Sunshine in London

Not a great deal of crafting going on this weekend - we went up to London to see my daughter.  She loves it there and we hadn't seen her for a while. My son misses her a lot - here they are together - you wouldn't think there was seven years difference between them.

It was such a lovely day, the sun didn't stop shining.  We went to Tate Britain and Greenwich. Top tip - if, like me, you prefer nice strong tea, on no account order a pot from the cafe in the Tate - it is unbelievably weak. I would have complained, but the family said they couldn't bear the embarrassment - so English!

Quilt Top

Were you taking bets on whether I'd pop up again any time soon?  The sun was bright today so here's a pic of the quilt top for my Dad.  For such a simple pattern it sure is taking a long time to finish.  The colours aren't very seasonal are they?  They were when I started it.

 

I was going to try to do something a bit more fancy with a border but I'm thinking that it's going to be better to cut my losses and quilt it as it is - I don't think my Dad will mind.

Sometime soon I'll also update my side bar - I have read lots of books this year already.  I need to get rid of the 2009 books and get with the times.

Dipping a Toe Back in the Water

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it?  Hopefully not too many of you will have removed me from your bloglines in the meantime.  I didn't intend to be away for so long, though I have been shamelessly lurking on lots of blogs.  Truth to tell, I just haven't been that creative lately.  At the risk of boring you, things have been a bit up and down workwise, my job role was made redundant and although I had some project work to tide me over, I had to go through what seemed like a long period of uncertainty until I got a new role in the college.  Whilst this isn't the worst thing in the world and it happens to a lot of us nowadays, it just wasn't conducive to the creative juices!

But now ... the clocks have gone forward, I'm feeling more motivated and I'm ready to blog and roll!

It was my daughter's 20th Birthday in March and I filled a (large) shoe box with 20 wrapped presents and posted it to her in London.  I had fun choosing little items that would (a) not weigh too much - got to save on the postage you know, and (b) all fit into the shoebox.  The presents included: a silver wig, an alice band complete with pink velour cat's ears, a set of battery operated fairy lights, super sour jelly beans .....etc.,etc.  I didn't get a picture of the box or all of the presents together, but I did make 2 of them myself - a tiny knitted teddy bear (no photo) and a tote bag decorated with machine appliqued flowers (which I did remember to photograph).

I've also been working on a quilt for my Dad, I started it in October with all good intentions of completing it for Christmas. Ha! What was I thinking?  Christmas came and went.  I bought him a jigsaw.  It is his birthday at the end of May: he'll be 75.  I am convinced I can complete it by then.  I'll post a picture of the flimsy soon. 

Meantime, I have booked places for me and my mum to go and see the Quilt Exhibition at the V&A next month.  It has had loads of coverage in the media here - patchwork and quilting are the flavour of the month, though Germaine Greer didn't approve in her Guardian article.

It's good to be back!

Fiona

P.S. Of course I bought my Dad more than a jigsaw for Christmas.  But I always do buy him a jigsaw because he likes them.