Poinsettia Place

Snow has gone, there are no traces of the snowman or even the igloo, all washed away by the rain, and in the garden the snowdrops have pushed their little heads up.

After the night of heavy rain - a rainbow.

Today I finished "Poinsettia Place", a second part of 

"Santa's Village", a cross stitch BOM.

I wish you all a very good weekend!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk

             

week is moving on

But the snow has not moved, more came down last night and again this morning. The igloo on the village common has become a permanent fixture.
They say by the weekend it will be raining and they mentioned the word "floods"!

There is an advantage to spending more time at home. In this weather the mind turns to food and the kitchen is a good place to be on a cold day.

I bought Seville oranges last week, which of course means "marmalade time".

And while on the citrus theme - lemon curd tarts.

Now that Fernhill is finished at last, I am returning to my house building,

the last block of the Yoko Saito's "Mystery Quilt" (which is no longer a mystery)

and the second part of "Santa's Village".

Thank you for your visit!

© pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2013

Fernhill and igloo

On the day when local children built an igloo,
which made the snowman smile (or is it because he has a new hat?),

          

   I finished Fernhill, button BOM by Lynette Anderson,
which I bought from Fobbles.

Some of the fabric is Lynette's own design, the rest from my stash.

All the buttons have now been stitched on.

I have also stitched on a sleeve, so I can hang the quilt up.

Embroidery threads: Weeks Dye Works, as suggested by Lynette.

Hand quilted with: King Tut and Finca No16.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk

snow is here

Pictures we woke up to this morning.

As I said before, snow in UK means chaos and for us, living in the country, it means not going anywhere.

We are not on any gritting map, so the road through our village is not treated. 

We rely on local farmers to partly clear the road so they can move about, and for the milk tankers to be able to come and collect the milk from the farms. This morning we saw a tractor puling one of the milk tankers up our hill, 

which was quite a sight!

So, thermals on, lets go out and take more pictures!

The local schools are closed today, so children have extra day, to enjoy the snow and build a snow man.

The goose and the ducks on the village pond are wondering what is going on.

© pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk

sunny Sunday

Yes, today is a beautiful, sunny, although very cold day. After a week of dark, misty and foggy days, this is
a very welcome sight. The temperature is hovering just above zero, and they tell us that the snow is on its way from the north. Snow in UK means - chaos. Lets hope that here in the south we don't get so much of it.

I am in final stages of hand quilting Fernhill, so I should be able to show you the finished quilt soon.

In the meantime I can share with you the latest book by Yoko Saito "Japanese Quilting Piece by Piece".

Not many of Yoko's books are published in English; if translated, it is usually into French.

As you can see from the cover, there are 29 projects here, mainly various bags and fabric baskets,

but also a couple of quilts and some small objects. I like Yoko's designs very much, although I prefer brighter colours to Yoko's somber choice.

The pages in the book are very shiny, so this is the best I could do.

This lovely box with applique is probably my favourite design, it could be one of the projects to make this year.

The book comes with full instructions and a set of full size pattern sheets in the envelope at the back of the book. All the photographs of the projects are at the front of the book and the instructions after that. I would  prefer to have the individual instructions with the corresponding photograph, but that is my only criticism of the book so far.

The pattern for the second part of Christmas cross stitch project, "Santa's Village" arrived this week, this one is called Poinsettia Place.

As always, I have enough projects to keep me going, as I am sure you have too.

So I wish you  HAPPY STITCHING  for the coming week!

© pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk