HAPPY EASTER TO YOU ALL, 

                             MY BLOGGING FRIENDS !

Most of the pictures here today are from last year's Easter. The spring (what spring?) this year is very different, there are no leaves on the trees, not even a hint of them. But we can pretend ...........

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2013

not much to write about

The depressing cold weather continues, with no sign of spring. At least here in the South West we have escaped snow so far this week, not such luck further up north in the country, where newborn lambs are being lost to heavy snowfalls. But we too could be hit by snow over the Easter weekend, if the weather forecast is correct. It will be time to hibernate again, with some stitching.

For various reasons I haven't been sewing much, also we are painting inside of the house; we hope to get worst of it over by the weekend. The kitchen will be the last, now probably after Easter, but when I saw this piece of fabric from the Sun-kissed range on the Quilt Me Happy website, I though it would do very well for a short curtain and go well with the new colour planned for the kitchen walls. You can see more fabric in the range here .

Couple of more arrivals in the post this week, a magazine (more is expected) and pattern two (blocks 3 & 4) of Scandinavian Rose. Enough to keep me busy if the weather forecast is correct.

Some pictures of wintry looking sky, which I took in the last few days, looking from the house.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2013

Bloglovin 2

Just a quickie to update my last post and to answer some of the questions I have been asked about Bloglovin.
I have learnt about Bloglovin only yesterday from another blog, so my info is somewhat limited. The bottom line, the way I understand it ( and believe me, I am no technical brain), is that after the 1st July we will not be able to read the bloggs we follow in the Google Reader. So if that is what you do now, you will have to find an alternative. If you click here , you will be taken to Ultimate Guide to Google, where you can see a comparasing of Bloglovin and Feedly (don't ask, I never knew this existed either).

I moved over to Bloglovin only yesterday myself. It was very easy and quick, I ignored the bit about Facebook (but you might want to choose to do that if you are on Facebook), signed in in the line below, moved my favourite blogs over - done. There are some setting you might want to change (easy), pick up your Bloglovin wigget for your blog (easy). Bloglovin now sends me an email when someone starts following me via Bloglovin.

I also get an email (you can choose how often) to alert me to any new posts on the blogs I follow (I chose to get this email daily). The email is in the form of the Reader, but better looking and I can read the posts from there, no need to sign in anywhere, unless I want to comment, then I have to signed in as before. This makes the list in the side bar of my blog redundant (although I might leave it there for now), as there is no need for me to go to my blog, unless I want to write a new post.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2013

Bloglovin

Apparently Google Raeder will expire later this year, so I went to try out Bloglovin. I found it quick and  easy, it transferred my list of blogs I follow with no problem.
I have been asked to post the following link, to "reclaim" my blog, (ie to verify that I am the owner of this blog). 

 So, I apologise for the inconvenience, but I have to ask you to click on this link, if you want to carry on following my blog in Bloglovin:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

You can get more info about Bloglovin and alternatives here

Have I got this right? We'll soon find out, if I'll loose you all!

back to building houses

I needed to take a long break from my houses, but now I am back "building" again.

I am working on block no 6, the last one, of the Yoko Saito's Mystery BOM quilt, which is no longer a mystery.

I need to finish this block soon, because until I have, my room will carry on looking like a bomb dropped in, with so many fabrics permanently out, as I am always looking for that right piece for a wall, roof, chimney or a door.

I am also "building" the next house in Santa's Village, this time it is the North Pole Post Office. However, the work here has been suspended, while I am waiting for a thread to finish the side wall, which is on a backorder. In the meantime I can carry on shovelling the snow around the Post Office.

Talking about snow, the weather here has been testing us the last couple of weeks. Now and then we have 

a lovely warm day, which could fool you into thinking the spring is here, only to be replaced again by cold and frost, or rain or sleet. It looks like next week will mean turning up the heating again.

Oh well, at least I can build my houses inside.

I wish you all a very good week!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk

happy Mother's Day!

it is cold and grim outside and snowing, but warm and full of love inside

out of season is best

This wasn't planned, but my car needed a spare bit and so a trip to a Mazda dealer, who happens to be in Weymouth, on the south coast.

 

Driving down in the rain, it looked like this was going to be "there and back" outing, but by the time we arrived, the rain stopped; in fact it was a very pleasant day.

Weymouth was hosting sailing competitions during the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, which justified few coats of fresh paint.

But this is when I like Weymouth best, out of season, when there is just a few people (and dogs) on the beach, 

and some ghosts in the mist.

I wish you an enjoyable weekend!

Scandinavian Rose 2

second stitchery for Scandinavian Rose quilt - finished

thank you for visiting, I wish you all a very good stitching week

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2013

Jóna Sparey

While I have been browsing through my (somewhat extensive) needlecraft library, I picked up this book.

I remember when I bought it, at one of the needlecraft shows at the Bath & West Showground in 2001, and I remember Jóna's colourful stand, full of needlepoint objects and kits.
Jóna's mother was originally from Iceland, and Jóna travelled to Iceland during her school holidays and was taught embroidery by her Icelandic grandmother. Jóna herself started teaching embroidery around 1983 and by the time I met her, she was running Icelandic Tapestry School at her home in Somerton, here in Somerset. But before I made up my mind to attend one of her courses, Jóna moved to France.
While still living in UK, she was running a small travel business, taking small groups of tourists to Iceland, to share her heritage, and she is still doing so from her new home in Dordogne.

The patterns in her book are very traditional Icelandic design, and the colours not necessarily of my taste.
However, from the embroiderer's point of view, the technique itself is interesting. Jóna tells us that in Iceland they never used embroidery hoops or tapestry frames of any kind. The technique she describes is stretching the embroidery fabric square over two fingers of left hand (if you are right handed) when stitching. The result, providing you can master this, is a square piece, which doesn't need any more stretching when finished, may be just a gentle pulling into shape.
Of course the advantage of stitching without a frame is that you can simply put your work in a bag and take it with where ever you go.
The projects in the book are stitched using Appleton tapestry wool on a double stranded 9 count Floba canvas. By gently rubbing the canvas in your hands it becomes very soft and easy to wrap around fingers.

Needless to say that I did not resist and bough a small kit, worked in coton à broder, but to my shame I must admit to never actually starting it. My excuse is not having to master the technique yet!

You can read more about Jóna here.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2013