Embroidery

Now, THAT'S looking better.  A lot more interesting now I have that top border finished on it, and I am enjoying the embroidery.  It has been so many years since I last did any.  I sewed the top border last night, and the flowers this morning as I was up early.  The rain was absolutely pounding down around 6 a.m. but it has dried up and cleared a bit now.

Keith and I have found a good new series to follow on Amazon Prime - called Copper it is set in 1860s New York, just after the end of the Civil War.  It's a sort of American version of Ripper Street, and very entertaining.

This morning I am going to do some baking for the freezer, and as I have lots of fallers (with a little help from the birds) off our eating apple tree, I shall chop those up and start an earthenware jar full of mincemeat.  You start off with apples, adding brown sugar, dried fruit etc, ground cinnamon and ground cloves and I keep adding to it as more apples are available.  Cookers are fine to use too.  Just don't bother with the mushy Gala type apples you get in the supermarkets.  Fresh and home grown is best.  The last of last year's is in a glass jar in the fridge and will probably go into a Mincemeat Cake today.  Yummy.

Yet another LEAK!

Finally the plumber came back today.  Our fault, as although we had phoned him a couple of times, Keith neglected to tell him quite how bad the leak under the sink was (from the hot water pipe).  The last time Keith called him he only said it had "got worse".  Well, I phoned last night and asked when he was coming out as we had a gallon a day leak and a too-small bowl to catch it overnight (as the pipe was low down and only a shallow bowl would fit under.)  He said he would be out first thing this morning, and he was. 

Unfortunately, when I got back from a protracted shopping trip to town (with a list of car stuff to sort for Keith), one leak had been fixed, but ANOTHER one had manifested itself.  This was one which Keith could hopefully fix, as it was the waste pipe to the sink which must have got nudged when the plumber was jammed under the sink today.  Keith has had it apart and it seems to have stopped for now, but we still have the bowl beneath that one, and we may need a new seal or something.

Meanwhile I have been going through a box with two half-finished quilts in (sorry girls) which I am going to get finished this autumn.  I was looking for my log cabin strip templates (missing in action), a wash-off marker pen (found two marker pencils) and Omnigrid quilting ruler.  Damned if I found any of them, so will have to continue my search tomorrow, up in my sewing room in the attic.

However, as the photos above and below show, If found a few excellent magazines and the book above, which I had forgotten I had a they were in a box of fabric.  It was good to see them again and the beautiful quilts within their covers.

Below:  meanwhile I have made a start on doing the applique and embroidery on the pocket to go on the hexi shopping bag.   The wonky trunk on the tree is about to be ripped out and restitched (note to self: don't watch tv when sewing). 

The very faint marks you can see are made with a silver grey marker pen, and will be covered by embroidery thread.  I've now sewn the leaves on the little French knot flowers.

This is how it should look when finished.  Hah!  I am currently sewing the tiny 1/2 hexis onto a fine linen strip to top the pocket and will start on the flowers tonight.  Now I wish I had used invisible nylon thread to do the applique.  Anyway, it's just for me and I shan't complain if it's not perfect.  I'm enjoying doing it anyway.

We have just had a very heavy downpour of rain again.  First rain, then hailstones.  I noticed the last two House Martins who have had a very late brood over in the farm buildings, were out flying around looking for insects.  The hailstones sent them diving back to the barns though and who can blame them?  All the other House Martins and the Swallows left for Africa in the last 10 days or so.  Even the Crows were upset by the weather and a number of them, 20 or 30, flew over the farm and away down the valley, either trying to outfly the weather or heading for cover.

Tomorrow the new loo for the shower room should be delivered.  Keith is going to start work in there next week.

Autumn rhythms

I managed a short walk yesterday - the first proper walk for ages.  The hand of autumn is being dragged across the land, and as colours fade and bracken yellows, the seeds of Umbellifers have set.

After the turning point in my walk - I had been delayed chatting to a neighbour, and as the skies were looking a bit threatening, I turned around early and began to head back towards home.  This still all looks very green and verdant.

A slightly out-of-focus photo of Scabious.  It gets its name from the fact it was used to treat Scabies in the past. 

More shades of autumn down along the river.

Three white flowers - an Umbellifer (my botany books are downstairs!), a white Himayalan Balsam to the right, and above the bracken you can just make out the white Bindweed flower.

Back at home, with strong gales forecast, I decided to take the plastic greenhouse  down and put it away for the winter.

Today the postman brought me this book, which I had ordered via Amazon.  It has all the patterns and advice I will need to get a little further with my lace-making, although I can already see where I have gone wrong on the bookmark (Lesson no. 1) which Dawn started me off with.

Finally, Wednesday is the day I go to my patchwork class, and I have started a Pineapple Log Cabin design for my lap quilt, using the beautiful machine-embroidered ladies wot sew which Dawn made for my birthday last year.  I can see I have cut off a corner on the bottom one but this is just for me, so I won't complain.

I have also been working on my patchwork (hexi) shopping bag and got the hexis on both sides now, and also put bias binding on the fray-edge of the linen to stop it fraying back to the zigzag stitch I machined either side.  Photos to follow.

£30 well spent

I ended up having to go to the Chiropractor over my leg pains, and also my dizziness, which my cousin P said could be down to neck problems.  Anyway, I am all sorted now and we were hooting with laughter at one point, so the visit cheered me up too.  He's a very interesting and intelligent man and we always put the world to rights whilst he is carrying out the treatment.

Now we have another Fair behind us, I have time to play catch up a bit.  This morning I have been polishing an old and damaged (it needs a new stock as the bottom 6" or so has broken off in the past) Moroccan musket with the most fabulous metalwork designs on it.  We polished the metalwork up and found it's solid silver (not sterling quality, of course).  If only it hadn't been used as a cosh at some point (when they ran out of ammo presumably) as it broke the end off the stock and the barrel is a bit loose too so presumably broken inside the large decorative strapping there.  Never mind, it came at the right price and I think Keith will now repair it and keep it and part with the one over the kitchen inglenook.

We had our antiques friends P & D round today for coffee and cake, and a natter.  It was good to see them again. We meet up at fairs but we have all been too busy this summer to meet up in between times.  We sent them home with some plums and a bag of Crocosmia corms, so at least they won't all be growing on the stream bank which is where I intend to empty the wheelbarrow full of them.

I have done a little more lace work, but can spot an error.  Never mind, that's what you get when you are first starting.  I can live with it.

Now I am mended and it doesn't hurt to walk, I am going to hopefully get out for a walk up the valley shortly. Greenhouse first though . . .

Feeling unwell, so a crafting day was had

I woke up in the night feeling sick.  If I turned my head too quickly, it span.  When I got up to go to the loo I was staggering to the right.  (This latter bit started a couple of days ago).  When I dragged myself out of bed at 6 a.m., feeling even sicker, I decided that was it for the night and came downstairs to catch the news - Hurricane Irma is flattening everything in her path.  Poor souls who are in her way.

I had planned to do some lace making but my brain was not co-operating with my hands.  I decided to carry on with making the body of the hexis shopping bag. That showed me I was DEFINITELY not in a state to do anything requiring more than minimal concentration.  I kept having to replace reels of white cotton which appeared to offer a lot (but were remnants) and I ended up having to refill the bobbin completely after it turned out to have shortish pieces wound onto it and all the spare bobbins were different colours.  Filling the one I was using completely then accounted for the last of another spool of thread and I was beginning to think I was going to run out of white!

Using white cotton material (and scissors!) I cut out the pocket to go on the bag.  I will start the applique and embroidery tonight.  I'm looking forward to that.

Pinned and all the paper formers removed (which then required fresh tacking stitches to keep the edges neat . . . 

Then nearly invisibly slip-stitched into place.  Damn - just noticed a wrong angle on a hexi on the bottom row.  Must amend that.  Below - thick hefty handles - made all the thicker and heavier as in turning the 2nd handle (which I gave a stripey lining to stop the linen fraying) frayed completely for several inches when I was turning it inside out, so I decided to use that as a central core and use the last of the stripey material for an outer covering.  These hexis are 2" ones.  NO WAY would I have made it using the 200 1/2" hexis - that would have driven me quite mad.

So, progress and my brain is feeling a bit better now so I am hoping to get some lace making done after my bath tonight.

One good thing, our son phoned from Lithuania tonight (he's on holiday with a friend from his Oz days).  One bad thing - I forced myself to bake a chocolate apple cake to take tomorrow, went downstairs to check on it and found that my darling husband had turned the oven off half an hour or go.  It has SUNK in the middle and I am hoping will be edible after I have cooked it a bit more . . .

A photo-free post . . .

Having taken about 7 minutes to load the new header, I doubt very much that I will get any more photographs loaded tonight.   I always experience a pang of regret when I remove a header photo, as it is always a photo I love and am proud of.  This one of the Brecon Beacons is no exception.  I think this will linger a long time as a header.  Definitely one for the Christmas calendars I will have printed again this year, as Christmas presents.  The Brecon Beacons are so beautiful and it would be lovely to live close enough to see them from our window . . .  Along with the fabulous sandy beaches, the Beacons are definitely one of the best things about our area of Wales.

Today I went into Bobbins, the quilting and sewing shop in Brecon to look for some white print or red on white printed fabric to go with the selection of reds I have for the lap quilt I will be making at the Quilting Group I have joined.  I am going to use a Log Cabin pattern for the quilt, and felt the traditional light/dark of Log Cabin patchwork needed to be used, although the lady teaching us didn't suggest a light colourway at all.  The centres of each block will be the lovely redwork designs done by my friend Dawn for my birthday last year.  I have FINALLY gotten around to doing something with them, but in my defence I have hardly have any spare time to do anything, especially craft work, in the past year.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is not very good, so we have an unexpected day at home, and I plan to catch up with yet more decorating (in my office now) as well as doing some tidying up in the garden if it stays dry long enough, stew up the plums (for the freezer) that we picked in the week, and also I need to work on my lace.  Can't wait to get back to that. 

I have reached the point on my hand-sewn small hexis shopping bag where I need to cut out the pocket and draw the design on it, which is then embroidered, with a little bit of applique.  I have found some heavy yellow linen for the actual bag, and a navy/white striped cotton for a lining.  Looks better than it sounds, as a colour combination.  I have a deep mustardy yellow amongst the hexis and also a softer yellow, and it pulls together quite well.  I need to get Keith to make me a teensy 1/2" hexi template for the little row which edge the pocket.

I have a half-done x-stitch project to get back to as well, and need to crack on with that as it is a birthday present for a friend.

My kitchen is STILL in disarray, as I can't put away the under-the-sink stuff away because  . . . we have another leak!  This time, caused by the plumber, who inadvertently swopped over the hot and cold pipes, swopped them back, and they are not fitting tightly enough and the hot is leaking, quite a lot.  We have had to shove a shallow bowl underneath (too low down to use something sensible like a bucket) and empty it about 3 times a day, whilst waiting until he comes out to help fit the shower next week.  I am hoping that tomorrow Keith will get on with making the wooden uplift base for the shallow shower tray (which will then be tiled over to hide it).  The previous shower base was ancient and very deep (unlike the modern ones) and Keith doesn't want to have to lift floorboard to put the drainage pipe below them (which is what I would have done . . .)  Still, I am not a plumbing expert, so I can't possibly comment!

Lace making and a Fledging Heron

This morning I went to my friend Dawn's for my first lesson in lace-making - if you remember, I had a little taster at the Quilt and Textiles Fair last Friday.  It was very kind of Dawn, as she had to look for all her lace-making equipment, books, pillows etc and set it all up ready for me to get started.  I began with winding all the threads on to the various bobbins.  I was very glad that I had several different colours to make it easier to start with.

The start.  Ooh-er, doesn't it look complicated?!  Yet once Dawn had shown me (hah! repeatedly!) what to do, I finally got the hang of it and now I am hooked!  I am glad I took photos as this one shows me how it is meant to look . . .

As you can see, there is a special pattern which you follow, and you just keep crossing and twisting and putting pins in and moving bobbins across from one side to the other and gradually form a pattern (hopefully that which you are meant to be doing!)  I felt such a connection with all those Battams ladies (my mum's side of the family) in Stoke Bruern, Northamptonshire, who earned their living by making lace.  I told myself, children were started at 4 years old - I could DO this!!!  Mind you, I suspect they were started off just winding bobbins, and progressed to pricking patterns before they ever touched a bobbin to make lace.

I have brought this home with me, but have a busy weekend ahead, so hope I haven't forgotten it by the time I sit down with it again.  Dawn kindly provided me with a little notebook too, so I have some working notes in that.

On the way to Dawn's, I had to drive at a snail's pace behind this just-fledged Heron.  He couldn't fly - just manage to flutter 6" or so above the ground.  I made sure I didn't spook him or get too close, and eventually he walked into a gateway and I drove slowly past.  No sign of him on the way back, so at least he hadn't been flattened by a car.  I hope he manages to scramble up into a bush or something tonight, or else a fox may take advantage.

I took more photos of the valley on the cusp of autumn, but it took more than 20 minutes just to load these three, so I will try and do another post a.s.a.p.