At last - it's flaming June!

And about time too!  Even now I still expect to look out of the window and see the rain bucketing down.  May has been a busy month in lots of ways but I am rapidly becoming the Queen Of Unfinished Projects. Even as I blog i'm aware that this is a displacement activity! At the moment the list consists of: a patchwork bed quilt for the spare room; a knitted cushion cover; several felt pieces to be made into cushion covers; an embroidery to frame; a dress pattern and fabric waiting to be dealt with and a wall hanging I started on the peg loom.  I also have things I am making for our daughter's wedding which are secret until the day. One of these days I'll catch up.....

 On the plus side, I have finished the felted bag I started, 

and made a little brooch from some felt scraps.

The nest box on the side of the house has a camera in, and there is a little family of blue tits in there.  It's lovely to watch the baby birds snoozing away quietly until, suddenly, one of the parent birds arrives with food.  Their little yellow beaks gape open and there is a frenzy of excitement as they wait to be fed.  Hopefully they will all thrive and fledge safely.  We've been watching Springwatch on TV and some of the birds on their have not been so lucky.  Ynys Hir, where the series is filmed, is not too far from here.  It's nice to see the beautiful scenery of this part of Wales being beamed around the world!

We took our touring caravan about seventy miles to the Ceredigion/Pembrokeshire border for a few days over half term.  Newcastle Emlyn is the loveliest little town - friendly people and unusual shops.  I even bought my mother-of-the-bride outfit and a very elegant hat!  Gwennie loved the sea at Poppit Sands near Cardigan, and even deigned to have a paddle.  You can see how sunny it was!  We went to the Welsh National Wool Museum at Felindre, although I was disappointed to find nothing there made of Welsh Woollen felt.

Now. Back to those unfinished items...........

A whole week of felting fun....

It seems like such a lot has happened since I last posted here.  Last weekend was this year's Wonderwool Wales, held at the Royal Welsh showground near Builth Wells - about 35 miles from where I live in Powys.  The felting group I belong too, Funky Felters, had an exhibition of our work there over the weekend so I was there for two days. On the Friday we set out our work which took a very tiring four and a half hours, but it was well worth the effort!

The following day I was back again (on very sore feet) to view everyone else's work and all the amazing trade stands.  Too much to see, so little time to see it - which was fortunate as I still managed to spend far too much money on gorgeous items like merino wool and mulberry silk from Adelaide Walker, beautiful buttons from The Textile Garden and all sorts of lovely stash from Oliver Twists. 

This weekend, as it was a bank holiday, we took our touring caravan further north in Wales to Dolgellau. It was only a short trip to see how our 10 month-old Border Collie, Gwennie, got on as a caravanning dog.  She was absolutely brilliant so no doubt we'll be off again on another trip soon.  We went to Dolgellau so that I could go to the Fubky Felters' monthly meeting.  I managed to make a small clutch bag (not quite finished yet) and nuno felted some lovely red organza with black merino wool to make a triangular scarf, which I am quite pleased with. 

The scarf has really got me thinking about other things I can make and I can't wait, now, for some more felting time.

Thanks for reading.  All comments really appreciated!!

Where did the Easter holidays go?

Goodness knows where the holidays went!  They disappeared in a flash.  The house in Staffordshire sold and we finally moved all the rest of our furniture to Wales on a very snowy day.  The words 'quart'and 'pint pot' spring to mind here but it is all squashed in to be sorted out at leisure.  The children, who both moved out ages ago, came and had a massive sort out of all the stuff they had never taken with them.  So now the garage is full of stuff to go to the tip.
It's been quiet on the sewing front since I last posted, but I did have a day with the Funky Felters and finally got to do some nuno felting.  I used an old, black synthetic chiffon scarf and some pink merino wool tops, along with the remains of a skein of Colinette Point5 wool.  The result is a beautifully soft, warm and lightweight stole which is pictured below and I'm very happy with it,  It was a NIGHTMARE to felt and took ages.  I felt like I'd gone several rounds with Mike Tyson to produce it, but it was worth the effort!!

I ended up taking the stole home to complete the felting process, during which I was ably assisted by our beautiful Border Collie, Gwennie!

Our daughter is getting married in October so there are only six months to the big day!! It's very exciting and  I can't avoid the diet for much longer :-(   I seen to have a lot to do over the coming months.  No details as it's Top Secret, but suffice to say I have enough sewing and decoupage to keep me occupied until the big day, added to which is the temptation to make my own Mother-of the-Bride outfit.  The ones I've looked at/tried on so far seem to be horrifically overpriced which really grieves me when I know how much the mark up is on these garments.  Just the very mention of the word Wedding seems to say to retailers "Treble the price - these idiots will pay anything!".  Well not this idiot, except as a very last resort.

Spring appears to have sprung at last.  In fact, I have to admit that today was the first day since the end of October that I wore a pair of shoes to work as opposed to boots.  Don't get overexcited though - I still had woolly tights on!  Let's hope the warmer weather continues - it was almost tropical today as we reached the dizzy heights of 14 degrees C.

Thanks for reading my ramblings!

Doesn't time fly?

It seems ages since I wrote on here, and indeed it is!  Lots of things have been going on lately which has meant that mt time at the blog has been limited.  My lovely mum had her 80th birthday so lots of celebrating with family and friends was in order.  I finally finished the patchwork cushion I made for her to mark the occasion.  I hope she likes it!  

We had my equally lovely mother-in-law to stay for a few days last week.  The weather, which we had high hopes for, was very bleak and cold so there weren't many outings.  We did, however, manage a trip out for lunch to The Lion in Llandinam. And very delicious it was too!!

There have been births, so I have been felting baby booties.  It was the first felting I had done for ages and the first resist felting I had tried, so I was quite pleased with the results. On Sunday I am going felting for the day.  More on this when I get back!

We have finally (fingers crossed!) sold our old house in England, so we need to move out the rest of our belongings.  My husband is there today clearing out the loft.  I have no idea what's up there but I suspect lots of wood and model trains - it's a mystery to me how the ceiling has never collapsed. I can't wait, now, to get all the rest of my things into our house in Wales.  It feels as if we've been in limbo for ages although it's only been a few months. The problem will be fitting it all in.  Anyone want a few hundred books?

The daffodils are out in the garden, shivering away in the cold wind.  I have to say it feels as if we will never have any sunny days again.  The hills have been shrouded in mist a lot of the time, and even Gwennie hasn't wanted to go out in the garden for a good sniff around, although on walks she has been racing through the woods and across fields with abandon.  She has to make the most of it as the lambs will be out in the fields here soon.  There are already lots of lambs on the lower lying pastures but as we are higher up, the farmers are wisely keeping them in at the moment.  It's March tomorrow.  May it come in like a lion and go out as a lamb, as the old saying goes. 

Twenty years on....

Yesterday my Quilting Group held a Quilting Bee. Lots of people were invited for tea and cakes (NEVER refuse tea and cake. That's the law).  Anyway, we were supposed to take something along to show and tell and panic set in.  I haven't made anything since Christmas, and I gave those away. Then I found the above. I started this piece of Cathedral Window quilting twenty years ago but never finished it.  It was lurking in my stash cupboard, looking very sorry for itself, especially around the edges which were a bit stained and grubby.  Anyway, it was duly shown and told and so now I think I should finish it.  I have also started a cushion cover using triangular patches in a heart shape which were stolen from Mrs Sew and Sew who herself had copied them from Karen.  As Mrs Sew and Sew says ' Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery' so I hope they're both okay with this.  I've chosen to make mine in some lovely vibrant pinks and greens. I'll put it up when I've finished. I had a lovely drive to Llandrindod Wells today as I was on a course for work.  It's lovely to see some green after days and days of snow covered hills.  On the subject of which, there are some daffodils trying to come out in the garden which have survived the harsh weather. Spring will be early again methinks although we were awoken this morning by a tremendous flash of lightning and an even bigger clash of thunder. The weather gets more weird by the day. If we had a tsunami I doubt I'd be surprised.  And we can't blame it all on 'the rockets up in space' like my mother used to do.