winter (no longer "Christmas") wall hanging

Yes, I have finished it; there was no excuse, I had so much time this past week (just eating, drinking and watching too much of TV).

Like so many others, our Christmas was very quiet, in fact Christmas felt just like any other weekend.....

We popped out early this morning to get little food shopping, sliding all over the place - the first time this winter the roads were icy in our part of the world. It was also the first time in a week I had to put my face mask on - it was quite liberating not having to wear it for the past week, which we spent indoors, only going out for our daily walk. 

"Christmas" wall hanging has been renamed "Winter", so it can hang in the hall little longer, and not having to be taken down with other Christmas decorations.

It is a mixture of various applique methods, needleturn, raw edge and reverse.

Terrible light for taking pictures today, this is the best I could do.

As I mentioned in my last post, this was really last minute, somewhat rushed project, with next to no preparation, so it is little wonky (not my best work), but still - it looks OK in our hall.

I take this opportunity to wish you all 

very Happy New Year,

mainly Covid free 2021, and hopefully a return to what we remember as "normal" life.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2020

nearly there, but not quite

What am I talking about? Yes, Christmas, of course!

But also a small project (which turned out to be little more involved), which I started last week.

I wasn't going to make anything Christmassy this year, but I could not resist. I browse through this book every year and there is a project I have been promising to myself, so this was a last minute decision. It required some Christmas fabric, which I don't usually have in my stash, but as luck would have it, I did buy this piece a long time ago, just because I liked it.

I am making my own version, because I don't have all the materials required and I really did not want to go shopping very far, as the farthest we go at the moment are local food shops.

I did however find some white fleece fabric in one of my draws, great!

It is still very much work in progress, and it will not be finished by tomorrow, but who cares!

We will not be going anywhere, Christmas for us will be just two of us at home, keeping our distance from everyone and keeping ourselves safe. So there will be loads of time for getting it done

in the days ahead. 

 I wish you all - very Merry (and safe) Christmas,

thank you for your company this year and lets hope that soon this year will be just a bad memory.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2020

FNwF and the rest

 Thank you again to  Cheryll for getting us together for the last FNwF of this year.

Like most, I will not be sorry to see the end of this year, and hopefully we will have much better time in 2021.

I had just a small project ready and managed to finish it as well - small kit by Corinne Lapierre, French Hen, part of the "12 Days of Christmas" set, which many bloggers have been making.

 

My hen looks little more skinny than the original picture, 

but I am quite happy with it, not bad for one evening's work.

My crafting seems to be dominated by crochet at the moment, and although this stack of squares is only about one 1/4 of what I need for the Tobermory blanket, I got seduced by another one of Jane Crow's designs - the Persian Tiles blanket, and on Friday afternoon I finished the first block.

 I like the "Sandalwood" version, but there hasn't been any colour breakdown published, it is available only as a kit from Mary Maxim. I prefer to use Stylecraft Life DK, which has some wool element, so I have made up my own colour combination, which is probably little brighter.

There have been many birthdays and anniversaries missed this year; 

there is a couple of our family ones we will not be able to celebrate as a family this month,

we hope to catch up on all of those next year, when we will be able to get all together at the same time.

Last month was our golden wedding anniversary - 50 years of married life, and friendship for more.

Due to the lockdown we celebrated on our own, with nice dinner and a bottle of wine.

But that morning we did get a surprise -

a truck pulled up outside and unloaded a big parcel.

     

This turnout to be new garden bench - a present from our children, who know how much time we spend in our little garden, and that our old bench was literary on the last leg.

I think I should use this as a motto of my blog!

All we need now is spring!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2020

Monday morning walk

After wet and windy weekend, Monday at last calmed down, so we decided to go for little longer walk, 

to the town's park. Still very dull day, so the pictures are not very sharp.

 Our walk takes us past some interesting buildings, like The Anglo Trading Estate.

Now home to various small businesses, it was built in 1864, originally as a brewery -

Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Co.Ltd , later - around the time of WWI - the "Bavarian" part was dropped from its name.

Next we come to St Peter & St Paul's Church, which dates to 12th century, although parts of the church date to 11th century, before the Norman Conquest. The main part of the church as it stands now was built in 15th century.

From here it is not too far to the Collett Park. It is quite a large park for the size of the town, and it is beautiful here in the summer. Little sad looking now, because all the trees have lost their leaves during the recent horrid weather.

The park was given to the town in 1906 by a local resident. 

There is a nice story attached to this:

"The Park was gifted to the town of Shepton Mallet, by John Kyte Collett in 1906. It is believed that as a boy, John Collett, was told off for playing in the fields that were privately owned at the time. After many years the land started to be auctioned off and John Collett accumulated several lots of land and presented them as a gift to the town as the park that we know and love. Every year we hold Collett Festival in the Park to celebrate the giving of this wonderful gift."

Sadly this year's Music & Food Festival had to be cancelled, as so many other things.

By the time we walked around the park, it started to rain again, so a quick walk back followed - we had our exercise for the day!                

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2020

Friday

and time for another get together at Cheryll's for FNwF.   

Thank you , Cheryll , for getting us together again!

Friday turned out a busy day; after very, very wet October at last we had a couple of lovely dry and bright days (and frosty nights) this week to tidy up the garden and get it ready for winter. By the end of the day we cut back what needed it, rake all the leaves blown in from next door's  HUGE beach tree.

This is a view from my sewing room.

We decided to re -plant one of the beds, which was full of dahlias this year; very nice they looked, but 

they took over and our garden is just too small for anything to be allowed to "take over"!

Now it has a couple of new rose bushes from David Austin and a selection of perennials, some for early spring colour. 

There is still some colour holding on, this abutilon shrub will flower until Christmas, 

may be even longer.

I love the autumn colours of the Persian Ironwood shrub, growing in the large pot just outside our kitchen window; still very young, it will get much larger .

Back inside I stitched a couple more of 3 inch log cabins, 

these will form a border around the central panel of Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt - there is a very slow progress on this one.....

In the evening I managed to make two more squares for Tobermory blanket, 

before it was time to watch more of "DNA", 

Danish crime drama - subtitled of course, so no stitching 😀

We are now in the second lockdown, so our news are full of that;

 now that our American friends have sorted themselves out, the distraction of their elections has now gone as well.

Looking forward to Christmas? May be - we are supposed to spend it at our daughter's house, but we are also slowly filling our freezer with goodies we like, in case it ends up being just two of us; need to stock up with few more books as well.

I wish you all well, have a good week!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2020

colours of Stourhead

It had been a very long time since our last trip Stourhead (NT), in fact nearly a year, it is hard to believe.

All National Trust properties were closed during the lockdown, of course, and they started re-opening slowly at the start of the summer. But nothing is normal - to control the numbers of visitors you need pre-book a timed slot for your visit. Everyone has to keep to a one way system through the grounds.

The timed slots are being released every Friday for the week ahead - so you can imagine the rush on Friday morning, special as it was a school half term coming up. No longer you can simply wait for a nice day and then decide to go, and with the awful weather we have been having, booking is taking a chance.

As it happens we were extremely lucky, the day we booked was the only dry morning this week! Not bright, but dry. My daughter was quick of the mark last Friday and booked for all of us, and it was nice to meet up with her and the grandchildren for a lovely walk.

As I said, it was rather dull, so the pictures are not the usual Stourhead quality, but I hope you can still enjoy some of the autumn colours.

There has been a weather warning for tonight and tomorrow, 

lots of rain and high winds are on the way.

I hope it is better where you are and you can enjoy your weekend!

Keep safe!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2020

finished,

my Broderie Perse wallhanging. 

In my last post I just started to play with some of my stash fabrics, but once I started I could not finish, 

I was enjoying it too much!

It is different from my usual applique; 

at first I could not find enough of the right pictures to cut out, but he who looks, finds 😀

And when the binding is being stitched on, 

you know you are nearly there!....

And here it is, hanging on our hall wall.

I like it, it feels quite 3 dimensional, it is very tactile, I can feel the shapes under my fingers.

                                ----------------------------------------------

  At last we are having some sunny days and a break from all that rain.

Autumn has arrived in our garden......

We have moved the bougainvillea to the front porch, 

so we can enjoy the show little longer.

 I am enjoying being in my sewing room; 

the news from outside are not so good again,

so keep safe out there!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2020