Midsummer

and it is cold, wet and windy....

The first half of June was beautiful, like summer arrived at last.

The garden was loving it, at last some sun and warmth.

The peonies were really good this year, but sadly gone over now.

 

I moved outside, did lot of reading and some sewing, 

although it was too hot most of the time to sew.

I finished all the leaves for quilt border; it was boring in the end, but I am glad I stuck with it, 

they make the border more interesting.

I already had some fabric for the backing, batik with small leave design.

So, a quick dash to MQ to buy some wadding -

and this is the bit I find most difficult, putting it all together.

This is the largest quilt I have made so far (1.80m x 1.80m), so it took some doing.

Being so large, it lends itself to hand quilting with thicker thread and larger stitches. 

As it is much colder now, I have started hand quilting already - 

it is quite nice to have it on my lap in the evening; I am using pearl cotton No16, probably in several shades.

During the warm spell my "Play Cloth" came out and I started to work on another block.

For my new followers - my Play Cloth is a small quilt I work on only in the summer, when I can stitch outside; don't ask why - it just happened and now I look forward to "stitching in the garden" weather to bring it out.

This project was inspired by work of Tiggy Rawling,

and specially one of her quilts.

The various hand dyed fabric patches came from her, and I gave myself a task of filling each one with something different.

I have also been including small embroideries from Tambani project and embroideries from Afganistan, which used to sold at craft shows.

 

Starting new block - no idea yet where this one is going,

and some of the previous ones.

I leave you with few more pictures of our small garden.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021

Picnic time!

I thought it is best to make another post for this, I didn't want to make the previous one too long.

I must admit I don't like to read too long post on other blogs.

It is the school half term here in UK, and it has become a family tradition to have a picnic with our grandchildren at Barrington Court (NT); we "discovered" this Tudor property when the children were small, it was very safe place for them to run around and explore, including the house, which is empty of furniture. We missed out last year of course, but now we can do it. 

Although the grandchildren are teenagers now, they still enjoy the picnic. There is lots of space for it, including a large grass area right in front of the main house. 

We also always visit their second hand book shop (in the converted stables), which is now open and needless to say we came home with some books.

The house itself is not yet open and numbers of visitors still limited, so pre-booking is recommended.

Just a few pictures from the grounds:

lots of colour around in the very sheltered walled gardens.

It was so nice to spend a day with our daughter and grandchildren, it felt quite "normal".

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021

Angels... and a lodger.....

I have been away from blogging - about a week ago the sun came out at last and it has been such treat to be outside.

There is some more colour coming through in the garden, a month late, but at last!

When we moved to this house, we planted a white lilac bush in the front garden; this year it is really wonderful and now in the sun, it has the most beautiful scent.

The buds start dusty pink and then open up into pinky white.

And this is the home of our resident hedgehog at the bottom of the garden;

he used to live next door, but last year wasps made their nest in his house and evicted him.

My husband has made him a new house in our garden 

and the hedgehog moved in at the start of the winter.

 Together with our neighbours we all made openings at the bottom of our fences, 

so he can roam from garden to garden.

And yes, some sewing too:

To avoid the monotony of applique leaves, I rescued little forgotten Awakening quilt

(which I  call now "The Funky Angels") 

and made another large block.

These angels definitivy have fashion sense of their own......

I have just finished reading this wonderful book,

author's first novel - how do they do it?

I recommend it.

Oh, I wish the Blogger stopped messing around; I tried to change my header picture - now I am stuck....

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021

April in May

or at least that's how it feels; we are having all the rain we missed out on last month.

At last the night frosts have stopped, and everything in the garden is getting greener 

and buds are ready to burst open.

Our golden birch tree we planted last year is in leaf and looking so pretty.

I love the beautiful leaves and delicate flower of epimidiums:

A trip to the garden centre -

I planted out boxes for some summer colour by the kitchen door.

                                                  Steady progress on Barn Dance quilt too:

I have made enough 6" border blocks for two sides of the quilt.

So, 20 more leaf blocks to make, 

but just for some change I am now making 4 corner blocks.

I hope you are enjoying your weekend! Wet one here 😒

Here in UK we are looking forward to more relaxed rules from Monday,

when we will be able to meet indoors and we should be able to give our grandchildren a HUG!

But, BUT - the new Covid Indian variant is rapidly spreading in the country (faster than any previous ones), which could seriously undermine government's Roadmap for easing most of restrictions in June.

I am angry with our authorities for not stopping travelling to and from India sooner;

we also know that many people returning from India, in order to avoid quarantine on their return to UK, travelled back via and  breaking their journey in Turkey, which at that time wasn't on UK's Red list.

We know this because these people boasted about it on the social media, how they beat the system.

Why is is that there is always a section of a society, which thinks that the rules do not apply to them?

I am angry, because we all worked very hard for the past year to keep ourselves and everyone around us safe. There are thousands of families around the world which haven't seen each other for over a year, doing the right thing.

I apologize for going on about this, but it does get to me, when making post Brexit trade deals become more important than the health of the country, because that is what we are talking about here.

I have always tried hard to keep politics out of my blog, because that is not what my blog is for; but sometimes I feel I have to say something.

I am afraid for those under 50 who have not yet been vaccinated. Also it is not clear at this point if vaccinations we had will be able to stop the Indian variant.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021

this is what I call Spring Day!

My regular followers know how we like to visit National Trust gardens, but like most things even that has been rather complicated. All the historical houses have been closed, to protect visitors and volunteers who work there. But they tried to keep the gardens open as much as possible, for people to visit when it was allowed - so good for mental health.

The nature has been rather unkind this year and spring has come very late; it was dry and cold all April and only now there is some hint of spring.   

Visits still have to be pre-booked to keep numbers of visitors down to allow for social distancing.

Luckily for us, this morning's pre-booked visit to Lytes Cary Manor (NT) was a great success - the sun

was shining when we woke up. Armed with a flask of coffee and some lunch (no restaurants open yet),

we enjoyed a very quiet garden. The house itself will possibly be open later this month, and being midweek, it seems that few people bothered to come. 

But this is what we came to see, this small orchard, underplanted with a mix of blue camassias, yellow buttercups and cowslips. 

You have to be lucky to come at the right time to see them out together.

You just want go and sit among that lot! - Not allowed....

And little of the rest:

gunnera plants just starting to open,

they look so prehistoric.

It has been a good day....

May be little stitching now.....

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021