sunny Saturday

We had a wonderful spring day today, sunny and warm. It was a real pleasure to spend the afternoon working in the garden, pruning and generally tidying up. The washing on the line was flapping  in the sunshine, simple things in life.......It has been a good day.

My Easter project is now ready for hand quilting and embroidery, which I hope to start tomorrow.

You might remember indigo fabrics I bought from Tiggy Rawling's Indigo Shop in the autumn.
I am now starting to plan the quilt/wall hanging. I keep changing my mind about what exactly I am going to do with it. Initially it was going to be covered in Indian stitching, but I have been looking at some other ethnic embroideries since, so now I think it will end up as a mix of various stitching. In any case, I am prepared for the fact that this is going to be a long project, I hope to get inspired as I go along. For now I am just planning the outline.

I hope tomorrow will be another good day...

this week's progress

Not much to report, but at last I have started to hand quilt my "Summer quilt".

I have also decided to make "something small" for Easter, the idea being that it will be something quick, so it doesn't become another UFO (I hope).

I wish you all a very good weekend!

By the way, I have turned of the word verification on my blog (at least I think I have - please let me know).

The new version has been driving me mad on other blogs. I am sure there is a good reason why the blogger changed it, but I can't see what was wrong with the old version.

 

Radstock 2012

On Friday I came out of my winter hibernation to visit "Patchwork and Quilting" at Radstock Museum.

This is the third major exhibition arranged by Midsomer Quilting and hosted by Radstock Museum. If you click on the link, you can view the virtual gallery from the exhibition. There are over 200 quilts on show,  quote: "although you will find here only quilts that have bee made or lent by MQ's customers, some from as far away as California, the vast majority have been made by quilters who live within twenty miles of the museum".
The Radstock Museum itself is well worth a visit. It covers the "social and industrial heritage of the communities of the Somerset Coalfield". Also a good place to leave someone not interested in quilts.

As I said above, you can visit the virtual gallery on the MQ website, I just would like to show you some of the quilts I liked or found interesting.

The exhibiton is open until 31st May'12, plenty of time to visit.

I finish this post by another quote from the exhibition guide:

"Last year a study carried out at Glasgow University concluded that quilting, more than any other craft or a pastime, was hugely beneficial to health and well-being (but we knew that, anyway)."

Happy stitching!

sweet smell of summer - in february

The winter is still very much with us, and although it was noticeably warmer today, there is still some snow on the ground. The weather man promises temperatures above zero for the coming week, hurrah!     


In the pictures on the left is a part of my last year's lavender harvest. Some of the dry lavender is still unprocessed, and as I did not feel like stitching anything too complicated this weekend, I decided to play. I think lavender is something you love or hate. I love it, and at this time of year it is a welcome reminder of summer.

                                                                     

I wish you all a very good week!