Lighter days mean more sewing and growing

I am continuing to sew my Rose Stars and have now finished number 5 and still can't decide is this is a throw, pillows or some thing else. I have been auditing colours for the background but nothing I have feels right. Guess that means some more internet fabric browsing for me.

 I like them against the dark slate of our table.

I bought the backing for my Siblings Together row quilt but have made no more progress with that. However I also bought a small fat quarter and a little bit more of Carrie Bloomston of Such Designs Collage Collection. I love the bright colour palette and the grungy arty feel. I also loved the way Eclectic Elements fold their fabric. I was itching to use some, despite the fact I have numerous projects needing finished, so decided to try Jo Avery's pattern from Love Quilting issue 9.  The pattern was easy to follow and all went well apart from one bit of unpicking due to my tiredness. I quilted using echo quilting, as Jo had done, backed it with some more of the Collage fabric and thought it could be for my daughter's new flat. Lens Guy has other ideas, he really likes it and wants me to make more. I have also found an arrow tutorial I would like to try so there may be more feather cushions in the pipeline.

The back is a simple envelope back with more collage.

Today is Father's Day and  inevitably my thoughts turn to my own wonderful father who is no longer here and my brother as I think about his children managing without their dad. It is now 9 years since my dad died and 6 years since my brother's death and I can now remember more of the fun times and smile when I think of them both but this was not always the case. I strongly believe in taking each day as it comes and trying to find the positive in every day and most days I do this but there will inevitably be some days that are a little darker. Today was not one, it has been a day of good friends, laughter and precious time with those we love. We had a lovely afternoon sitting in the garden over a very extended lunch and barbecue that was delicious after Lens Guy spent a considerable time with matches, fire lighters and the wrong type of charcoal that did not want to light but the pyrotechnics did die down to a gentle glow so we could cook - mushrooms wrapped in bacon are always my barbecue favourite.

The garden continues to amaze us as new flowers burst into bloom every day. I feel so lucky to have a beautiful garden but can really take no real credit for it as all we have done so far is add the greenhouse and more plants.

This peony is simply stunning.

 We have several different Acers and the pink flowers against the dark leaves is gorgeous.

I love these flowers but don't know what they are called.

I leave you with an image of Lens Guy who will always go to extremes to get the rightphotograph...

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Cushions and back to journalling

I made these 3 cushions as part of eldest son's Christmas and did show a picture of them in his flat. I had to take a picture of these on Christmas Eve at night as I did not finish them until them. I used a scrappy log cabin for two and the fabulous retro fabric for the middle one. Of course I forgot to keep a note of the fabrics but I did buy them from Beyond-fabrics.co.uk. One of the text prints has instructions on how to iron which I chose as the back for one of the cushions so he could follow instructions to iron shirts.

I quilted the scrappy logs with diagonal lines

I used a simple envelope back as I've not tried zips yet.

I began journalling again and feel great. I'm not sure if it was having time to myself for the first time in weeks, getting my feelings on paper or just playing but whatever combination of these... it worked. I found myself dancing around the kitchen to the Foo Fighters while cooking and was interrupted by youngest daughter coming into the room looking horrified and asking me to turn the music down. Jumping around to music is fun though. Here's the background before I added anything else. I need to wait for daylight to show you the finished page.

 Lots of texture, paint, ink and layers of pages.

 The photo below shows some christmas ribbon I found and painted and inked and added to the page. Love that texture.

Thanks for coming by.

Happy New Year and a few tech glitches

We have managed to get away for a few days to recover from all the Christmas fun. The journey to my favourite place was stunning. I am trying to post this using my shiny new iPad, which was a Christmas present from Lens Guy, and the Blogger App but it does not work the way I expect it too. The photos were snaps taken with my iPhone of Rannoch Moor and Glencoe whilst Lens Guy was off taking proper images.

Rannoch Moor

A very fuzzy photo of eldest son's new cushions in situ. I made these for his Christmas and took some lovely photos but can't seem to access my photo stream. I will post better photos later.

Torino wrapped in his new quilt.