Here goes, hold on to your hat!

Well I have found some photos on my computer so I will attempt to put them up here, so you  can see where I live and the sort of things I do.! I have already confessed to my computer status so I don't hold out a lot of hope that it will work!!
This is the view from my front door. When we said we were moving here, 350 miles from family and friends 'down south' everyone thought we were mad. My mum really feared for my sanity when I told her I was moving to the main Trans Penine A road, A roads down south are very busy. When she came to visit she stood in the middle of the road to take a photo of the house and I said," Mum, your standing in the middle of the main road!" She just laughed and said," But it's not a real one" It does mean that even in bad weather it's always ploughed and gritted and we can always get the car out!

This was taken in early May from the house looking down the garden, behind the fence on the side is the chicken run and what will eventually be the veg patch. Spring comes late and Winter comes early here, the growing season is very short and because we are 1400ft above sea level there is nearly always a breeze and the air feels fresh. However we are plagued by midges from June to September, they come out about 6pm and make barbecues and evening gardening impossible. One of my neighbours wears full bee keeping gear to garden when they're here!! On a hot or windy day it's ok but otherwise it can be torture.

Here is 'Shrimpy's Mat' at the design stage! Shrimpy is the nickname my daughter gave her bump while she was pregnant but when the baby arrived she called her Daisy. Both my daughter and partner are beach lovers and keen surfers, so a sea theme for the nursery was always on the cards. They took the motifs from the bedding and frieze around the room and we cut them out and juggled on the background until they found an arrangement they liked. They have such touching faith in my sewing ability! I had never done any thing like this before so it was a very steep learning curve indeed.
Here is the finished mat, before it was backed and quilted. I fusable web appliqued most of the motifs, some like the cloud had added wadding to make them puffy, I put squeakers in the sandcastles and added taggies around the sun. My daughter researched online and found a round mirror shape with bevelled edges which we velcro-ed onto the sun background so we could take it off easily if it wasn't safe. I backed it with 4oz poly wadding as she has laminate floors and we didn't want bumped heads. I used table protector for the backing as it has a rubberised side which we thought would be good on damp grass to keep the baby dry and could be wiped clean easily if it got muddy. This one was called Beside the Seaside. I made a sister one with the same background fabrics but with an underwater theme called Under the Sea for Poppy, granddaughter number 2. I hope you like them and now I know how to  put pictures on I will show you my current projects another day.