Stash for the Stall

More picnic blankets

needlecases and

pincushions

A little spotty and dotty

Just a quick peek before it goes to a new home.

This quilt that I started quite a few years ago is finally finished.

I will show you a proper photo in a couple of weeks time, when it is unfolded and given to a special person, but until then......sshh....not a word .
That special person could see and then the surprise would be spoilt !


Patchwork is starting to take on a bit of a resurgance in my life lately, not that it ever really disappeared, and I do love hand piecing.


This is part of a star that forms a large hexagon.
I have made the stars before using the English Paper Piecing method, but this time I thought I would hand piece using Sarah's example


from Material Obsession 2.

I love her bright quilt with the spots and stripes she has used and it has been fun collecting all the spots and and dots I can lay my hands on !

Happiness is ....

I have been appreciating the simple things in life lately...............health, family, friends and loved ones, music...and more music, flowers, mountains, gardens, trees, news of good things happening, the sea, books, art...and of course I could go on and on. I am sure you can all think of a few things yourselves.

An old friend and I were driving home from the funeral of a mutual friend.

Our friend was our age and she had a beautiful family and home, a wonderful busy, joy filled life that she lived to the full, and she was killed in an instant on a quiet stretch of road in the country on a sunny friday afternoon in a horrific car accident.

We were reminded once again how utterly precious life is, and our relationships too.

I had a quiet day to reflect and I finished my jumper.

Nearly There

Two or three more hours and this could be finished, but with all the wonderful spring activity

happening outside in the garden, I am waiting for a quiet evening to knit the last little bit.

The tulips and other spring flowers are here for such a short time that I find myself outside with the intention of just wandering around admiring the blooms, but instead

I have a trowel in my hand and am running from one spot to the other with buckets of mulch, packets of seed, and a huge weeding bag.

Yesterday I had visitors coming over for supper, and I was in the garden thinking I will just do this little bit and then go inside, but changed my mind, and was down amongst the veges planting runner bean seeds when the sun went down,

and it didn't matter at all !

Patchwork and Picnics

Spring has now officially arrived, and I am thinking about picnics and spending time lounging about outside. I have been invited to share another stall very soon and decided to make some patchwork picnic blankets.

This was the first one . I backed it with a cotton fabric and then realised that it wasn't thick enough for a picnic blanket, so decided it would be much nicer as a summer tablecloth.

I sewed a soft fleecy backing on the next one.

Then rolled it up into a little bundle and added some elastic and a button, and now it has become something that is easy to throw onto the back seat of a car, or in the basket of a push bike...

voila...picnic time !

I think I might use one to lie under this tree, and gaze at the sky studded with a mass of blossom that reminds me of confetti .

Soulful notes

Long hours of rehearsing every night now until Saturday night when we are having another concert.

This one is our Young Musicians Concerto Concert and each night we are accompanying some very talented young players. My favourite is a young man .......Harry who is playing the Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto No.5, he looks about 12 yrs old, but is perhaps 13 or 14, I shall have to ask him tonight. He loves this concerto with a passion and plays it beautifully even though he is driving our conductor mad with his unexpected change of tempo throughout. I think what I like about him the most is his absolute ownership of the music and his confidence.

Henri Vieuxtemps is a Belgian composer, his parents were a weaver and an amateur violinist and his music gets to your very soul.

We once visited Belgium very briefly, and I had to hunt very carefully through lots of old photos to find this one taken in Antwerp ( I think.......umm I am now wondering if it is in Holland ? We were in both countries on the same day !)

Our orchestral leader told us the sad tale of Vieuxtemp's demise. After his stroke in 1879, he went to visit his daughter and son-in -law in Algeria and was walking down the street when he was knocked down by a brick-wielding drunkard in 1881, and died.

Anyway I thought you might like to hear a very old recording of the concerto. A young Leila Josefowicz playing in 1990.