survive a lot of washing
next, I backed the fabric with a piece of thin cotton wadding, and put it in an embroidery hoop
the finished leaf
this was really fun to do, and I am looking forward to doing more ....... when I have finished enjoying myself in Majorca. As you read this, I might be tucking into a delicious cake
or enjoying an ice cream in the sunshine
back soon!!
I recently watched Meg Hawkey demonstrate this technique on an episode of The Quilt Show, so of course I had to give it a go! This is all you need - a piece of fabric, a box of wax crayons, a brown pigma pen, and some kitchen roll (plain white, with little or no texture)
Meg explained that it was best to use a brown pen, as you will be stitching over your lines, and black tends to show through the thread. I quickly drew a basic leaf (unlike her wonderful patterns)
then coloured it in with a white crayon - this gives a base for the colour to be added to. Meg also recommended using a circular motion to fill the space, rather than using lines, as that doesn't properly cover the fabric
I then added the colour, starting in the middle with a light green
then a medium green
and finally a dark green
what did I do next? Come back on Thursday and I will show you!
The last stretch of our walk is along The Avenue
pausing to admire another wooden gate
I mentioned the villager who has strange things in their garden. How about a teapot hanging on a branch
or teddies marooned high in a tree
or strangest of all, a skull!
the last photo from our walk is one of those little coincidences in life ........ there is a street her called Chesters, and there is a Chesters near Hawick. I suppose I should do some research into the meaning of the name, to see why it is a place name on both sides of the Border
I have a fun sewing project to share with you next week, so do pop in!
We have a little bit of house envy, whenever we pass this house, which is undergoing extensive renovations
I might have to sneak out one night and acquire this old weathered fence post, complete with rusty wire. It would look good in the garden
as I only had the little point-and-shoot camera with me, I couldn't zoom in any more to show you this lovely rhododendron
I hope someone dedicates a bench to me, when I am gone ....... it would be nice to think that friends would sit and remember me
there is one more instalment of our walk - I hope you will come along and see what strange things one of the villagers has in their garden!
......... being eaten by the birds, we continued our walk, stopping to admire the view over to the sea
we were tempted to sit for a while, admiring the view ....... but the thought of all the calories we had consumed kept us walking!
these three ladies were enjoying their afternoon potter on their horses, ambling along and chatting away
what a wonderful higgledy piggledy falling-down old fence!
and an old gate to go with it
I hope you are enjoying our walk, and will join us for the next instalment!
After indulging in the chocolate cakes on Friday afternoon, we thought perhaps we should walk the long way home through the village. I had been told there were some emus in a field near the coffee shop ....... but I didn't expect them to be so big, and able to stick their heads over the fence in the hope of pecking us!!
and they weren't the only big birds about ...... this goose was not only big, he was very vocal in his disapproval of us looking over the gate at him!
fortunately this one was much more interested in posing prettily for the camera!
I am posting my April report a little bit early ........ as tomorrow we head off for our annual sojourn in Majorca! First up is a bit more progress on Mrs B - another batch of hexies (yawn!)
the next project wasn't on the original list - I have chosen this one to replace the counted cross stitch map that I gave up doing (and donated to a charity shop). As you can see from the bottom right square, I started this in 2103! It was a workshop with Sheena Norquay, where we had to fill each square with different stitches/embellishments
I added some more stitching round my A
I had only worked the four centre lines in this square, so added the big stitching and the lazy daisies
for this one, I decided on clumps of French knots in some of the squares
and lastly on this one I added a row of beads. I don't know what I will do now the stitching is finished - it may well end up as an ABC (Another B****y Cushion!!)
hooray, I have finished the hand quilting on my Amish runner!
I haven't done much hand quilting recently, but working on this reminded me how much I enjoy it
the squares started out as samples for teaching the little group of ladies who were members of my "Wacky Patchers" group in Indonesia. To explain our name ....... we were all members of WAC - Wanita Asing Cilegon, which translates as the foreign (or strange) ladies of Cilegon, the city where we lived in Java Barat (west Java). Yes, that is me with the grey hair, before I embraced my inner blonde!
we were a very international group with Scottish, English, American, German, Japanese, Korean and Filipina members (and did you notice our youngest member, asleep in her mother's arms, in the previous photo?)
having finished the hand quilting, I trimmed the edges
I didn't have any plain black fabric (and even if I had, it probably wouldn't have matched), so I used this mottled black/grey fabric for the binding
woohoo - a finished project to tick off the list!
as it was made in Indonesia, it seemed appropriate to put it on a piece of Indonesian furniture
and another big woohoo ...... I have finished all the big-stitch quilting on the hexies!
I put them up om the design wall - although this isn't all of them there wasn't room for the last three rows. It just put them up as they came off the pile, so it will take a bit of rearranging to get a balance of colours - but of course that will have to wait until we get back from our holiday
regular readers know that at this point on Friday, we have photos of cake to drool over - Malcolm and I make the supreme sacrifice of eating cake, just so that you can enjoy them without the calories! This afternoon we walked along to Nelson's the wonderful coffee shop in the village. I had a Crunchie slice
and Malcolm had a mint Aero slice - both were delicious
I have a little bit of sewing to take on holiday - the first two blocks of the wonderful Potty McDotty, the new block of the month from Irene Blanck (photos used with Irene's permission)
you can find out more about the wonderful Potty here
don't forget to pop over to Meredithe on Sunday, to see her end of the month report, and be sure to scroll down to the link, to see what the other participants in the 17 UFOs challenge have achieved this month. I am going to set up some posts to appear while I am away, which I hope you will enjoy, love Anne