Strawberry Lemonade.

Sounds delicious doesn't it?

I finally got around to playing with my Jelly Roll. I've been dreaming about this. I just spent a very pleasant hour with the evening sun shining onto my table and here is the first batch all made up.

They look great, I'm pleased with the way they have turned out, although I am sort of working to a pattern here, I didn't purchase or design anything, I'm just eyeballing the image online and working from that.
I know this is a variation of a log cabin, but I have no idea what it's called. Any suggestions?

I also have a layer cake of the same fabric collection and had thought to make a pieced back, but since then I had the idea of combining the Jelly roll and the layer cake to make one big top. We'll see what happens there.

Well that's me, I'm off to cross stitch for a while before bed.

Night night.

Bob The Builder! Home improvement pics.

Well actually his name is Tony! We've had a builder in this week and he has worked wonders. Remember my bare sitting room walls?

Well now the old fireplace and chimney breast looks like this. Much improved and it means I've been able to get all of our CDs out from their boxes under the stairs.

Do you remember the study? No shelves, nowhere to put things away?
We now have book shelves. Yippie, all the folders holding all those important bits and pieces are out of their boxes and onto shelves. Hunneys University stuff is all put away. Much better.
But it doesn't stop there.....
Bob the builder saved his best work for the Dressing room/ walk in wardrobe. It was just a big bare box, the land lord had a cheek calling this a wardrobe!

Now it is a wardrobe! I have shelves to put stuff away and plenty of hanging space. There is still a chest of drawers tucked away around the corner too. I've been able to unpack all of my clothes at last, because we moved in January/ February I had only my winter clothes out and had to dig for some summer gear.
Now it's all out and hung up. Hunney too found some old friends.

It feels so good to get things unpacked.

Life and work and Bob the builder have got in the way of a more relaxing stitchy quilty life though, I haven't picked up a needle in days. I did manage a flicker through a magazine though and a look around blogland, so lots of inspiration. Oh!! And I had a dream about my Jelly Roll! LOL I have a Strawberry Lemonade Jelly Roll here burning a hole in the drawer wanting out! I dreamed about making this quilt with it, I think I'd better do something soon huh? I also have the Strawberry Lemonade Layer Cake, so maybe a pieced back?

Not today though, today I want to just sit! I think perhaps some cross stitch.

Hope you had a good weekend.

More Mystery and Amber is Finished.

I took the day off yesterday, well I didn't do anything stitchy or quilty, I did however have a mad panic and do some homework for the risk assessors course I'm doing for work. :-P My Tutor will be here in a day or two and I have to have something to show her!!

So, I've had a wonderful relaxing morning today getting on with part two of the Popular Patchwork Mystery. Here we have Unit C

Unit D
And unit E
They are all bagged and labelled awaiting the next magazine and instructions for part three.
I have to wait a whole month for that. Me thinks I'll have to find something else quilty to be doing as well as my cross stitch.

Amber has been busy too, here is her bagged out 'I spy' charm quilt. I assume she will be tying it or sewing some buttons on.

She has done a great job, here's aunty Loulee's fabric on the back.

And a label, I didn't realize she was making a gift. Yes, she stitched the label too.

Everyone concerned is very proud. I'll keep you posted on her next project. At this rate I'll have to change the title of my blog, it seems that Moya and Amber have more to show than me lately.

Have a great day.

He stood me up.

The motorcycle races are all over and the bikers are leaving. I love it when they are here, the island feels so alive and vibrant, but must admit to a sigh of relief when they all go home. There are other motorcycle races here on the island, but I'll save those for another day.

I didn't get on as hoped, with the mystery quilt the other day, DS asked me to wait until today, so I did. Now he has stood me up, seems he has something very important to do with his Nana. And I can carry on alone this week. How very nice of him.
He has been helping in Nanas garden, they are going to pick the chilli peppers which are ripe and take them to one of Mums colleagues who will use them up. ( Mother doesn't do chilli, I don't really know why she grew them!). A boy who quilts and likes to help out in Nanas garden? How did I get to be so lucky?

So, I've been getting on with my cross stitch. I got the wolf finished yesterday.

Before I can get on with another creature I want to stitch some more bushes and leaves in behind the wolf and put in the back stitch. For the non cross stitchers out there, the back stitch is just that, a single line of stitches which helps to define certain areas of the work, in this case, his features and also the fluffiness of his tail and where his hind leg is tucked against his body, I can't promise that it will make too much difference on a photo, but in real life it really does help to define the image.

Well I'm off to do step 2 of my mystery, I'll post pics of that soon. Once that is done, I'll be back to wolfie!

Have a great day.

Now my niece has joined in!

It's school holidays here while the TT (Tourist Trophy) races are on. Traditionally the islands schools close down for half term at this time as there is too much noise and distraction while the bikes race by the schools. My DS1 still had to go in though as the older children have their GCSE (Final exams) at this time.

Yesterday I was visited by Moya and her two girls, Lauren was tickled pink to be visiting and lost no time in pulling out the toys I keep stashed away for such times.

Her big sister Amber had brought along her own quilting to let me have a look.


Isn't she doing a great job? Here all the charms are stitched into strips and ready to stitch together.
We were discussing what to back it with and after a dig through my drawers we found some white with little flowers on, I forgot to take a pic sorry! And her mum said she could use an old fleecy blanket as wadding. Hopefully I'll have a picture of the finished thing soon.

The latest issue of Popular Patchwork arrived on my doorstep today so tomorrow morning before going to work I'll be getting on with part two of my mystery quilt.

Have a great day.