Old and Achey

You would think that as I got older I would acquire some common sense, well  it would appear not. I let Nicki convince me that it would be fun to go to Zumba with her for an hour last night. I wasn't quite as energetic as she was so I didn't feel too bad when I got up this morning for my stroll around Ferry Meadows. But after half an hour's walking my legs were aching and feeling very heavy - as the day went on my arms started aching along with other body parts. But that's not the end of it I haven't learnt my lesson because I agreed to go with her again tomorrow evening. 

I'm very pleased with my dyeing results, in fact, I'm quite excited. The colours are crisp and vibrant even when I over dyed a printed fabric.

I'm keeping notes on my dyeing for future reference.

Right now I've got this quilt on the basting table so that I can get it ready for a show on Create and Craft TV on Sunday. It won't be quilted, but I will be able to show in more detail how a quilt should be layered and basted. 

Early Morning

I was up at 6 this morning to go for a walk, I nearly got back into bed but once I was out and about I was so glad I hadn't it was a gorgeous morning and the sun was lovely and warm on my back.
This was Ferry Meadows at about 6.30.

The ground looked like it had been sprinkled with icing sugar. A very pretty frost. So far this week I have walked just over 23 miles, I know this because I have an app on my phone that tells me so and of course it's accurate. Even if it isn't I've enjoyed my walks.

Now yellow isn't normally a colour I choose to work in but I've used it twice in the last couple of weeks. Once to make myself a new needle case as the one I use at the moment isn't big enough so this one has six pages and is rather pretty looking for yellow with a splash of red. 

The second time I used yellow was last week at our Spectrum meeting. Gina asked us to take along some fabric and thread in preparation for some hand stitching. We had to choose one stitch and one colour to work in. Again I choose yellow and Fly stitch. The first bit of embroidery that I did was to make a frame with the stitch, which is quite boring although it probably wouldn't be if there was something in the centre, something to bear in mind for the future. Next I worked the stitch in varying shades of yellow over itself again and again building up the surface. I really like this little piece I just love the texture it has created. This will be finished and turned into something I just don't know what at the moment but it would go nice with black.

Whilst at Spectrum we also spoke about dyeing, something I haven't done since my City and Guilds days. Jenny told us about the recipe that she uses and I thought I'd give it a go. I have dyed four fat quarters four different colours but two reds just for comparison, wine red, scarlet and the other two are olive green and golden yellow. The fabrics are on the radiators drying at the moment but I'll show you the results in due course.

Last week I covered a folder to keep my recipes in. I have two drawers in the kitchen full of bits of paper and it drives me mad when ever I want a recipe and I have to look through the whole lot so after however many years I've finally done something about it. That doesn't mean the drawers are now empty, oh no! Only the recipes that have been tried, tested and approved (which means edible in our house) made it into the folder. So that means there may be some experimenting going on in the kitchen while I try the others out or I could just say bother and bin them.

Time Out

I've had a blogging break for personal reasons and considered giving up my blog but have decided to carry on so here I am again.

I haven't been idle during my break, there has been some experimenting in the kitchen. My first ever gluten-free cake, a ginger cake. The kitchen smelt lovely whilst it was cooking so I was hopeful and I could see through the oven door that it had risen. It came out looking perfect, tasted lovely and was liked by everyone who had a piece.

On Thursday afternoon I looked after Ellie for a little while so I took her into the office to see Grandad. I think she was trying for employee of the month.

Her drawing skills were good. 

However her skills at eating do-nuts were excellent.

See no problem.

Freddie with mummy.

Yesterday after my early evening walk I made mushroom soup. It's one of my favourites and of course it was gluten free. The only disappointment was the gluten free bread roll, I'm glad I don't eat a lot of bread.

Wednesday was the monthly meeting of Spectrum and just for once I had been a good girl and done my homework. I'm glad Gina made me stick with my original design as I'm much happier with it now. If you remember my theme is Circles, which I have taken literally in this instance. The colours are representative of the hydrangeas in my garden. Or should I say that used to be in my garden I think I might have killed them off, time will tell.

This is just a working sample I've abandoned my sketchbook temporarily but I will have to go back to it. I painted some pages from my sketchbook (knew it would come in useful sometime)  cut out lots of circles using a punch and stitched them together using invisible thread. I was really pleased that the invisible thread worked in the bobbin it needed a little coaxing but I got there.

Then I strung them onto these frames with some help from Neil. It took almost two hours just to do the small one. I intend for the finished project to be hung in circles. So now I have lots more sampling to do starting with fabric for the circles, although I might not use fabric I spied a bag of Quality Street wrappers this morning and thought they might work.

Oh and yesterday evening I made a Mars Bar and Rice Krispie cake for the stitching ladies at the shop today.