Out driving!

On Sunday afternoon we went for a drive to Porthlevan via Helston. It was a glorious afternoon with the sun shining and the fields and hedgerows full of Spring flowers. Lovely! The pictures above are of our trip.
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The first one on the left is of the first Cosmos flower to come out in my garden and nothing to do with the trip at all!The next two are of an old Georgian house in a back road in Helston. This is the old part of the town. The next one is of Porthlevan harbour. The tide was in and there were lots of boats moored there. Under the picture of the Cosmos is a picture of a brass band which was playing in front of the pub on the harbour wall. Brass bands are a common feature in Cornwall and are to be found at most events as well as in places like this. Then there is me sitting on the pier wall with the sea behind me. Lovely waves with a glorious curl to them. Future inspiration! And next is a picture of a fishing boat coming back surrounded by seagulls. Not as common a sight as it used to be! Martin found a shop which had a row of carved beach huts for sale. I would have bought one only the shop was closed! And they sell delicious icecream. Such a shame but saved me all those calories! Under the brass band are two pictures of the boating lake on the outskirts of Helston. I couldn't resist the picture of the ducks tail up in the water. Then home through Helston town this time. And views of old mining chimneys and chimneys complete with engine house. There are heaps of these all over - a most common site in this part of the world where tin mining used to be the occupation! Lovely foxgloves with views behind of the new modern windmills. Not a patch on the old windmills of yore! No soul! To me they are an alien force straight from science fiction! Views of the sea and estuary of the river Fal as we come down Mabe hill and last but not least daisies hiding in the rushes at the petrol station we stopped at near home. All in all a good afternoon's outing; much enjoyed by both of us!

The Road to Hell!

Well I am probably well on my way to Hell as my intentions have been good but not unfortunately brought to fruition. I am of course talking about my lack of content for the blog! I would like to thank all those people who so kindly leave comments or email me. Please do keep them coming as they are a spur to my conscience. They are much appreciated and make me feel really bad that I'm not more regular in my writings. However I am now going to make up for my tardiness!
At the end of May my quilting group had a demonstration table in one of the tents at Mabe Shindig and Steam rally. As my group holds it's classes in Mabe we thought this would be a good advertisment. However sometimes one's plans go adrift. We hadn't counted on the weather being so appalling. Rain and high winds. It was so bad that the show was called off in the afternoon which was so sad for the organisers. I felt really sorry for all the folk in the craft tent trying to sell their goods as few people ventured out into the misery of the weather. We had a good time among ourselves drinking coffee and eating biscuits. In the picture below Yvonne is showing Eileen how to make Yo Yo's using the Clover tool. The quilt on the tent wall is the first large quilt that Yvonne made and lovely it is too!


Here are some pictures of the Disperse Dyeing I did (all on originally white poly/cotton). From the top left: dyed background with stamped shapes to use as base for an applique eventually; then two pieces with leaf panels to use as borders.In the middle row from the left two pieces which were randomly printed to use as backgrounds and on the right a piece made up of various prints to make a fishy scene. Bottom left is a graduation of prints making up a landscape type piece. Disperse dyes being transparent some interesting effects and colours can be made. And the last two are done on Lutradur which I shall burn and distress for my class on Fabric Postcards in a fortnight's time. I thoroughly enjoyed this and the class had a great time. I like to keep painted papers by me so that I can print whenever I need to.


As well as this I have been doing some Trapunto by Machine. I love the effect of Trapunto and this is such an easy way of achieving it. And as well one ends up with a usable back.






And as well as all this quilting I have been working hard in the garden. I am only a spring-summer gardener and this year Spring came late or so it seemed! I have sown seeds and planted plants and now I'm waiting for them to do things. The Avocado has weathered the winter sans it's little tent...it's now too big for it. The leaves looked very sad but there are masses of new ones coming and the old ones are dropping off. Not the world's best example of an avocado but it is mine own and I like it! I really ought to dust off my other blog now that I'm doing something in the gardening but it takes me all my time to remember to add to this one. One of the problems being that now the computer is upstairs I don't use it as much! I don't quite know how to over come this! I have a lap top but it's not the same!
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I shall have to make more effort soon as I have to design and make next year's quilt for class. I'm hoping to do an applique quilt this year in some shape or other so if I'm on the computer designing that there will be no excuse for not keeping up the blog. I already have some rough ideas sketched out and now it is a matter of playing with them in Photoshop or EQ6.
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I have to hang my head in shame and say that I dropped out of the Take it Further Challenge as I just couldn't keep up. Too much going on that took precedence! Including reading a book now and then! At the moment I am wading or should say galloping through the Father Cadfael books by Ellis Peters! I'm amazed I've only just found them. I now want to go to Shrewsbury to visit all the places in the books! My mother comes from Shropshire so it would be interesting to have a leisurely look around rather than just driving through the county on the way to Scotland. Perhaps I'll arrange a week's holiday to coincide with our Wedding Anniversary in July. 42 years married! Doesn't seem nearly as long as that! I wonder if Martin would say the same? Big Grin!