The British Quilt and Stitch Village 2015

Hello everyone.  I was going through my photo album on my phone and suddenly realised that I hadn't posted about the trip my bestest friend Sue and I made to the Quilt and Stich Village at the end of April - so, better late than never...

 

 

It is held at Uttoxeter Race course, the weather was lovely...

 

 

The standard of entries to the embroidery competition was higher than ever...

 

 

Had to include a football theme here ;)...

 

 

Loved the colours used on this piece...

But the real reason for our trip was to see Sue's entries...aren't they amazing...

A crown to mark the reign of Queen Elizabeth II and a clock, the skill and hours of work that went into these cannot be truly measured...

She very deservedly won first prize in two categories!!  Well done Sue, I am so pleased that your beautiful work has won recognition for the second year in a row. 

We also had the chance to stock up on some craft supplies, there is a really nice collection of stalls with lots of goodies on offer.  I really look forward to attending this show, I have been to each one so far.

Hope you are having a lovely week!

Helenxx

Welcome 2015!

Good morning and Happy New Year!  A whole New Year spread before us - hopefully we can all make the most of it and grab every new opportunity that comes our way.

Yesterday was a lovely day.  First there was some happy pootling about with some crochet in the morning (yes, I was the first to get up again, I love that quiet time before the household wakes up).  I had quite a lot of scraps of yarn left after completing my challenge blanket (which will have it's own post soon) so I am making a lap blanket for me - this is my progress so far...

I will make it as large as I can with the yarn I have left.  The rows are completely random in order as I am going with the smallest scraps to the largest left over to make the most of every bit of yarn.  But I am quite happy with the colour scheme so far.

Then my 3rd eldest son woke up and helped in the kitchen to make some veggie sausage rolls...

I had some puff pastry and home made mincemeat left so had a go at making pinwheel pastries...

These little treats didn't hang around for long because the rest of the brood were woken up by the cooking smells!

Then DH suggested a little trip out to the Peak District in Derbyshire - neither of us had been out of the house since Sunday so we thought we needed a change of scene.  In-between days are the best, enjoying being at home and just having time to "be", but eventually even the best of loungers can start to feel slight cabin fever looming on the horizon!  We love driving up to Derbyshire, sometimes if we just want to get out for a couple of hours we just drive up to Bakewell and back, the route is so scenic and there is always something different to see.  This time, being the festive season, the little villages were all dressed up for Christmas.  We ended up at the Peak Village retail outlet in Rowsley.  This is based on the site of an old railway station, with the old buildings preserved as shops.  The courtyard looked so pretty with all the lights...

I love how the old stations were heated with real fires, just look at those chimneys...

The snow was still laying thickly on the ground as you can see, but on the way home the temperature started to rise and rain started to fall.  This morning all the snow has melted away.

Once back home, DH cooked tea (he is an amazing cook!!) whilst I finished working on a little heart for my bestest friend Sue...

I wrote "2015" on the larger of the two buttons in permanent ink...

We always go to Sue's house on New Year's Eve to see in the New Year with her and her family, and I like to make her a New Year gift in the shape of a scented heart as a little "thank you". 

As usual, we had a lovely time, catching up with the gossip news, talking about plans for trips in the new year, nibbling on delicious treats.  When the clock struck twelve, DH cracked opened the alcohol-free bubbly.

Then we watched the firework display from London on the TV, as ever these were amazing...



image courtesy of BBC News

I would love to go to this display one year, it looks so spectacular.

Later today we are going to visit my Darling Mum to have a New Year's Day meal with her, DH and I will prepare it as she is still fairly frail after all her recent illness, but thankfully improving.

Happy New Year!

Helenxx

"Memories..."

."..light the corners of my mind...misty water coloured memories, of the way we were..."

time for some nostalgia - this time a year ago my DH and I were flying off to Spain, to see the amazing sights of Granada.  We were celebrating our Silver Wedding Anniversary, and we had always dreamed of going to see the Alhambra.  Oh my goodness, how we fell in love with Granada, the Alhambra, and Spain itself.  We enthused so much about it that my dearest friend went over last April, and felt the same.

She has just returned from another trip to Spain, this time she visited the beautiful city of Cordoba - somewhere DH and I are hoping to visit fairly soon.  And, being the wonderful friend that she is, she bought me this:

it is a lovingly hand made tealight holder

decorated with crescent moon and stars, so evocative of the Islamic architecture in Spain that we love so much.

I love the way the candle light glows from the cut out shapes, and love the colour of the glaze.

She also bought this back for me, will help a lot with our planning, a big full colour map of Cordoba

Thank you so, so much Sue for these lovely treats, very much appreciated!

So, for now, I will have to make do with gazing at the photo on my desktop....

"if we had the chance to do it all again, tell me - would we?  Could we?"*  Oh most certainly, yes!!

Helenxx

* Songwriters: Hamlisch, Marvin, "The Way We Were" sung by Barbara Streisand

Hello 2014!

Good morning everyone - and a very Happy New Year to you all!

Hope you had an enjoyable New Years Eve - we had a lovely time at my bestest friend Sue's house where we had yummy nibbles and a good time catching up with what we had been up to during the holidays.  We watched Big Ben and the big firework display from London on TV, and popped open some non-alcoholic bubbly and fired off some party poppers.  All in all a lovely evening - thanks again Sue for inviting us, we really enjoyed ourselves.

I always make a New Year's heart for Sue as a little "thank you" present for inviting us round for New Year's Eve - here is this year's model:

As usual Sue had the most amazing Christmas Tree

I spotted a particularly lovely glass ornament tucked away within it's branches

can you see the glass dragonfly peeking from behind the baubles?  So pretty.

This morning it is only me and #3 son up, the rest of the gang are still fast asleep.  Later on we are heading to my Darling Mum's house for a New Year dinner, cant wait!!

But before I go I thought I would share a photo sent to me by one of my relatives via Facebook - I rather like the sentiments expressed.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year, full of blessings and happiness.

Helenxx

...and Welcome 2013!

Happy New Year everyone!

May it be a happy, healthy and prosperous one for you and yours.  And of course may it bring creativity and craftiness in abundance!!

This is a little felt heart I made for my bestest friend Sue - we always spend New Years Eve at her house. 

We always enjoy the evening so much - we used to just spend the evening at home watching rubbish on telly, both families have 4 kids so no real scope for going "out on the town"...having said that we never used to do that even before kids as its not really our "thing". So a few years ago we agreed that both families would get together to see in the New Year.  And even though the kids are older now, and not all of them are at home on New Years Eve, we still get together and have fun.  Check out her post from this morning to check what we got up to.   Thanks again for a super evening Sue!  Hope the summer house is still standing this morning....;)

Have a lovely day everyone!

Helenxx

Autumn Views Challenge week 8 and confessions of a new addiction...



 

Hello everyone - am I glad its the weekend!  My regular readers will know that my day job is teaching and this week we had the wonderful news (ahem, sarcastic sneer needed here!!) that OFSTED were going to be around......(cue doom-laden music).  So crafting, time with friends etc had to be put on hold whilst all hands were put firmly on deck with the preprarations.  Fortunately I have experienced these things quite a few times so was well prepared, although they always ask for random last minute bits.  All passed without incident - woop!  So to celebrate my dearest friend Sue picked me up after work last night for an early evening jaunt - more of which later.

 

But lets start with this week's Autumn View:

 

 

 So many leaves have now drifted away, there are still spashes of vivid colour to be seen, but a lot of brown as well.  We are well and truly headed towards the winter.

Well, the title of this post and the news of the OFSTED visit may well have you all worried that I have hit the bottle or some kind of recreational substances - but fear not dear readers!!!!  My new addiction is rather nice (well I think so anyway) as it is collecting vintage pottery!  Im really getting into Midwinter - the autumnal shades at least.  Our local bric-a-brac market can sometimes come up with some lovely finds.  There is a particular stall holder who knows Im into this kind of stuff and puts stuff on one side for me to have first choice of!!  So, yesterday morning, bright and early, I headed off to the market - and what a wonderful collection of things I came back with!

All of these plates are in the Stylecraft shape which I love. 

But then - the ever helpful (and canny!!) stall holder had something else to reveal - some items by a designer I hadnt heard of

Well, just look at these little beauties, in exactly the kind of designs and colours I love....

And with the design called October (my favourite month of the whole year) how could a girl resist?  And I so needed a treat after OFSTED....so they popped into the shopping basket.  THEN....

 

 

Oh my word, how lovely...

And I NEED new dishes.....

Well, I had to call a colleague to help me carry them all back to the office!!  Colleague was completely understanding, having gone through OFSTED as well, but their response was to stuff themselves silly at McDonalds.  Each to their own!!!!

What I love about these items is they work out between 50p - 85p each, so cheaper than IKEA!  I love the designs and that others have used them before.  And I do use them, albeit with care, I never put them through the dishwasher even though, apparently they are dishwasher proof. 

Well, onto the aforementioned jaunt with Sue!  We nipped over to the local garden centre which is wonderful at this time of the year.  I had my smartphone, not my usual camera so the pics arent great but here are a few:

Lovely cheery cylamen

Friendly reindeer

And finally, the garden centre's resident feline friend happily posing for the camera:

We went to the cafe and had some super cakes and coffee.   No photos as both too hungry!!!

And I have one more reason to celebrate - I have completed my final MSc assignment, and only have 11,000 words to do to complete the dissertation!!!!!! 

Have a super weekend!

Helenxx