April Flowers

 The sun is shining here and the garden is green and growing and filled with spring flowers......

 ................i have been doing some relaxing crochet in between sewing some commissions.......

 ............as well as weeding the beds, watering the pots and generally loving the spring......

.............the painters are here again today but it may be their last day as the job is almost done and the old house is looking very spruced up with shiny paintwork now.........

 .................my new crochet blanket is underway........i love making these circles in flower colours.....

 .............almost all the yarn is stylecraft special dk left over from other projects........

 ..........there are just a couple of extras from yarn i found on my travels but now can't identify......not a good idea if you want to find the yarn again or tell others what you have used, so i am going to try and keep a note of each yarn that i buy for the future.....

 .............some of the tulip bulbs from the old tulip patch have now flowered down in the box garden.....they look pretty there so i will be adding lots more next autumn.........

 ...............the cutting garden is mass of spring flowers............

 ..............more of my favourites, bellis daisies.....love these little button flowers so much :).........

 ..............at easter we got a new seat for under the cedar tree....it is the place to go and sit in the shade on hot summer days........the old seat was in a sorry state so we bought this new one to replace it.........then we decided to mend the old one and put it somewhere else.....can't have too many seats around the garden to sit and rest after gardening, to watch the birds or the grandchildren playing (or do some crochet in the sunshine)........

 ..................i made the circles into squares and using the join as you go method i started putting the blanket together at the weekend.........

 ..............this week is a busy one for me, with magazine project making, book proofs to check and all the delicious fabrics in my sewing room waiting to be sewn............and lots of family times too........

 ................plenty of moments to enjoy the spring flowers as well, i hope.............

..................thank you for visiting me here, dear readers, and thank you so much for all your very kind comments..........i wish you a happy week ahead with flowers and sunshine and peaceful crafty times..................back soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxoooooooooooooooxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Over the Garden Fence

 There is a finished quilt to show you here today...........i am so happy that my garden fence quilt made with pam kitty garden fabrics (and sunrise studio fence borders) is finished ........quilted in a daisy pattern and bound in red spotty fabric also from the collection............. (all fabrics are from lakehouse dry goods).....

 .............it was a lovely quilt to make as the four patch squares are so easy to piece together and a good way to play with the different fabrics..............i was wondering if the borders would be hard to do.....(i am not much of a large scale fabric wrangler) but thanks to the printed lines on the border design it is easy to cut and sew them to your quilt and i do love the effects..........

.....i chose my favourite print from the collection for the backing which has a garden catalogue text background and gorgeous florals strewn across it........years ago when we made quilts we used to just put anything on the backs, using up unpopular fabrics from our stashes perhaps.... but eventually i realised that choosing the backing was a chance to use a big piece of fabric that you really love and can keep on enjoying whenever the quilt is used...........

 .........the applique flowers were added using bondaweb and sewn round the edges with blanket stitch and matching embroidery thread...........i added a few to the borders, as i love how flowers in real gardens often grow through fences and twirl out onto the other side............

 .............some close ups of the quilting which was done professionally for me on a longarm quilting machine............

 ............i added some butterflies too, inspired by the ones in our spring garden.............

 ...............as you can see i took a lot of pictures of the new quilt :).............

.............i love all the colours in this line, which you can find here and here.............

 ..............last week i also finished another quilt but will save that one for another time......i have been working on magazine commissions this week, and working with a lot of disruption too as we have painters here painting the outside of the house.............even though they are very nice, it is always hard for me to work and relax in my house when 'the men' are working here.........and being an old house we seem to have more than the normal share of work to be done.......

 .........i decided not to include pictures of the scaffolding, and the painters at my studio window, or at my sewing room window ;(........i would rather focus on the quilts and flowers, which is mainly what i have been doing :)......the sunshine and warmth of the past week has brought out so many flowers and blossoms it is so uplifting to see what is emerging each day both in the garden and the countryside around..............

 .............and lots of trips to the garden centre have been needed for things like potting compost, new gardening gloves and colourful geraniums to fill up the pots and planters.........

 ...........this is one of my favourite times of the year..........at the weekend i began weeding the garden and really enjoyed it.......though this might wear off soon.............

...............if you were to peep over my garden fence you would see primroses, blossom, tulips, catkins, bluebells in bud, marsh marigolds in the pond, daffodils, jonquils, daisies, pulmonaria, forget me nots, hellebores.......a small white fluffy dog............ and lots of scaffolding and paint pots...........as soon as 'the men' have gone i shall take some garden pictures and spend lots of time out there enjoying the season............thank you for visiting me here, dear readers and sharing the creative connection........it is always such a treat to hear from you too.............wishing you a wonderful week with sunny spring days, beautiful flowers and plenty of crafty inspiration................back soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxoooooooxxxxxx

Vintage Teacups

 The picture above is of an amazing rockingham teaset, all laid out for tea in the drawing room at speke hall, where we went for a family outing over the easter break........it was a chilly grey day with swirling mists............

 ................there were masses of daffodils growing all the way up the drive......they have three different kinds there.............in the atmospheric tudor hall, which dates back 400 years, the rooms were dim and i was pleased that my teaset photographs showed the pink and white china so brightly........we went there with our dear elder daughter sarah, her hb gareth and children charlie and daisy.........there were crochet chicks to be spotted in some of the rooms and the children were given little clipboards to write them down on, which they loved......

 ...........a window view of  part of the black and white exterior..........and some (fake) battenburg cake which looked surprisingly real and tempting to some of the family.......(we did visit the tea room later for some real tea and cake).............we will be returning there when the weather is sunny to enjoy the gardens and the grounds................

 ...............i have had a rather wonderful week, with treats arriving by post........first i received a parcel from my lovely blog friend madelief........i was so lucky recently to win some of her sweet vintage china teacups, and they arrived safely and perfectly packed.............

...............and then i received some wonderful new fabrics from lecien, to use in my work.......

 .........the floral tea cups and the flower sugar fabrics looked rather pretty together.......

 ...............i am loving the all the bright floral shades so much...........

 ............wondering if i can bring myself to cut into them ever.......

 ............and deciding i might just snip off some small pieces first to make some hexies for a little project (more of this soon)...............there are other lovely lecien fabrics in my parcel which i will be showing in another post....i have a lot of lovely sewing to do :)....

 ...............so, after showing my own treats and giveaways, it is now time to announce the winners of the spring giveaway i held here...........thank you so much to everyone who took part in it, and i am just sorry you couldn't all be winners...............(we will have another giveaway soon, i think).......

 ..............the first winning name was pat hayes of pat's patch........and the two other winners are cristina of my world of wool, and vivienne of green rabbit designs..........congratulations to you all, lovely ladies, and please email me your postal addresses so i can send your birdies flying off to you..........

.............thank you to everyone who visits me here in my little blog space, it is fun to hear from you and to find new blogs, as well as to visit old favourites............i wish you all a very happy week, with plenty of  sunshine and blue skies................back soon xxxxxxxxooooooooooxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Easter Time

 We have all been enjoying our easter break here, and i hope you have too.....we have had some sunny days and blue skies and also some chilly days when ethereal mists swirled around us.....

 ............we held our annual egg hunt on easter day, and i am pleased to say the same beatrix potter egg hunt signs we used in previous years are still holding up well and the children love them (me too)..........

 .............we had some little cakes with easter egg toppers..........

 ..............and our anniversary bowl of flowers is full now of gorgeous grape hyacinths and little violas, besides the primroses and tiny daffodils......so pretty........

 ...............there are bunnies on shelves and tiny flower posies in patterned egg cups all around the house...

 .............and lots of bunches of narcissus picked from the garden too..........

 ..........this week the new crafts beautiful magazine was published featuring my latest project....these little painted boxes with cross stitched flowers in the lids............

 .............i thought they would be perfect for crafty gifts, or to hold little bits and bobs for the sewing room.....and then i realised they were also ideal for holding mini eggs..............you can find out more about the magazine here..............

 ..........besides some lovely outings and family times this holiday i have been hand sewing a quilt, perfect for relaxing evenings and movie watching..........when i tidied up my sewing room i found some unfinished blocks of pam kitty morning fabrics, simple alternate squares of white background fabrics and colourful ones......enough for a small quilt............so i joined them together and then looked in my stash for something to back it with............

 ...............i loved this design from sunrise studio and it echoes the squares pattern so nicely.....

 ............i have several other quilts in progress at the moment, and plans for a new crochet blanket just beginning too..........lots of new crafty things to show soon, and one or two outings too when i have sorted out the pictures............

................thank you so much for visiting my little blog space, dear readers, and to everyone who has entered my giveaway in the previous post a big thank you too :)...............there is still time to add your name if you'd like to....just scroll down.......the giveaway is open until april 11............i hope you are having a happy easter break with sunshine, flowers and some well deserved treats.......back soon xxxx