A Village Quilter

Yesterday I had a lovely time with the Leamington Spa Embroiderers Guild.  The idea was that we would develop our hand embroidery skills by picking a card with 3 stitches listed on.  My first three were Thorn stitch, Van Dyke stitch and Basque knot.  My head really hurt by the end of the day, but it's a really good idea and make you look at things differently.  It's also good to try the stitches with different threads.  I really enjoyed spending time with such a lovely group of ladies. We all bring a dish along for a faith lunch.  I made Summer Vegetable Couscous.  It was yummy - and healthy too. It's a beautiful day today. It's not raining YAY. I took a photo of the poppies.  Although they're flowering nicely, you can see the relentless rain has battered them. Now DH has a bit of an issue with one of our garden visitors. He's rather persistent and loud!  He doesn't seem to get a sore throat or tired! ...

 So, I've been doing a bit of cooking. A Blackberry and Yogurt cake. I was really pleased I found a recipe I can use my frozen blackberries in. The fruit looked really pretty in the cake - and tasted good too.  And then a bit of batch cooking. It's amazing how far a kilo of minced beef can go. So from the top: Chilli Cottage pie Spag bol All for the freezer.   I had a very nice trip out to the Garden Barn . It has some great things for the garden - all very reasonably priced. And they have a great coffee shop with fantastic cake. Well worth a trip out.  And finally this is the view from our church spire. DH and I walked up the narrow, steep, spiral staircase and got a great view. It was a shame it wasn't a little clearer - but we still had a great view. I have been sewing - but can't show you the results until next week as it's a pressie for someone... Take care and have a great week.

Hello All, I'm so glad the snow has at long last gone. We have a really big snowfall on Wednesday and I get sent home form work as they were starting to cancel the trains. Bit annoyed as I'd struggled to get in and really had to drag myself out of bed. Well, as you can see from the photos I've been cooking again. I'm trying to reduce what we throw away and so I had to find a couple of recipes to use up some left over cranberries and some bananas that were a little over ripe. So the result is a fruity tea bread and a banana and walnut loaf. The fruit looks very moist. I've been very good, cut them in half and put them in the freezer - so at the next quilting meeting I host I can offer some very nice home baked cakes. And the next exciting thing I've been up to is to re-join one of Bren's classes at the Bramble Patch . It was great to be back there doing this class. She is so good at setting challenges and getting you to use your brain. I hope you like the d...

Hello. Well here's some fabric I bought this morning at Kisko (The Fabric Guild) for a project we're going to do next Saturday at a neighbouring village's hall. I shan't spoil the surprise but I'm sure we'll have a range of colours used with the same pattern. Now I'm rather proud of this - it's my very first large fruit cake I've ever made - it's for Christmas. It's actually a Fig and honey Christmas Cake from the November issue of the BBC Good Food magazine . I do love looking at cookery books and magazines - but I'm not an overly confident cooking. I think one of the issues is that when there are only 2 of you if you make a big anything - you have to eat it for ever and it kind of spoils it. But I'm really going to try to be a bit more adventurous with my cooking as I enjoy it. Lets hope it tastes as good as it looks by the time Christmas comes. I think, as it's a bit on the large size, I'll cut it at the start of Decemb...

Hello, I seem to have missed Christmas with you all - sorry about that. I hope you all had a nice time - I had a lovely time. I managed to cook the turkey and not kill any of the family. They all managed to eat most of their dinner too. Unfortunately my mum was ill so couldn't come along for dinner - but I did send her a doggy bag round. I've had a great time off work - making stars from a great book I had for Christmas - Scrap Quilt Sensations by Katherine Guerrier. It's an easy to follow book and I'm pleased with the accuracy of the stars I've made. I've also enjoyed having the time to cook - the Spicy pork and chilli pepper goulash from the Jamie at Home book is delicious - give it a try. Have any of you dared to make New Year's Resolutions? I'm going to have a think about them and see if I can think of some fun ones. Have a great New year and I'll see you in 2009...

Not too heavy a post today as I'm sure some of us may still be experiencing the excesses of Christmas. Well - as you can see from the photo above I managed to cook a rather good turkey. A combination of a good quality 11lb turkey, good tips from Jane and a quick addition from a Gordon Ramsey cooking programme I saw on Christmas Eve. I'm very proud of my first roast turkey. The rest of the dinner was very good too (even though I do say so myself). I'm also really pleased with the pressies I got. And I can share a little tip with you all. The reason I got a subscription to Selvedge magazine was because I said I wanted it on my blog and DH read it - what a great ploy - I'll be using it again LOL. I also saw a great exhibition today at Warwickshire Museum - Gold Thread and Fire. It's not a huge exhibition but very interesting. I wish I could afford to buy a few of the items. Here's the square in the village this afternoon at about 3.30; it's just getting da...

Sorry about the delay with my postings - but as you know I've been a bit busy - just like you. I'd like to say a huge thank you for all the kind words of support for me and my mum. I'm pleased to say she's had her op and it went as planned. I visited her yesterday and she was comfortable - which I think is really all you can expect at this stage. I'd thought I'd share with you a few things I've bought over the last few months. First is the beautiful Selvedge magazine - I'm hoping Santa might be bringing me a subscription. Next is my Quilting Arts - such a beautiful cover. I'm still waiting for number 29 - I'm sure it's got stuck in the post. And a copy of The Quilter - which you get as part of your Quilter Guild subscription. And a treat now - 'Finding your own visual language'. Since my course with Brenda I've been more adventurous with the books I've selected and don't look at the ones with just patterns in now. This...

Well I did do some other things last week that I didn't get round to posting about. One things was that on Tuesday I became a lady who lunched - in fact a three hour lunch. The shop (who's windows you can see above) Michaelmas House have a preview launch of their Christmas range. Part of the launch is either a Champagne breakfast or lunch at the restaurant over the square called Softleys . It was really nice - good company and food - although I must say a drink at lunch time seems to have alot more impact than one at night. I even managed not to spend any money in the shop. If you live anywhere near here please do have a look at the shop as it has such beautiful items for sale and a wide range of prices too. I also managed to cook another new meal. A Jamie Oliver one from his new book - a Spicy pork and chilli-pepper goulash. It was great (even though I say so myself). If you have a look at the UK Amazon site the recipe is there as one of the samples. The house was filled wit...

Well - I did a few things last week that I forgot to share with you all. And even after this posting there are a few more to come. The photo above are of some oat and raisin cookies I baked - they managed to last for both a visit from the in-laws, a night with the quilting group at my house quilting and a husband with a hearty appetite. Here are some of the purchases I made at Malvern. These packs were just £5, 8 pieces about 24cm square. I bought these for one of my fellow quilters who's after a variety of black and white fabrics. And here are my fabrics I bought - the ones above are for my stash. The bottom ones are for my pink quilt - circles and squares again. And finally here's my experiment that didn't work. Can you even see the organza next to the printed A4 sheet? The idea was to see if photo transfer would work on organza and would show up - but as you can see it doesn't work. I'm back to screen printing in gold - which I know will work. Finally - 'hi...