Away til Thursday

I'm off down to Hampshire for a few days, to stay with my best friend Tricia.  I'll be back on Thursday, hopefully with some fresh photos and chitchat.

I hate Hairy Bittercress!

There, I've said it!  I've been doing battle with the blardy stuff this afternoon, in an effort to plant the bulbs which got overlooked in a box under the hall table.  I decided the tulips and some white crocus could go under the apple tree.  That bed was just a sea of mud so I had to set to and dig out the weeds - HB and the equally prolific Creeping Buttercups and other similar garden thugs.  I had bought a big bale of B&Q compost this morning and 3/4 of it went onto that bed, covering the red tulips I had planted, and then I put the smaller striped tulips and crocus deep into the compost.  That should keep then warm if it does decide to snow.

This magazine tempted me when I was shopping, and as it had a 2nd free magazine with it,  but sealed in polythene.  I took it to a quieter aisle in Tesco and had a look.  I do NOT pay good money for sealed magazines.  I want to know what is in them before I commit myself.  Fortunately, both magazines had some lovely quilts and patterns.

Not a cheap magazine (£5.99) but I tend to keep my magazines for donkeys years, so don't feel too guilty about my purchase.

This is one of the beautiful quilts included in the magazines.

Part of the "how to". . .

Another colourful quilt, which has instructions for a variety of block designs loosely based on this one.

Do you remember this, which I bought at the end of last year?  It has had a few work-outs, only on the Slow Cooker button so far, but I am very pleased with it.  The slow cooker setting, because the lid is sealed down in the same way as the pressure cooker, cooks more quickly than my old one, and keeps the flavours in.

I will now start to work through the other different programs on it - as you can just about see on the side, it is a Pressure Cooker, Slow Cooker, Yoghurt Maker, Rice Cooker, Steamer, Warmer and you can Saute in it.  I'm glad I bought it.

Finally, I just noticed a pretty sunrise this morning, so took these two snaps through the Velux in bedroom 5.

Snow and daffodils

I am kicking myself for not taking my camera with me today when we went to the auction at Brecon. I heard hailstones being flung against our bedroom window overnight but we didn't have any snow locally - although it's on the higher ground surrounding the Towy valley, and of course, the Brecon Beacons are white.  I missed some really beautiful scenery, though of course, since we were driving along you'd have got some very blurred photos!

This is how our valley looks like with a dusting of snow.  Photo from 2010.

As we drove along the A40, it began to snow and was coming down steadily by the time we reached Sennybridge (which is always a very cold spot and quite often has record low temperatures).  The fields were all white and around Brecon it was a proper snowscape, although the roads must have been salted because nothing stuck.  Amazingly, there were Daffodils out (on the verge at Trecastle, if I remember rightly) but I should imagine this cold spell will slow many plants and bulbs down.

We spent all day at the auction, although I managed to pop out in between lots we were interested in and got some groceries from Morrisons, and checked out Bobbins, the sewing/patchwork shop there. I was very disappointed as there was scarcely a fabric there that I liked, apart from some very expensive Batik collection packs.  Nor was I prepared to pay £12 for a pack of offcuts of which I could only see the top fabric, and didn't know the amount in it or the other fabric designs.  I would have asked, had I felt inclined to pay up, but I didn't!

This is another 2010 photo.  The mountains you can see are above Llyn y Fan Fach, and are the Carmarthen Fans - the very end of the Brecon Beacon range. In Welsh, the Carmarthen Fans are called Bannau Sir Gaer.   This last peak is the Black Mountain (or Mynydd Ddu).   Today Black Mountain and all the uplands of the Brecon Beacons, including of course the flat top of Pen-y-Fan were all white with snow, and I was interested to see many old field systems (from the times of the 18th C Enclosures) on the lower land revealed by the dip and ridge of snow showing up old boundaries, long grubbed out to turn one or two acre fields into one 10 acre holding.  Even more fascinating was where the snow line began - and how, as we drove between Llandeilo and Llandovery, the rusty red slopes of Garn Goch, an ancient Iron Age hillfort, had no snow on it, unlike the higher slopes above.  Definitely a warmer place to set up camp.

Anyway, it was a reasonably successful auction, and we have some fresh stock for the Unit now.

Finally, sunrise on a snowy morning from my office window.  I wonder if I will wake up to that this weekend?  Since I am off down to Southampton to stay with my best friend Trish on Monday for a couple of days, I could do with it holding off a little longer.

Keeping warm

I finally got the Robins all sorted and cut out and ironed onto their respective squares today, and I also managed to start cutting out the tiny squares for the 9 patch blocks.  I was distracted, however, because I started watching daytime tv - 4 in a Bed, which is rabbits in the headlight tv - you are trapped into seeing what happens next!  Anyway, it was a nice mindless session and I was abel to sit and trace robins and cut them out, although once again, I managed to lose that wretched Robin template THREE TIMES between ironing board and sofa (one is behind the other).

12 robin blocks.  I tried sewing one on my very basic machine but knew it was going to be a failure when the book asked me to put my darning foot in place.  My machine doesn't have one!  That got unpicked. . .  I will now ask my family for money towards a better sewing machine for my birthday this year. . .

They said it is going to get much colder.  Her is what "much colder" looked like in 2009/January 2010.  Temperatures in our valley went down to -17 (this registered in the vehicle belonging to the AI man who visits Next Door's cows . . .)  The river froze practically from bank to bank in January.  This was it in November 2009.

This is the little feeder stream which dives under the road through a culvert at the bottom of the hill.

This was January 2010.  Even colder I think, as we'd had a foot of snow on the ground.  The boulders had their own icicles on and there was only a very narrow channel of moving water down the river.  It was PERISHING.

Sunset tonight.  Rosy.

I rather liked this silhouette of the trees at the side of the yard.

Back tomorrow I hope.  Keep warm.

Robins, raspberries and rivers

I haven't had a very good day today.  Worried for one of my daughters who is having a rough time of things emotionally right now.  So I didn't feel like doing anything.  WHAT a waste of a day.  I went for a walk, and first of all got hailed on, and then it came on to rain steadily and I got soaked and turned around just past the junction as there wasn't much point in continuing.

I still didn't find Robin no. 1, so traced another and have had a play with how he is meant to look.  I don't have any really sharp small scissors so his toes are very clumsy (he looks like a duck!) and I will trim the template up and give him skinnier ones.  At least I have the twelve white squares cut out and the twelve robins.

After I had spoken to my daughter this afternoon, we were both slightly more cheerful and I made a batch of Raspberry Muffins, using raspberries from the garden.  They are LUSH!

A few photos from the drier part of my walk.

A tree sweapt downstream and trapped on the rocks where the river narrows.

Detritis from the flood of a couple of weeks back.  The tyre is about 5 feet or so above the current river level and the wood is on the top of the bank, over 3 feet above the level of the lane there.

Down by the mill.

Let's hope tomorrow is a positive day.

All work and no play . . .

I've done the work, now I've managed to fit in a little bit of play.  Yesterday I worked flat out in the morning, vacuuming from top to bottom, dusting, washing the kitchen floor, evicting cluster flies - you know the routine.  In the afternoon I took myself up over the mynydd to Lampeter, where I visited Calico Kate's, the wonderful patchwork shop there.  The emphasis is on the fabrics, although it has one room dedicated to yarns/knitting/crochet and some haberdashery out front (along with yet more fabrics), and 13 rooms in total is enough to satisfy the most ardent fabricoholic.

I had decided, despite many unfinished projects, I would have a stab at the little Robin 9 patch wall hanging from the lovely book K bought me on Saturday.  I was short on reds generally, and definitely short on non-clashing and darker reds.  I wanted a theme, and found just what I wanted in the following materials, 4 fat quarters and 2 half metres.  I would have loved more, but at £14 a metre, I didn't dare:

The dark blue print is for the binding, and also the binding on the sides of the pre-printed Baltimore Bride hanging I got on Saturday.  This afternoon I blew the dust of my simple sewing machine and put the border on that and sewed the hanging tabs top and bottom.  Then I cut the batting to fit, and have pinned on the back.  I will slip stitch that in place at the top tomorrow, and then baste the backing and batting so I can start hand quilting it (in my spare time!)

As I was paying for my material, I noticed a little pre-cut pack of tiny 2 1/2" blocks (same size as the Robin quilt calls for), so I bought them and had a little play this afternoon - one corner not quite meeting, but it was just a practice run.

I also traced and cut out the Robin in acetate.  Then I put him down, OH swept in with an armful of bits which he deposited on the table, demanding help with finding the spare smoke alarm as he couldn't get the one down in the hall (beeping battery problem so needed a fresh battery).  Now I can't find the Robin.  I know what will happen, I will trace and cut him out all over again tomorrow and THEN I shall find the first one!

It was lovely having some me-time, and as it's still raining and I can't get outside to do the painting which needs doing, or any gardening (though I did plant some late bulbs today), I may as well get back into sewing mode.

An anniversary and a gift

My husband and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary today.  As we weren't feeling 100%, still both suffering with a rather nasty cold which is lingering, we didn't feel like going very far afield, and so we decided to have a wander round Newcastle Emlyn and lunch at the pub at Cenarth.  There is still ONE left open!  Mind you, we were the only customers, so I don't know how long it will last.

The river in spate - this is the River Teifi, which Cenarth straddles.  It is hard to imagine anyone out in a coracle on the river today, as it was running at quite a rate.  Mind you, the coracles were used for fishing and sheep-dipping, and January is not the month for either . . .

It wasn't raining until we left the pub and I ran the 100 yds or so to get some photos, when it promptly began to rain pretty hard, so you will just have to make do with some happy snapper type photos and nothing arty farty today!

Anyway, as I mentioned, we went to Newcastle Emlyn before Cenarth, and I dragged my long suffering husband into the patchwork shop.  His eyes had glazed over even before we had left the first room, but since he had offered to buy me an anniversary gift, it was necessary that he stayed to pay for it!

I bought myself some material too.  This pre-printed panel is beautiful and the minute I got home I began pinning it up to some batting . . .

Two fat quarters of material with a lovely design on.  I just wish I'd bought more.

At £4 this bag of scraps looked good value and has lots of goodies in it which await us being snowed in so I can craft away with no guilt.  (You've seen the forecast I assume - a rerun of the winter of '63 if they are to be believed.)

This is the gift my husband bought me.  I picked it up and just couldn't put it down, though I hate paying full price for books and can probably get it cheaper on-line. . .  (Just checked and I can't - on Amazon anyway - so I feel a bit better about that!)

There are some lovely things to sew, like this owl.  I already have the acetate quilting template for this, so no excuse not to have a go.

I love this cheerful little Robin 9-patch quilt too.  Of course, the few bits of red fabric I have in my stash all clash horribly, so another outing will be necessary if I do go ahead and make it. . .

It's not just a quilting book, and I thought this aran-weight shawl was lovely.

If I ever have grand daughters, this embroidered and appliqued quilt is a must.  Isn't it delightful?  I can dream . . .