Quilt Festival

Last weekend there was a quilt festival held in my old town. I didn't know it was going to be on before I moved, but luckily I spotted a poster at my new local library telling us all about it.

So off I went.....

This is what greeted me as I walked through the door.

All these lovely quilted cushions were in a raffle, and a winner was picked each night of the festival -needless to say, I didn't win! LOL.

Still, all the money went to good causes.

These were on offer next..... But good girl that I am (not), I resisted. - Until the end.

These were quilted Christmas trees hanging on the wall.





Beautiful quilted bags and note book covers.



The detail on the quilts is amazing.



These are the little mice from the quilt below.

Each quilt had the persons name on it who made it, and a little blurb about what inspired the quilt, which I thought was really nice.
The Grandma quilt below was inspired by a trip to America!!


I loved these 3d quilted leaves..


Below was one of my favourite quilts.
Even though it's a 'winteryish' (is that a word?) scene, the fabrics used had lovely butterflies on them and summery flowers.. It really appealed to me..



One for the cat lovers.



This was a quilted piece of artwork for an exam.
Love the 3d bikini top.




At the end of your visit, you had to choose a favourite out of about the 150 items.
I chose the quilt below because I thought it was truly an heirloom quilt. -Totally inspiring.-
It celebrated the lives of a 'young' couple who had just reached their 50th wedding anniversary. All the photos that hed been imposed onto the fabric meant something to the couple. i.e, it had a picture of the place where they met, got married, their children and grand children, first house etc...



I just thought it was amazing, and came away with quilt envy..


So I had a lovely cup of tea, and a slice of coffee and walnut cake to help me get over it!


Have a great weekend. Take care. x

P.s. Although this blog entry is dated 30th August, I've posted it on 5th September.

Busy, busy, bizzy...

Goodness me, doesn't time fly...

I've been very busy round the house.

Still unpacking boxes, and making new curtains for the kitchen window.

I've got both the girls bedroom curtains to do next, then we've got to get some new ones for my son. I haven't even been taking any pictures of sewing/crocheting projects, as I've just been trying to get it done. And at the end of a long day it's much nicer to look at everyones elses blog :0)

~*~

Some lovely people have been leaving kind messages on here. Some of these people I used to avidly read their blogs, and leave comments. The trouble is, I haven't been to their blogs for a while -I hope you know who you are- because this new computer that we got when we moved simply will not let me read them!! I get onto their blog, then straight away my computer states something like "internet explorer is closing" ! It is so frustrating!

Hopefully I'll get it fixed soon, so can get back to the lovely blogs that I am missing out on!

~*~

Just a few cute photos below of the lovely animals we saw at Marwell Zoo in August (hence the August date at the top of this post).

These Lemurs below were so gorgeous and funny. The day we went it kept pouring with rain, then being really hot and sunny in between (you know one of those typical summer days we had when we were kids...remember them?) .

Everytime the sun come out, these Lemurs would just spread themselves out and sunbathe :0)

This flower was in the tropical house. It was such a huge lily! But they didn't seem to have any fragrance which I thought was strange. Even if the fragrance had been horrible, I still thought it would be there!?

I love rhinos!

You could walk amongst these wollabys and they just laid there!




These meerkats were cute!

Anyway, have a great weekend everyone, and hopefully I'll be more organised next week with some photos of what I've been up to!

Take care,

Donna x
P.S. Date of this post is actually 10/09/2010

A relaxing time..

At last! The sun has come out to play!

The children go back to school this week, but at least they can have

a couple of days in the sunshine at the beach!

Straight down to 'Sandbanks' we went to stake our claim at the beach. (And the car park!)

Got there at 9.15am (!) to avoid the bank holiday congestion.

Walking across the beach to our claim, I found this gorgeous little shell which is really unususal for our beaches. Just had to show you.

The sea was gorgeously clear..

YES, this is English sea!



Obviously I took my latest sewing project with me, -which are yoyo's! And as you can see, my thimble came in useful for other things too!



Gorgeous blue skies with just a bit of cloud (well till 3pm anyway, then there was lots!)

This is my youngest two as soon as we got to the beach they were in the sea...

We're going again this morning when everyone gets up, as it's our last chance before school.

Speak soon and take care.

Donna x

Bunting, blog design and pay it forward.....

Hello lovely people!

I had a lovely surprise sent to me today, but more about that later...

First, remember I told you it was my eldest daughters 15th Birthday last Sunday? No? Well, it was. And I finally got to do some crafty sewing! Yes, all these weeks without any craftiness at all, and Saturday afternoon I was in my element in the kitchen (!) with my sewing machine, iron, and ironing board -I try not to make a habit of using these last two items unless it's for crafty reasons!-

But, even if I say so myself, the skull bunting turned out just right for my daughter, and she was chuffed to bits!

The only thing I would have done differently was, I used muslin for the backing (as it was all I could find of black fabric in my stash), which slightly puckered in a couple of places. So obviously I should have used a light weight cotton.

Here's all the different fabrics I used for the bunting 'fronts'.

All with different elements that my daughters 'into' at the moment!

Here's me getting to work on the first one.

And here's the finished article.....

I used black cotton tape as opposed to bias binding for the ribbon, and this worked really well.

Anyway, it's something to decorate her new room with now it's been all decorated out for her!

~*~

Sorry if you regularly read my blog, and you have noticed I keep changing the design and the heading picture, I'm still learning, and for me it's a very BBIIIIIGGG learning curve! LOL.

~*~

On a more pleasing note... Look what I received this afternoon!

I was so excited when I received this in the post! Well, I mean, it's not often you get a parcel like this from Mr Postman is it, unless it's Christmas or your birthday!

I received it from this lovely lady http://ournewlifeinthecountry.blogspot.com
A few months back, I put my name in the hat for a Pay it Forward, and it was pulled out!

I couldn't believe it when Sue emailed me the other day to ask for my address!

And here it is. I thought I'd share it with you all as you're all so lovely and leave me such nice comments!

This was in the mauve wrapping paper that was beautifully done up with some lovely ribbon..

Look, I got given all this.... Doesn't it look scrummy..!

I got these beautiful Lavender Sachets -one to go in my drawers (the ones where you keep your clothes!), and one that is, at this moment hanging over the end of my curtain rail by my bed MMmmmm...



A beautiful handmade card with lovely patchwork fabric, and some lovely lavender bath salts in a little tin...

Some of Sue's (now mine) handmade lavender soap -which I can't stop smelling..

And, I'm delighted to say that I now have my very own Fairy Godmother which I could do with no end..... So I'm really hoping that if I wish hard enough, I'll get a few of my wishes that come true! Ok, ok, well maybe not a few, thast being greedy, but one or two 'll do!
Here's a closer look at the lovely handmade lavender heart that Sue gave me. This is the back..

And this is the front..

Now that I've received my first P I F, I will be giving away my first P I F in a few weeks when the children go back to school, as I'll have got more of my stash unpacked (hopefully) and I can get round to making a few things during the day. Especially now we only live 10minutes away from the schools instead of a 45mins journey!

~*~

That's it for now. You all take care, and help me pray for sunshine for the rest of the holidays! LOL.

~xxx~

P.s. I forgot to say, the teddy in my header is the first one I ever crocheted, and he is tiny! (I don't think I could make anymore -much to both my daughters disgust, because 1, I made him up and didn't write the recipe down, and 2, he was just ssooooo fiddley!) Just thought you might like to take a peep at him! Oh, and the ribbon and card are what Sue gave me. Bye X

All moved....

But still lots of unpacking to go!

Hello everyone! How are you all?
Well, I'm pleased to say we're getting used to our new home now. Unfortunately, all my craft stash is still packed away, so I haven't been doing any crafting, crocheting or anything crafty at all lately.... I have been doing loads of cleaning though!
I've been getting serious withdrawel symptoms from crafting. The trouble is with the three children on school holidays at the moment as well, the only thing I have time to do is really some cleaning and looking after them.

You'd think that as they get older they would look after themselves a bit more now wouldn't you? Well, as I'm finding out, they don't! LOL

I'm sure life was a lot easier when I had 3 children under four running (and crawling) around, than now having two teenagers and an eleven year old.

My eldest is 15years on Sunday! Goodness, doesn't time fly...

We have a much smaller garden here than at our old house, but here the garden is nicer. We've also inherited an apple tree which is absolutely bursting with apples at the moment...

I got the children to pick up a few windfalls the other day, and as we made a tart, I thought that I would take pictures of the first one in our new bungalow.....and with our 'new' apple tree.

Have no idea what type of apple they are. But I do know that they're eaters and not cookers. Does anyone know how you can find out what stock they are?

This is where they fell from....

These are some ('mouldy ones' as my thirteen year old son calls bruised apples)
apples that we put in the tart.
This is using cheats ready frozen shortcrust pastry....

LOL! I don't know how to get pictures off my blog yet (big learning curve for me this 'blogging lark') so if I accidently repeat a picture, or put it in the wrong order, I just have to leave it at the moment, so bear with me for a while....

pastry all rolled out...

A small amount of brown sugar, and a lot of sprinkled cinnamon.... I love cinnamon, and the name cinnamon. Trouble is, there seems to be lots of Indian restaurants called 'Cinnamon', so you couldn't really use it for a business project, otherwise people will just think you own an Indian restaurant! (Not that theres anything wrong with that, it's just not very crafty of vintagey now is it?)



Add your cut up apple to the pastry, and gently heat some apricot jam..

And this is the end result ! LOL 'Cept this pic should be at the end and not here! So bear with me again as the rest of the pictures are after this one....




Heated apricot jam...

Jam spooned over the apples....More cinnamon added, and popped in the oven for about 20mins...

(Pretend that the photo of the tart with custard is below..)

MMMMmmmm... Yummy! LOL

Anyway, at least I got some photos on here, even if they're not of crafting (well not fabric or paper crafting anyway!)

I have got to get my sewing machine out on Saturday though, 'cos I've got to make some 'skeleton' bunting for my daughters Birthday..... (Yes, she is into things with skeletons on at the moment..)

So I'll let you all know how that goes, and hopefully I'll remember to take some before and after shots too!

It's so good to have the computer up and running though. I've missed looking at all your blogs so much over the past few weeks.
We've got a new computer too, so I'm having to try and remember all my favourite blogs. Which I've not finding that hard as I was such an addict...

Anyway, I think I'm chatting too much now, so I'm going to give you all a break and sign off.

Have a lovely weekend every one, and lets hope the sun shines again!

*~*