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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Growing and Sewing

Chillis, peppers and aubergine

It's been a better week this week, or I'm more able to deal with stress, Lens Guy built my new Greenhouse for me and I've had fun moving my plants from the house to the greenhouse. It came with a complicated automatic window opening vent which caused much cussing and head scratching and trying to read poor written  instructions. Middle son came to the rescue and now it is on and works. I came home from work, on the hottest day so far, hitting 21degrees which is very warm for Scotland, and it was wide open and magically as it got colder it closed. Simple things give me pleasure! I find it incredibly soothing to potter about with plants and seeds and then hopefully eat the results,of my pottering.

You need to imagine a beautiful wooden bench in front of the Greenhouse to replace the plastic chairs once budget allows. I tried to take a better photo and it began to rain...

By this point Jaspar was looking at me as if I was very mad.

I have radishes, beet root, runner beans, sweet corn and peas sprouting and I have planted lots of lettuce,rocket, kale, garlic and spinach in the raised beds. In the greenhouse I have tomatoes, chillis, peppers, cornichons, aubergine, basil and coriander. When I asked Lens Guy what he would like me to grow he was against onions as he remembers them being too much work as a child but wanted lots of salad leaves and radishes. He is not convinced by the Curly Kale as he remembers feeding it to the sheep on the farm and the same with Turnips. For those that don't know, Lens Guy is my photographer husband, who grew up on a large farm in Dumfries and Galloway. He has mixed memories about living on a farm and used to entertain our children with stories of crashing the tractors (frequently) milking cows and herding sheep which surprised our city loving kids. A few years ago we were in the car with my in laws and our youngest daughter pointed to a hair bend turn on the road and loudly said, "That is where daddy crashed Nana's mini when he was taking Uncle Robin and Auntie Rachel to school." In the silence and shock that followed she realised that this had been a secret from Granny and Granpa.  We all have those.  My parents were very confused when they moved from our family home to find a collection of road cones, signs and other souvenirs collected by my irresponsible teenage self and younger brother. I had forgotten all about them, we probably blamed my youngest sister.

I have managed some sewing this week which always helps. I have completed two more Rose Stars.

and have been working on my Sibling's Together quilt. I began this a long time ago when Lori Holt held her Bee in A Bonnet sewalong. I joined this to try and improve my skills and push myself and decided that this would be a quilt made from scraps for Sibling's Together. When everything ground to a halt last year it lay abandoned in my cupboard, until I took it out briefly last summer to piece the rows I had together and then abandoned it again as the rows were different lengths and needed some fixing.
Another reason was that the  Row along had finished and the instructions were no longer available and I had no more of the white background material. I had no idea what it was and attempts to buy more now means I have 3 types of white material. (I have learned from this and now hold onto receipts with descriptions of material in case I need to order more). when I organised my scraps I cut a whole lot of 2 1/2" squares and triangles using my Sizzix. I decided scrappy rows of squares would work and added then top and bottom. On IG it was suggested I try another flying geese row. I had some grey crosshatch by Carloyn Frielander and after some very dodgy maths and various mistakes I found this site for calculating geese. I made a few geese, losing some points along the way and some triangles to my needle plate, auditioned them and have now decided it just looks wrong with grey. I will try totally scrappy geese or another row of squares but need to get a move on as deadlines are looming.

 This seems wrong

The geese seem to,grey as everything else has a white background

Perhaps leave and finish might be the best option.

I can then cross off another project of my WIP but it seems to be growing. I have to quilt my scrappy trip a long which is all basted but ignored as so big; make Lens Guy a quilt with solids and Tim Holt's Eclectic Elements; continue with mum's QAYG blocks; make something quilty for a friend's daughter heading to Uni in September that is gothic, quirky and probably Alexander Henry meets Harry Potter; make another EPP cushion for daughter as she loves the first one; learn to put in zips so I can make myself some bags; produce a baby quilt for a baby due in August; and on it goes but all fun and I'm not going to worry about deadlines.

A little bit of this and that

Trying something new by linking up to the wonderful Lilyquilt's small blogmeet <div align="center"><a href="http://lilysquilts.blogspot.co.uk" title="Lily's Quilts"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoEtRrrER0Ip1IHzcXqlecYdrblLtZPZK33ZlL1ylpUr1aAPVW2gDFNJKS7D9XHlgXz7gdL3pUNgNP9lqw_VIjlFVXdvJFLggr-2WKRWMeF7QiWGCIS5ZC-HKabbkWEX5lISgq_jbv8OMu/s150/SBMB.png" alt="Lily's Quilts" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Last weekend was a holiday weekend and we headed up to to Camusdarach, Arisiag in the Scottish Highlands, our home from home with some good friends. The weather was beautiful but in true Scottish style you needed to find a sheltered part on the beach to enable the fleece to come off. There was a lot of dog walking, staring at the sunsets and I began a new English Paper Piecing Project called the Rose Star. I had seen examples of these on Instagram #englishpaperpiecing and just had to try. I searched the Internet and found a tutorial and introduction here on the http://selfsewn.blogspot.co.uk but the tutorial is here on her original site. I still had to figure out how to do this so I sketched on some paper and then tried to work out how to get all the pieces of paper I needed.

 This star ends up being 12inches from tip to tip if you start with a 2 inch hexagon, so I printed a sheet of 6 2" hexagons and got a ruler and measured out the shapes show in the tutorials above. It was a fiddle but it worked and then I photocopied my sheets. I have been working on one star at a time using fabric that began with Maureen Cracknell's blogger's bundle from Fat Quarter shop with additional pieces from my collection.
I had intended a QAYG herringbone quilt using Maureen's tutorial but when I was looking for suitable materials for my epp I grabbed this bundle as all my scraps were in the wicker basket which was inaccessible at that minute. I need to explain I have no patience and I was packing to go away at midnight on the Wednesday so I could travel up north straight from work on the Thursday to have maximum time away.

I think these stars and the bundle are going to become cushions/pillows and throws but like all my epp projects it is a wait and see game. It might become one huge quilt.

 After our wonderful weekend away the last week has been hellish with a combination of work stress, worries about family and the usual bits of life we all deal with. I spent every night filling in an application form for a different job and then decided it was the wrong time to apply for a job further away and with more responsibility and hit the withdraw button last night. Friday night we had a wonderful meal in a Russian restaurant called Cafe Cossachok where I had a series of vodka cocktails. In the current political climate I avoided the one called "Putin's Smile" as it seemed inappropriate but overall it was a good night.

Yesterday I enjoyed a fabulously warm sunny day in the gardening which is a constant surprise at the moment discovering what plants we have. We moved here at the end of August last year so missed seeing the garden at this time. I love these unusual poppies. Thanks for dropping by and I will be back on an irregular basis as if I promise to do this weekly or more frequently I know it won't happen as I realise I have limitations but I will try as often as I can. Otherwise you can find me on Instagram as Salamanda001