Apologies

Battling with a cold, a broken car and over flowing paper work but I promise I'll be back soon! :)

A perfect afternoon

This morning I ventured to my parents house to see my dad and catch up with him while my mum is away on cub scout camp.
Dad had to help my grandad with some errands so I took the opportunity to take our family dog Megan out for a walk. Megan is one of my major life's loves and no what happens she is the only one that can always make me smile. She is the world's naughtiest springer spaniel (which in itself is a huge statement) but is so cute that you'd can never really be mad at her. She is the dog which has eaten a whole roast chicken out of the oven when no one was looking (she pulled the door open by pulling on a tea towel hanging on the oven door) and a whole Tunis cake from the kitchen counter.

We had a lovely walk and the weather was gorgeous and Megan got to run and run.

Five minute from the end of our circular walk, I noticed that I couldn't see Megan any more. She is a very good dog and doesn't walk this particular walk on a lead. I called and called and searched and no sign of Megan. I started to become a big frantic that I would have to tell my dad that I had lost the dog when I noticed this...

Megan had decided that she didn't want to go home and that if she hid she could play a little longer.
I love this dog but boy can she test us. She turned on her cuteness and all was forgiven! :)

Sadness

I am so sad at the news from Norway and hate to see this beautiful country with such troubles.
Hubby and I lived in Oslo for two and a half years until last summer so both of us have been contacting all our friends there. Luckily no one was hurt but many were close.
All I could do yesterday was watch and cry for all of those innocent people caught up.
Tonight we will be lighting a candle and hoping that the things which made Norway the most beautiful country in the world have not been lost because of one awful man.

Counting down the weeks

Hubby and I are planning a big holiday to china this year which is starting to get very exciting. Today we sent off our visa applications and we had our jabs a few weeks ago. I decided that as we have so much time on airplanes and coaches and boats that I will make the most of it and take lots of sewing with me, and normally I would take it all in a small zip loc bag, but this year I thought I needed to do something to show off my work as I go around. I found a gorgeous stitchery pattern on Pat Sloan's website ( I think it was there) and I have been working slowly on the stitchery until I finished it last night.

Tonight I piece together the bag and was so happy with the results. It is just big enough to fit in my small sewing hoop and lots of fabric. I was really happy that I had this gorgeous Chinese fabric in my stash and have also lined it with another Chinese print. Now I can't wait to be sat on that plane and have to start planning what films and music to put on my iPad ready for the journey!!!

Lots of sewing but not much progress

I seem to have been sewing a lot in the last few days but not making a great deal of progress with any projects.
I was eagerly waiting the arrival of my Creative Grids 45/90 degree ruler so that I could start on a sampler quilt which I have been looking forward to starting for ages.I bought Pam & Nicky Lintott's Jelly Roll sampler Quilts book as I had fallen in love with the quilt on the front page. My hubby was out on Friday night and I took advantage to start on it using a moda mill house jelly roll which i was given for Christmas from my mother in law and have been saving for a special project just for me. So far I have done 3 blocks out of the 12 and I love them!!!

We are having a rainy weekend here so it is the perfect weather to sit at my desk by the window and dream the weekend away.
Back to the sewing machine!

The sun has got his hat on-Hip Hip Hip Hooray!

The Sun has made a welcome appearance in the last few days which has led to very little time being spent at the sewing machine and lots of time out in the garden.
Since we bought this house I have been desperate to get out in the garden and dig. I planted a few vegetable plants in the spring, but now I can start the massive job of clearing and getting some order.
We have dug out some big plants to get the light into the garden which seemed so wrong, but needed doing so desperately. This has left us a HUGE pile of wood which needs chipping. I feel so sorry for our neighbours as the chipper is so loud.

We are supposed to get rain from tomorrow onwards so hopefully more work on those WIPs. The box of bagged up projects seems to be growing as I look round the house =(

No more fabric!

A huge decision has been made in my house this weekend-I will not be buying any more fabric for a year and I will have to make do with what I have.
After cleaning out and trying to sort through my sewing cupboard this weekend I was really shocked at the amount of projects I have on the go and fabric for planned projects which have not yet been started.
As I am still new to quilting this was a huge surprise especially as I know that I have at least two boxes of fabrics in the loft in storage from when we moved house.
As a gesture of the way to carry on today I camped out in my sewing room to play with a couple of brightly coloured strip rolls which I received a few years ago for Christmas. I had always thought about doing a log cabin design, but as I had never done one before I didn't want to do one as a gift.
It has been a long which since I have sewed at my machine for a project which was not a present for someone, and the hours whizzed past and I loved it.

Although not much progress was made I did get 5 finished blocks out of it, which I love so I will carry on until it is finished. I think I need to border around the blocks with a plain black to make the colours pop out a little more, but I am sure I have some up in my stash.
I am almost finished with my Redwork Village stitchery and I have just found a gorgeous stitchery pattern online for a Chinese pagoda, so I think that I will have to make a bag to take my sewing in when we visit China later this year. Very exciting to be getting ready- we had our injections on Friday and all we need now is our Visas. I have never been that far away from home before so a little nervous, but mostly that there is such a huge language barrier.
I have just been offered the chance to watch a chickflick, so I had better go and snap it up before the chance disappears.