Beautiful weekend, beautiful week coming up!

What a glorious weather we are having!

Roses and lavenders (not yet fully out) in our front garden are loving it.

I have been working on the "Hygge"  shawl over the weekend and I now I have only the one edge to finish.
I will have to decide on a fabric for the lining soon.

This weekend baking was probably my favourite summer cake,
not ony because it is quick and easy, but it also brings back memories of childhood.

"Bublanina" in Czech, "bubble cake" in rough translation, and traditionally made with cherries.

In fact, it can be made with any summer fruit, providing it is not too wet. I have made it with blueberries before, but I prefer fresh apricots, now in the shops.

A small envelope arrived in the post from  Tambani Embroidery Project , (about which I have written on several occasions before, for instance here ), 

a present to say "thank you" for my support.

Thank you, Ina!

May be it will find its way onto my blue summer "play cloth", 

or I will think of a project on its own for it. 

And now back to the garden, it would be a shame to miss all that sunshine!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2018

It must be summer,

because my blue indigo "play cloth" has made it outside again, and this happens only in summer.

Those of you who have followed my blog for some time, might remember this one. 

For my new followers - this is my summer project, which I "play with" only in summer, outside, in our lovely small garden. For the rest of the year it rests in its project box, right at the bottom of the pile.

What is it all about? It is a quilt with a difference. 

The background is made from indigo dyed fabrics, of various sizes, and the idea is to fill each block with something different - be it embroidery, patchwork, applique.....

I have also included embroideries done by women from Tambani Project and Afghanistan Inspiration Project.

I got the inspiration for the quilt after a workshop with Tiggy Rawling some years ago. Most of the background fabrics came from her also.

This is how it looks so far - there are still many empty spaces to fill.

This afternoon I made some circles,

 and another block is finished.

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It looks like the Blogger has yet to sort out the problem with emails.

So if you would like to leave a comment on my blog and want to know what my answer is, please tick the box "notify me" before you post your comment, 

because the comment box is the only way I can answer your comments for the time being. 

Thank you.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2018

this week

We are having a wonderful sunny day today, but what a week it was until yesterday! Cold, rain, cold; the weather people even mentioned the word "frost" more than once! We even put our heating on last Friday and there is an extra quilt on our bed - plenty of those in our house :-).

It was the kind of weather you just want to turn to "comfort" food. I made some bread, new to me, Portuguese Broa bread.  

Not "stitching in the garden" weather by any stretch of imagination, but I am working on another block on my indigo quilt.

I have now stitched on the four embroideries from Afghanistan Initiative, see my post here .

I will be adding even more international flavour to this quilt.
This week arrived my order of two embroideries from Tambani - South African project, about which I wrote before here .
The embroideries are made by Venda women in north of South Africa; it is a way of not only preserving their folk tales, but also earning an extra income to help their families.
You can read all about Tambani here .

I look forward to adding these two stories to my quilt.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2015

tambani embroidery project

In the latest Quiltmania magazine there is an interesting article about Tambani Embroidery Project.

This is not so different from the Afghanistan Inspiration Project I wrote about before and you can find details by clicking on "Afghanistan Inspirations" under "Interesting Link" on the left hand side of my blog or on their new website here .

Or you have possibly seen their stand at shows.

Tambani Project is based in north east corner of South Africa, where women are very often left destituted, after the men left to find work in the cities and sometimes don't return.

The intention of the Project is to preserve the folklore of the Venda-speaking people, who live in the area. The embroideries, stitched by the women, illustrate scenes from Venda folk tales, and so preserving them. At the same time it gives the women some income, as they get paid on completion of the embroidery. It is then up to Tambani to market and sell the work.

You can read more about this project on their website here , or if you are going to NEC next month, you might find their stand there.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2014