It is nearly the end of January and I am only now writing the first post of the year.

I have absolutely no excuse, the weeks seem to fly by, but I am finding hard to get motivated. 

December was a very strange month - first the coffee machine gave up, followed by my craft iron, and the weekend before Christmas our freezer decided to give up also!

In the third lockdown now - the most difficult yet. 

During the first lockdown we had wonderful weather and we just hid away in the sanctuary of our garden. It is very different this time; it has either been too cold and mainly icy for walking, or too wet, for most of this month.

But it is not all bad news - my husband had his first dose of Covid19 vaccination last week, and has now at last got a date for his operation, which he was supposed to have last March. I had a call from our doctor's surgery yesterday, inviting me to have my vaccination next week. It is not going to make a huge difference to our lives for a long time yet, but it is a small light at the end of a very long tunnel, as they say. And the first snowdrops are out in our garden.

I have been trying to sort out my sewing room, because as we all know, thing can get our of hand very quickly; I have a terrible habit of pulling things out when looking for something, but very rarely put everything back.  And very often I get distracted by old and forgotten projects.

I am probably not alone in that.

This one is not so old - my 10" "lockdown" blocks, which I made last spring, during the first lockdown. I managed to find some fabric in my stash and at last put it all together, and yes, I am actually quilting it! It should not take long, this is not a large quilt.

It will probably be always known as the "Lockdown Quilt".

After some break I am also reading again; I just finished this lovely book by Richard Osman, his first novel. "The Thursday Murder Club" is a group of friends living in a retirement home, who get together every Thursday, to try to solve old unsolved murder cases. It's a really nice book, funny and touching - "never underestimate the power of the elderly!"                 

Am I looking for that next large applique project?       Yes, always! 😉 

I promise I will do the rounds shortly and come to check out what you have been up to!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2020

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