… feel good friday :)

May 3rd, 2013 4 Comments
Posted in: Made by hand, Out and About

This is the post I prepared to upload last Friday ~ before our wifi started to misbehave ~ we now have a new router … it is sitting in it’s box in the dining room! It has been a busy busy week for both Mr P and me, and the window of opportunity to swap the routers is yet to present itself … so I am hoping the dodgy one allows enough cyber waves to reach my remote laptop so that I can finally get this post to you!

It has been a little while, and here are some of the places I have been since I was last here …

~ at the sewing machine ~

cross body bag prototype

vintage fabric bins

~ walking the land ~

cropped field

woodland lane

~ at the flower stall ~

white tulips

white tulip

I have some fabric baskets in the shop, some have sold already …

I have stitched up a prototype cross body bag which looks fab …

I have an heard from another gallery who wish to have some of my bags and baskets …

I have made an apron by special request … and have been pacing the floor awaiting the delivery of cotton webbing tape to make ties for said apron …

I have been pulling fabric off the shelves and mixing and matching it for new stitchy projects …

Yes, I have been busy … and it is all good … until, following a delightful wedding last Friday I suddenly found myself exhausted … you know, flaked out, wiped out, fit to drop, pooped!

And so I stopped, and realised that it was the first time I had stopped since the beginning of April … I had been ticking off day after April day without stopping. And I noticed that in trying to set up a business from home it is very easy to never take a day off. And so I switched off the computer, put away the sewing machine and took myself for a walk – that walk up above down the beautiful woodland lane … an old favourite of a walk … which ended with a cold cider in a pub garden, because it was probably the first day this year that it has been warm enough for a pub garden. And it was glorious.

Perhaps I will do the same this weekend!

Wishing you a restful and renewing weekend, whatever you may find yourself doing!

 

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… the bright side

Apr 8th, 2013 4 Comments
Posted in: Home Life, Out and About

It seems I can’t do everything ~ although, secretly, I do believe that with an extra three days in each week, I would come close!

So my blog has been abandoned for over a week ~ the lemon loves facebook page is sitting idle ~ my sewing machine experienced an unprecedented ten consecutive days of neglect ~ and my camera has a backlog of more than a months worth of unedited photos … my heart gets a little nervous about all of these things …

… however, my nephew came to stay over for two whole nights ~ some long-loved friends rented a nearby holiday let for the week ~ a much delayed mate-date eventually came to fruition ~ I squeezed in some extra hours at work ~ and yesterday I caught up with one of my favourite girls for some brunch and a woodland walk … and it has been marvellous!

Queenswood, Dinmore, Herefordshire

The past eleven days have been full of family, friends and food; laughter, love and friendship; woodlands, hilltops, streams, sticks, mud …

… and even a peep of Spring.

And now … I have two bags to complete stitching, some baskets to make, photographs to edit and stock to photograph and upload to my shop …

… one step at a time, keeping an eye on the bright side all the way!

 

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… another place

Mar 25th, 2013 3 Comments
Posted in: News, Out and About

After our trip to Lancashire, we detoured on the way home to Crosby. For years we have wanted to see Antony Gormley’s installation, Another Place on the beach at Crosby.

We arrived at high tide … a muddy whipped up sea, grey skied, cold to the bone kind of day … and there, head and shoulders facing the force of the waves stood an iron man … silent against the churn of the water …

Antony Gormley - Another Place at Crosby

… we waited for the tide to turn, watching gulls circle, daily runners and dog walkers brace against the wind, grey against grey as dull clouds slid across the sky …

… and then we walked, promenading above the beach, pulling scarves higher, hoods lower … and stepping down onto the dark damp sand, we were among them …

Antony Gormley - Another Place at Crosby

… the men who stare … solid, sturdy, sure … an army of Canutes …

Antony Gormley - Another Place at Crosby

…defying the tide …

Antony Gormley - Another Place at Crosby

… watching over the distant mountains of North Wales, the docks of Liverpool, the passage of time …

Antony Gormley - Another Place at Crosby

… some, marked by humans, jumped on by dogs, whipped, battered and scorched by nature …

Antony Gormley - Another Place at Crosby

… as the journeys of life pass by, day by day by season by year … the iron men stand, silently still, and present.

Gentle faced …

Antony Gormley - Another Place at Crosby

… and deep in sea, and sand, and the debris of life …

Antony Gormley - Another Place at Crosby

… as the tide rolls out and in and calms and storms in its rhythm … as the gulls and wading birds squawk and scuttle and flitter … as the dogs and children bounce and bark and bound … and the walkers pause and stare alongside and behind … there is a mark that some things stay, a constancy, an anchor, a deeply rooted surety to their presence. Here, and now, and tomorrow.

Antony Gormley - Another Place at Crosby

When new tides and new light will bring change to that which is the same.

 

 

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… Lancashire

Mar 18th, 2013 2 Comments
Posted in: Made by hand, Out and About

Last week we took a little trip up the M6 to the lovely town of Lancaster ~ to deliver a freshly stitched batch of baskets to Gallery 23, the exhibition space above the wonderful Arteria, a shop full of gorgeousness if ever there was one!

fabric baskets

fabric baskets

fabric baskets

I was a little anxious ~ never having done anything like this before, and still feeling very much like a learner in the whole ‘making things’ world ~ but I was welcomed so enthusiastically that all my fears fell away (thank you to Sharon). These and other baskets, and a few of my bags are now awaiting the Exhibition launch on Wednesday evening …

Response exhibition

… how exciting is that!

Whilst in Lancashire, we took some time to explore and this is what we found …

… a peaceful, mirror-like canal, home to swans, moorhens, ducks, grebes and narrow boats …

Canal at Conder Green

Swan at Conder Green

… far-reaching views of the mountains of Cumbria from Morcambe …

View to Cumbria from Morcambe

… the beauty of light over the Lune estuary, fading sunlight, crisp air, the evening call of wading birds, the distant baaing of lambs …

lighthouse at the Lune Estuary

… the glory of a sunset at Conder Green …

sunset at Conder Green

… a beautiful two days indeed!

 

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… beauty in the detail

Mar 11th, 2013 4 Comments
Posted in: Made by hand

Purely self indulgent ~ I love these images …

fabric detail - wools and tweeds

fabric details - weave and patterns

fabric detail - barkcloth colour and texture

… I love the textures, the tones, the weave. I see colour, shape and structure. I see simplicity and complexity side by side. I see beauty in the detail. I am learning that is where it is often to be found. I am opening my eyes and letting it in.

And I wanted to share it with you.

 

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… the finish line!

Feb 15th, 2013 17 Comments
Posted in: Made by hand

A special feel good friday celebration this week ~ as I have finally completed the quilt I started over twelve months ago!! Oh yes! A big ta-dah moment indeed!

HST Quilt

I have been following a quilt block tutorial by Jeni at In Color Order ~ she posted instructions for one block each month, throughout the year, so that all twelve blocks could be stitched together to make a completed quilt! And I am quite impressed with myself that I managed to keep up with it and to actually finish the quilt properly!

HST Quilt

So here it is ~ in all its completed glory!

HST Quilt

I chose to use up the remaining print fabrics as sashing around each of the blocks … I have noticed that people often use white which gives a lovely clean and fresh look … but I was inspired by this quilt on flickr to use colours, and I love the brightness it brings to the finished quilt.

For the reverse I used one of my favourite vintage sheets …

HST Quilt - back

… which has a beautiful soft feel to it.

You can see on the picture above that I kept the quilting to a minimum … using tramlines horizontally and vertically … this is partly because I am still very much a learner … but also … I like to feel some movement in the fabrics of a finished quilt, I find that some very decorative quilting is so dense that you kind of lose the feeling of layers … maybe that’s the point … but I just like it this way!

You can see the quilted tramlines on the front in these pictures …

HST Quilt

HST Quilt

I am especially pleased with the binding … I adapted a really helpful tutorial from Petit Design Co I found that using a double layer of fabric has given the binding a density and weight which is very pleasing … and machine stitching it meant that I was able to bind it in an afternoon … my previous hand stitched binding on a much smaller quilt took me about two months!!

HST Quilt

There is still so much for me to learn in the world of quilting ~ skills to hone ~ techniques to perfect … and I am sure many experienced quilters will see nothing but faults in this one … but it is my third completed quilt, and with each one I finish I see progress. And that is a good thing.

So there it is! And it is all mine! Completed and beautiful.

HST Quilt

And a few other little highlights of the week include …

~ a lovely snow-dusted woodland walk with a favourite friend ~

~ two … yes, two dinners and a lunch cooked by friends last weekend ~

~ BBC Radio … so much variety … I am loving it ~

~ watching Wallander on DVD under a blanket in front of the fire while it is snowing outside … perfect cold weather viewing ~

~ eccles cakes … made for winter ~

and

~ Pinterest … you can find me here ~

 

Wishing you all weekend full of good things and shining lights!

 

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