Whiteout again!

I have piccys!!! I managed to make a mattress, pillow and 2 dolly quilts for Daisy's new dolly's bed! I am slowly using up the D9P patches, only about 6 left now!! I put handles on the secret cushion ( quillow) to turn it into a bag and found a small hard bodied baby doll at the local paper shop which fits inside nicely!!
The 2 little dolly quilts are bound but need some little quilted motifs in the big squares to really turn them into quilts, if I have time I am going to put little labels on the back! Daisy won't appreciate them but her mummy will!!
I love these fushia pink buttons!

This is mummy's big girl secret cushion, I have really big fushia buttons to put the handles on this one! The last photo is to show Winter has come back!! I took this at 10am this morning! I just hope it behaves like a good Lambing Storm and melts quickly because Samantha and Phil are driving up from 'down South' on Friday night ( 350miles) and I really don't want them to have to drive through bad weather with the children! Off to sew buttons and quilt motifs now.

Spring Glorius Spring

It's so good, the clocks have gone back, it's officially Spring! Lighter evenings, the chickens going to bed later, 3 eggs!!! ......so naturally today it's SNOWING!
I looked back to last March and we had snow then, they call it Lambing Storms up here. Hopefully it will e short lived as the daffodils are at last trying to poke their way through! The new 'girls' are very much part of the flock now, they sleep up on the roost and fight over the bread treats in the morning like old hands. They have also learnt how to get into the garden and the field and how to get back home again. Its amazing to think we have had them nearly 2 weeks already. Their combs and wattles are pinking up nicely so hopefully they will be laying soon.
I have finished both the secret cushions,just need to 'button' on the handles, today I found a sweet little hardbodied baby doll to put in Daisy's! Tomorrow I will make her mattress and pillow for her dolly's bed and some dollies quilts to play with! They should be with us on Friday night, weather permitting. Samantha abandoned the BA flight and decided to get Phil to drive her and the girls to us at the weekend, he will drive home on Sunday night to avoid travelling on the bank holiday. She will fly home from Newcastle with the girls on wednesday lunchtime. I wonder if the strikers realise just how much damage they are doing, as one chap on the news said if people have to make alternative arrangements they will continue with them. Samantha has found out it is half price to drive up and fly back rather than fly up and drive back. As she said I will do that next time, if they hadn't gone on strike she wouldn't have found this out!

At least she will still be able to come! We have at last got a scan date for Paul, it will be April 6th with hopefully the results still being at the Oncologist on the 9th. Just praying for good news.

murky day!

I am not sure if it's hill fog or just murk but it's very grey and drizzly today, perfect sewing weather! We are still waiting for Paul's scan appt, I have phoned the Oncologist's secretary and the Upper GI Specialist Nurse several times but with not much joy. We are both finding it a bit stressful now, I have cancelled a hosp appt for me and we have rearranged Sam's visit, there just doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency or empathy! My next phonecall will probably be to the Patient Liason complaints folk!
When I went to shut the hens in yesterday they were in the garden, as I did my shepherd bit I could smell a foul rotting smell. I thought maybe the septic tank had decided to join all the other household necessities and spring a leak. Paul investigated today and thinks it was probably the two decomposing rabbits he had to pick up and get rid of!! I do hope it's nothing more sinister, they don't tell you these joys of country living!
Tom the Boiler man came today to do the annual service so maybe the boiler will be less smelly when I turn it up to go sewing! It might also burn more efficiently and save some oil money. I put this on to cheer everyone up, it makes me think of summer skies! I am off to do some more work on Samantha and Daisy's secret cushions.

Identity of mystery Lurcher revealed!

We discovered by chance that our neighbour in the renovated barn above us has been trying to rehome a Lurcher dog. She was absolutely mortified when she realised the devastation he had caused when he had escaped from her propery. She very kindly bought down a box of chocolates and some money towards the replacement hens, which we thought was very neighbourly of her.
The new hens are settling in well, they are quick learners, either that or our existing hens are good teachers, because now they escape from the run into the garden with the rest!!! They haven't quite learnt how to get back into the run quickly and look innocent when the back door is opened yet!

I have been busy creating Spring in the sewing room as the weather outside is still not co operating fully! I have been using the scrap D9P to make secret cushion (quillow) picnic blankets for my daughter and granddaughter. Daisy's one is tiny as it's for her dolly!!
I really like this blue I found for the backing, it makes me think of summer skies, hot lazy days and picnics.

jackpot day!

Hooray!!!!! The dishwasher arrived bright and early this morning!! By 9am it was installed and working!! Then to add to our delight the new vacuum cleaner arrived at lunch time!!!! Paul managed to replace the seal in the bottle trap under the sink and I pressed all the blocks I made at busy fingers yesterday!!! So a very productive day.
The new hens have worked out how to get up and come out of the pophole in the morning to get the corn and bread treats the other hens enjoy and even more impressively have worked out how to get back into the house at bed time! The first night I had to catch each one and post it through the pophole, the next night most of them had gone in by themselves but three needed shepherding towards the door. But tonight when we went down to the hen run all was quiet and they had all gone in by themselves. Now we just have to wait until they work out how to get on the roost by themselves!!
They are beginning to mix with our existing hens and work as a flock, I will know they are truly settled in when our existing girls teach them how to get into the field and then back into the garden where they know they should not be!
So far I have made about 52 9and 1/2 " D9P blocks , Samantha has asked for a picnic blanket size made into a secret cushion with handles!! I managed to sort out a bit more of the sewing room today and found more squares and half square triangles from previous projects. I have been looking at Bonnie Hunter's site showing how she uses leaders and enders to create units for her scrap quilts, I am sure I can use up some of these ideas with my odds and ends to make some 'dolly' blankets for Daisy. It feels good to use up the scraps I carefully saved, like having a 'free' quilt!!
The snow has nearly all gone now, it's been very windy and tonight a bit wet. The burn is really high and rushing with all the snow melt from the fells. We discovered the identity of the rogue dog who ate our hens, sadly it belongs to our neighbour who was distraught when she realised what had happened. She has very kindly made a donation towards the cost of the hens we bought in to replace them, and gave us a box of chocolates to say sorry. Although it was very distressing at the time, we know it happens, when you have animals  there will be times when they manage to get out and he was just being a dog.
Tomorrow we are hoping to go and see the new baby, little Lucy arrived last week! This week has flown by, I just dont know where the time went, but I have managed to sew most days.

Welcome Home

Yesterday was Mother's Day so we went to Hayden Bridge to buy some more hens to replace those the stray dog ate! I got 9 Lowman's Brown, just basic farmyard hens but good layers apparently. They are 18 weeks old so it will be a couple of weeks at least before they start laying. We shut them in the hen hut while the other hens were in the field scratching about. Needless to say they were so nosey they had to come into the run to see what was going on. We left the new ones for about an hour to settle in, then opened the pophole so they could explore the run at their leisure.
It was so funny, just like a Mexican Standoff, the new hens stayed in the house, the existing hens stayed outside! When dusk came I went out to see what was happening, well the existing hens were all in the house on the roost and the new ones were all outside, hiding in the base of the chick hut! I had fun catching them one by one and posting them through the pophole, shut them in and left them for the night. Shame I can't count! This morning I went down to let them all out and feed them and 2 of the new hens were wandering around the run looking very confused! Fortunately, because we live surrounded by managed Grouse moors the gamekeepers are very vigilant about foxes so we aren't troubled by them. I will have to count better tonight, or maybe by then they will all have worked out were the feed is and go home by themselves.
I did a little more handquilting on Cottage Gardens in the afternoon and watched some tv. Today I will try to do some more D9P and handquilting!
Paul has taken the car to have it's 'coil' mended then both vehicles will be roadworthy again! We should hear which BA flights will be affected by the strike I do hope Samantha's flight will be ok, she said yesterday that trying to explain to Daisy age 2 that they were not going to Nanny's house on the aeroplane was exhausting!
They had a good time at the zoo, saw elephants, bears, giraffes, etc then asked Daisy what her favourite animal was. True to form she replied Betty my chicken at home!!!!! You can always rely on children!

All's Well

Thankfully the biopsy result was as expected!! Sadly the car failed the MOT, apparently a 'coil' has a crack in it, so it's booked in for first thing Monday morning, the good news is that it shouldn't be too expensive and the garage man thought it was a 'ver tidy car!' So hopefully it will last a while!
Paul has managed a 'normal' week, apart from not working, with no ill effects so that is good news. I chased his scan date and it looks like the end of the month, just when our daughter and granddaughters visit! Well when they are planned to visit, Samantha had decided to fly up from 'down south' with the 2 girls by herself as Phil has no more holiday time he can take. She felt a 350 mile car journey by herself with an 8month old and a 2 1/2 yr old would be just a bit too much like hard work!! When they are that age you really need a co driver. However British Airways staff have decided to strike! So her flight may be cancelled, it's a bit like watch this space.

As requested here are some of theD9P blocks, some are waiting to be pressed, others are waiting to be squared up. See if you can spot my deliberate mistake ( not )! I was trying to be so careful but being a spatially challenged quilter is difficult! This was how I wanted the blocks to look, but somehow I managed to twist some and this is what I got.

Can you spot the difference? Well as it's a scrap quilt I don't think it will make too much difference so I am not going to resew them!! I don't know how I did it, it's just a special skill I have.!
Busy fingers got their bindings on apart from one friend who didn't believe me when I said 1/4" seam and managed to miss the front edge and sew to the wadding!!! She is going to reverse sew this little error in time for next week, when we will  have another try!!  The others are hopefully doing their homework and slip stitching the binding to the back, If I can remember my camera I will take piccys, last week I remembered everything except the extension lead, but fortunately there was one at the village hall. As they all kindly said, at least I remembered the cakes! The joke is I don't bake because Paul doesn't like cake, but because we have been having company on Sunday afternoons I have been making cup cakes. I take the 'spares' to Busy Fingers, now they all think I am an expert. Last week one of my friends asked me what I thought about the new silicone baking tins and would I recommend her to get one!!!!! I had to confess I was just practising and they were my guinea pigs!!!!!! They have been very complimentary, I expect because they want to encourage me and hope for more cake.! This week I am going to attempt Cheese scones, they are a delicacy in the North  of England and everyone has their own recipe! I am going to use the basic scone recipe that Samantha got in school and just add cheese!

Rainy days!

I know I should be grateful for all the sunny days we have enjoyed this week but today its grey and rainy! Paul has taken the car to be MOT tested in Stanhope, so another busy day for him! This week has seen a great improvement in energy levels, long may it last. I pestered the Oncologist's secretary again this morning, I phoned her last week to say his scan date hadn't come through. Now another week without a date! If he doesn't get a date soon he wont get the results on April 9th as they wont be back in time.
She has promised to phone the hospital doing the scan and get back to me.
I finished 27 9patch blocks yesterday and cut them ready to sew into D9P today!! Then I will lay them all out on a bed and see if I have enough for a quilt yet!! Once I had cut the blocks apart I put all the 'quarters' into a carrier bag and shook them up, then put my hand it for each section of the new block. This way I hope it will be really random and scrappy, but with enough similar colours to 'hold' the quilt together. I need to lay them out to make sure the darker patches are spread evenly through the quilt to balance it!! I havent decided if I want to make a scrappy pieced border with half square triangles or whether it would be too busy and a simple floral border would be better!!
This afternoon I go to the hospital to get the results of the biopsy they did on a mole on my face 2 weeks ago. hopefully there is nothing suspicious, they seemed to think it was a tick in the box thing but you never know!! Two of the chickens wounded in the dog attack on monday are looking a bit sad and sorry for themselves, I have a horrible feeling we will have to bite the bullet and put them out of their misery. I hate doing it but can't watch them suffer. I rang up about some replacement hens and it will cost me about £70 so it was an expensive meal for the lurcher!

Sparkly Day! Sparkly Week! or Hope Springs Eternal!

I can't believe the weather we're having! Nearly a whole week of sparkly days, the snow on the high tops is melting fast, we can just see the tops of the sparty grass showing through. Lambing is well under way lower down the dale, they say here that while there is lying snow on the tops we still have the possibility of more snow or Lambing storms. Fortunately at this time of year even if we have snow it tends to be short lived!
I felt like a real quilt teacher yesterday as I made a sample block to show my friends how to add the binding!
Paul had a really good day yesterday, he made it right up to the fell gate with me and the dog, its about 1 1/2 miles up a really steep incline, we don't do flat here! Then when we got home he helped me with cleaning the hen house, 3 weeks ago he could just managed strawing up the nest boxes. Yesterday he shovelled the droppings and helped lift the wheelbarrow to empty it in the compost bin! A huge improvement, especially as he then dug a trench around the septic tank as the field drain is leaking and he was panicked it was the tank!
He has been helping with the washing up too which may not sound much but 2-3 weeks ago he couldn't even load the dishwasher! I am feeling better, probably because I am sleeping more and beginning to allow myself to hope! When the cancer came back we were told this aggressive treatment had a 1in 5 chance of eradicating it completely. Someone has to be the 1 maybe it's him, we just keep praying.
Enough misery, it's a good day, I am going to walk Barney and then carry on with some more D9P blocks, I think I may even have enough 'scrap' to make a queen size quilt! I am beginning to get my creativity back. The chest of drawers which holds scrap from previous quilts and stray fat quarters is slowly starting to empty a bit, now I think I will take a draw at a time, sort out the FQ's and fold into see through plastic boxes sorted by colour. Then left over stuff can be ironed & cut into usable strips or 4" squares! A drawer at a time should make it manageable and can be done it the front room watching TV with Paul in the evenings!
I already have some shoe boxes with 1,2,3" strips I might even get a scrap log cabin!!!!

Delinquent Lurcher strikes!

First the good news! The baby the farm mat is for arrived 2 weeks early at 6am on Monday morning, she is called Lucy Ellen. Today I saw pictures and she is gorgeous with lots of black hair. Well on hearing the momentous news, naturally I had to plan a shopping day to buy gifts to welcome the new arrival. So I set off for a trip to Hexham, a local ton about 30 miles away. I had a successful shop, bought some lovely pink newborn clothes and then set off home. When I got in Paul greeted me with the news that a rogue lurcher had jumped the gate and got into the garden. He killed 2chickens in the garden, went into the field next door and killled another one, then came back into the garden and ran off with one in his mouth. Paul couldn't manage to chase him off, despite trying ,which of course made him breathless and sick. You should know that Paul is recovering from a combined course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy for cancer of the oesophagus. He has only just started walking the dog again so running is definitely not good news, when he gets breathless he gets sick because after the Op 2 yrs ago his stomach in relocated in his chest.
when I went to feed the girls this morning they were very subdued.
We are still hanging on to bits of snow along the wall backs and on the high tops, but we have had such sunny sparkly days it looks really beautiful and I have discovered snowdrops flowering in both the gardens!
Today I aim to sew a friendship star block, layer it and cut binding strips. This is so I can show the Busy Fingers how to join binding strips with a diagonal seam so it disappears and how to put binding on their placemats. I realised that explaining would be confusing but showing would be easier!  This week I have to take the Janome 6600p as Christine has borrowed my Bernina 430QE. She preferred the Bernina blanket stitch for her farm mat so we have swapped machines until she has done all the applique. I originally bought the Janome to go on a Grace machine quilting frame as it has a bigger throat than a normal machine. I see now that Bernina have brought out an 800 series machine with a bigger throat and stitch regulator but I am not convinced I can justify the outlay!!

Kitchen Goddess or how to burn a banana loaf while you're watching it!

We are having some friends call by tomorrow afternoon so I decided I would be the perfect hostess and bake! Since Paul and I have been home during his convalesence I have been making cupcakes, scones and other goodies for when people call. I didnt want to disappoint my public!!! So I decided on cupcakes and a banana loaf as we had some 'iffy' bananas left from last week. I carefully made the cupcakes, mixed up the banana loaf and realised I couldn't bake it in my normal oven 'cos the cupcakes were in there. Never mind, no problem I'll put it in the fan oven but just not for as long! I stayed in the kitchen, had my lunch, washed up, looked at the clock and thought Oh I'll check the loaf now then I can go quilting!! When I looked the top had burnt! Still edible but not for public consumption!! I felt really peeved I had even stayed in the kitchen to make sure it would be ok. I really don't like fan ovens for baking!!!
To cheer myself up I am going to watch an episode of an old 'soap' that Paul got me on DVD for Christmas and do some more handquilting on my Cottage Gardens quilt.

Its a queen size, churn dash block set on point with low contrast, I think it will look good here as I have an old stone house.

It's on a Grace EZ3 handquilting frame in the study, which I dearly want to decorate but can't until the quilt is finished! It's been on the frame for about 3yrs because of one thing and another so decorating is a good incentive to get my finger out and finish it!.

Where did this week go?

What a week! I seem to have been rushing like one of my headless chickens and gettin nowhere fast! It's offficial, the dishwasher is no more! We have had to bite the bullet and buy a new one, it should be with us about the 18th, so until then we are washing up after each meal. No violins though, there are only the two of us and it doesn't take forever!  I became a quilt teacher twice this week! Wednesday at Busy Fingers, I took all my stuff again and they squared and layered their block and SID with invisible thread to disguise any mistakes! Everyone seemed really pleased with what they had done so I was glad. Then Thursday morning Christine called by on her way back home after the school run to find out the mysteries of fusable web applique! I knew when I had tried to explain it to her that she thought it would be really difficult. Of course when she came and saw how easy it was, the possibilities started fizzing in her brain, by the time I had got down to her house to put the embroidery foot on my Janome, which she has on a long term let, she had revised some of her designs!!

I managed to sneak a photo of her work in progress to show what it will be like

I think it will be fabulous, I have seen the fabrics she intends to use for the animals and tractor. They have a red tractor at their farm so she is going to use bright red fabric to make it on the mat! The sun's rays are to be cut smaller, but left loose as 'taggies' and she is planning to put some padding, beads and squeakers in different animals to increase the texture, in between the 'fields' she has sewn a grey flap to resemble the stone walls we have here. It also adds some texture. She is going to blanket stitch around each applique to add even more texture, its going to be great.

10 weeks and counting

I was going to call this 'the sad demise of a loved family member' but thought perhaps a bit too strong to describe the dishwasher going on strike! As Paul said, it's 20 yrs old it doesn't owe us anything! Still hopefully the nice dishwasher mender man will cheer it up and make it work again. I just love the company name they are called Domestic Rescue! Isn't that appropriate? Although our area is spectacularly beautiful and is officially described as An Area of Outstanding Beauty, the downside is it's remote and getting specialist supplies, eg quilting stuff, and repair men is not always easy. Hopefully, weather permitting he will come tuesday afternoon and we wont have to wash up any more!

This  is the view over the garden gate! Today! Snow again, it's now 10 weeks we have had lying snow and I must admit the novelty is wearing thin. These are for you Pat as I know you like our scenery.

A view from the back door, the hilltop at the back is the highest point in County Durham, England. The snow is slowly going but each time we have a melt and the field at the front reappears, we have more snow and it goes again. The shetland ponies who live there are really fed up, the other day they even resorted to eating my currant hedge!

Now to more momentous things! I managed to photograph my D9P blocks!! I hope they come out ok. I have one leaf of my cutting table up and have laid them out on that and they nearly cover it. I think I have nearly enough for a lap quilt once I add borders!!!. I have got the bug though, so yesterday spent some time cutting more squares. It might even end up big enough for a bed!! Which when you consider they are all scraps from other quilts and elderly FQ's from my stash with no new bought fabric is really 'green'. Confession is good for the soul, so I will admit I did buy some fabric at the quilt shop. I needed some sashing and borders for my Christmas Rework, and some for the Four Seasons Sew Along from Paula Stoddard's blog.

Although in my defence I will add that I have found some red toile I bought in 2004 which will do nicely for the current  Love Is redwork she is posting.

Christmas Redwork

fabric for seasons redwork quilt

Toile from my stash for Love Is redwork. 

Now I have worked out the photos thing I will show you what I am handquilting but another day!!! Off to wade through snow  and look for rabbits with my mad springer Barney!!