what a difference a day makes

After a busy night, all noise (lightning, thunderstorm), but no substance (very little rain), it is very much cooler here and a return to normal activities.

This is the start of my jam making time and I had some fruit sitting in the fridge, just waiting for things to cool down.

As you know I like to make small batches, experimenting with mixing various fruit together, depending on what is around - storing some sunshine in a jar for those colder months - strawberries, apricots and gooseberries today. 

I don't add any water, just mix the fruit with the sugar 

and let sit in the fridge until the fruit releases its own juices, before boiling (job for tomorrow).

Don't you just love all those colours together!

Before the hot spell I did make some progress on the Flower sampler, 

starting from the top section.

The background colour is much better than here, it doesn't come out very well in the picture.

This is dahlia Honka  - our last year's addition - quite a stunner.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021

it has been hot, hot

...... although not as hot as in some parts of the world, but hot enough for England. 

It has been hot without any breeze, which gets oppressive very quickly. 

Most of English houses are not built for extreme temperatures.  

So my days have been spent finding the coolest shady place. It was well far beyond "stitching in the garden" weather, too hot for hands trying to hold a needle.

This is all I was capable of doing, few hexies, and reading, lots of reading.

Ideal weather for picking and drying some lavender from our front garden.

Somewhere in the middle of that heat we managed 

to celebrate my daughter's and granddaughter's birthdays in our tiny hot garden.

Call me crazy, 

but I actually made a chocolate cake for the occasion 😕,

with lots of soft fruit it worked OK! 

The weather people are telling us that RAIN is on the way to us tonight!!!!

The plants will be pleased (as will my husband who has been struggling keeping it all alive).

Last autumn I got a tiny pomegranate plant. 

It survived English winter and now it is positively thriving!

There have been other additions to out small patch, but that will be another post.

This has also been a week when "Freedom Day" arrived in England,

whatever that will mean. Make of it what you want.

I am sticking with my mask.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021

catching up

Since I finished Barn Dance quilt top I have been itching to start a new project (of course!).

I am now in the process of quilting Barn Dance; we had some cold evenings here, 

so it was quite nice to have it on my lap.

Ever since I got "Beautiful Botanicals" by Deborah Kemball, I had been planning to start my own "Flower Sampler" wall-hanging, which will be 

a combination of  applique and embroidery. Now it seems a good time to start, with all the lovely flowers outside, and being able to stitch outside.

I chose a plain mustard fabric for the background, which wouldn't normally  be my first go to colour choice, but I think it will work well.

It is not as brown as it looks here.

first some prep work

and the first flower is done 

As I was browsing through my blog recently, I realised that there haven't been any posts from my kitchen for a very, very long time. I can assure you that there have been many loaves of bread and many cakes coming out of my kitchen during all those lockdowns last year, when the kitchen, my sewing room and the garden were all my places of safety. Books, jigsaw puzzles, DVD's and recipes were making the rounds of the family with all of us confined to our homes.

This is just the latest book in the line of many; 

this one has been on our book shelf for a long time, 

but I got to it eventually. 

Our local library re-opened fully last week, so it is on our list of places to go in the next few days.

On the subject of cakes - spending so much time at home didn't do very much for our waistline, 

so I am now turning again to making little healthier cakes (if there is such a thing 😉).

Now, when we can have visitors at home again, I like to have a cake around.

This weekend's cake was from one of my favourite cake books, by Amber Rose,

where she substitutes sugar with honey or maple syrup, and some of the fats with nuts. The original recipe is made with nectarines, but I use apricots instead, because they have a stronger taste when cooked; 

the result is a wonderful moist cake.

Unfortunately today is very much "indoors"; we are having a busy mix of sunshine and showers,

so I think I will go and plan the next flower for my wall-hanging.

I wish you all very productive week, whatever you are into to!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2010-2021

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