D of E and Plonk!

After the last time, making loads of teddies as part of the Duke of Edinburgh scheme (see here), I swore I was not getting involved again. I got my arm twisted, a new participant, who is a sweetie, and this time I am showing her how to make soft toys (but definitely no knitted teddies!) She has done a (very) little sewing, so we are starting off simple and going from there. I thought we would start with this -

 I found it on the Net here, - and I made the bunny for next week.

The girl's brothers and sisters will have fun playing with the puppets, and I can pop an Easter egg inside and send them to my granddaughters for Easter.

I have also been busy bottling. Now and again I take a notion to make wine. I fill a demijohn and then forget about it. I found two very dusty demijohns the other day and thought I would see how they were doing. One was made from herb tea bags and was a light, tasty wine. The other one had no label, but had a kick like a mule! I think it is elderberry, but who cares? It tastes good - HIC!!
Till next time.
tich

Flakes and Floods

I have been working on the Frosty Flakes BOM from 'As Sweet As Cinnamon' that I talked about in my last post. I have completed sewing the hexagons together and appliqueing them onto a white background. 

 I used two green materials and three red.

I forgot to photograph the self coloured red, but you can see it below.

 

I do not like the embroidery on the block below. The stitches are too big, making it look crude. I am going to redo this block. This is a very relaxing BOM, which I sit down at night and do whilst watching the TV.

I have been appalled, watching pictures on TV of the floods in Australia. I find it difficult to contemplate that amount of water, travelling at such speeds. I feel very guilty about complaining when the waves come over onto our road. 

Toni from 'Make It Perfect' has compiled a master list of all the blogs in Blogland, holding auctions to help the victims of this awful disaster. Go here to see how you can help.
Thankful ThoughtsAs you have probably guessed by now, I just love where I live. I leave you with a picture of a recent sunset. It doesn't get much better than this. 

Till next time.tich

New BOM and Catch Up (Photo Heavy)

Well I tried very hard, but I couldn't resist the free BOM on Dawn Hay's blog, 'As Sweet As Cinnamon'. I know the BOM is finished, and the blocks were supposed to be sewn for Christmas, but I have got eleven months to do it, right? I am always behind, 'like the coo's tail!' I love hexagons, especially small ones, and I really enjoy tacking the papers to the material. It is so relaxing. This time, however, I used a different technique. I used a glue stick, to stick the paper to the material and then tiny dots of Roxanne's Glue Baste It, to turn down the material. I did not put any Baste It glue on the paper, only glued the material to itself. The hexagons are made into florettes, these  are appliqued to a background fabric and then embroidered. As I knew I would be using a blue washable pen to mark the embroidery design, and the whole thing would have to be washed, I had no reservations about using the glue. I will give you updates, as I progress.


Because I left the post about the giveaway subscription up for so long, to give everybody a chance at winning, I did not show you the pictures of our snow in December. I know some of you will laugh, as it is not very deep, but for our island it lasted way longer than usual. The road men did a wonderful job keeping the roads clear, and one morning I saw the lorry pass just after 6am, so 'Well Done!' to them. Mr D and I went a walk one beautiful day and here are some of the pics.

The beginnings of a beautiful sunrise.

Our house from the side of the bay. There are two walls and a road between us and the front of the bay, so you can't see the snow.

The landscape.

The edges of the bay have frozen, and if it was not tidal, the whole bay would have been frozen over!

That is our house on the left of the picture with the frozen bay in the foreground.

Walking on the headland.

Where the bay met the land. The tide is pulling the ice away. Now I know how the Titanic felt!!

When we got to the top of the headland we saw...

I tried to get better pictures, but the seals kept on putting their heads down, as I clicked!

Hope you enjoyed our snow!!

Till next time.

tich

Free Patterns and BOMs

As a pay back for all the good luck I am having, I thought I would list some blogs that have some free patterns or BOMs.

One of my favourite blogs for applique is Erin Russek's One Piece at a Time It is such a good site, with loads of tutorials and videos on how Erin does her beautiful work. She has the patterns for her Floribunda BOM up until tomorrow. Sorry for the short notice . I tried to tell you about this before, but I managed to delete the post! The BOM is absolutely gorgeous, so go over and have a look.

Elly told me about the next site. The Temecula Quilt Co are giving patterns for the Twelve Days of Christmas, one each day. They are now on Day Ten. the patterns were inspired loosely on a quilt from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

At All People Quilt, you can sign up for a weekly newsletter, and get loads of patterns and ideas direct to your desktop. The site is enormous with lots of eye candy.

I love Ellie's Quiltplace, and especially the Cat Quilt BOS. There are also a lot of other free patterns. This site is really inspiring and I like it a lot.

Bunny Hill Designs has the most beautiful designs and there is going to be a new BOM called 'Henrietta Whiskers' coming tomorrow, I think.

There is a new BOM at Little Miss Shabby with embroidery and piecing. It looks really cute!

Dawn, at Sweet As Cinnamon is designing a really wonderful BOM called 'Out of the Box', which will use all sorts of lace, bits and bobs. There are 72 deigns, eight each month. It starts tomorrow, so get over there to get the all the gen!!

Hope you enjoy these sites. I will do this occasionally, as it is fun to pass it on.
Till next time.
tich

Subscription Surprise

I told you all about the new Quilt Pattern Magazine in a previous post, with the chance to win a year's subscription. You will never guess what happened? I went on the Blog Tour and left a comment each day, and I won five subscriptions!! I did not know what to do, so I contacted the creator of the magazine, and we used Skype to discuss the problem. I knew the subscriptions were non transferable, and I wanted to share my good fortune with others, so we agreed that I take two subscriptions and return the other three to be redrawn. I would like to thank all the ladies who advertised the Blog Tour, for giving me a chance to read their blogs, get new ideas, make new friends (you know who you are) and to win!! Yipee!! This is going to be a good year!
Till next time.
tich

We Have a Winner

We have a winner. Micki from Irish Muses has won the free subscription to the Quilt Pattern Magazine. Micki lives in a small village in Ireland, so she will be able to gets lots of ideas for new projects and stay green at the same time. Well done, Micki. Enjoy!
tich

Happy New Year (when it comes!)

Happy New Year and

Lang May Yer Lum Reek!!

40 years!

Thank you for 40 happy years!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS (when it comes)!!!

I know I will not have time tomorrow to blog, so I want to take this opportunity to wish all my bloggie friends 'A Merry Christmas!' The year did not start very well, and had a very sad middle, but from the sadness I met and made some wonderful bloggie friends, who overwhelmed me with kindness. I have learned so much from this year, I have some wonderful friends, I have tried new techniques and patterns and I have been surrounded by LOVE.

THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!!

WISHING YOU ALL A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS!!

Giveaway Competition

As you all know I live in a remote island off the north coast of Scotland. I love living here, and say thanks every day for being so lucky for being here, but, as with anything else, there are drawbacks. I can't nip down to the supermarket, when a recipe asks for an unusual ingredient - nearest supermarket 90 minutes away by ferry and only one return ferry a day. The weather can be severe, but having said that, we have not had the dumps of snow the rest of the country has had, and none of our roads have closed (thanks to our great roadmen!). I buy a lot of goods over the Net, but I think the thing I miss most is going to a Patchwork workshop and seeing and learning how things are made. I have great Webbie friends and I use the Net to increase my knowledge, so I am really excited about what I am going to tell you now.

There is going to be a new Internet magazine for quilters!!


It is only $11.99 for the year's subscription, that is twelve issues PLUS an extra issue free! Yes, that's right, a baker's dozen for only $11.99. Oh my Scottish blood is jumping. Imagine getting a magazine for less then $1 an issue and that is not all. The magazine has the following features -

• You can print and file the portions of the magazine you wish to keep.
• You can easily organize all the articles and patterns in a binder.
• You get at least five patterns in the magazine and

• You will have instant access to the magazine hot off the press. No waiting for the mail to arrive.

This is too much fun! I've had a sneak peek at the magazine and it is goood!! 

Now for the best bit - No 1!

If you want to see the magazine too, go to the following link -
http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/
Edit - I missed out a dot. Thanks to all the people who were paying attention!
Best Bit No. 2!
If you would like the chance of a free subscription to the magazine, come back to my blog, after you have looked at the magazine and leave a comment. The winner will be announced in the first week in January. I will use the Random Generator, as I know all my bloggie friends will want to win!!!!
Best Bit No. 3!
Even better! If you want more chances of winning, take part in the Blog Tour See all the participating blogs and leave a comment on their blog too. Not only do you get more chances of winning a subscription, you get to see a whole lot of interesting blogs!!! How good can it get?
Bonne chance!!
Till next time
tich

End Of Journey! (Photo Heavy)

 We were so pooped when we reached Inverness, we decided to stay the next day and not move on until the following day. Our first port of call was Leakey's Bookshop and cafe. This is an amazing place, an old church converted into a bookshop, with over 100,000 books in it! You can see the history below. 

 

This is taken from the cafe in the gallery, looking down on the stacks.

 The sides of the galleries have old maps and Victorian prints for sale. The pulpit is where the owner checks books and does business away from the public.

 The building is heated by and absolutely immense wood burning stove. The flue can be seen in some of the photos, going up through the ceiling.

 The cloth covered pile and the boxes in this picture are books waiting to be sorted and priced.

 The spiral staircase leading to the cafe and galleries. A glimpse of the owner at the cash desk. The service here is so friendly and welcoming (and the cakes are good too!)


We continued our journey the next day. The roads were really good, but we could not get up to the ferry at 1.30pm. We missed it, so we had a break and got the later one at 6.30pm.

Because we missed the lunch time ferry, we had to stay overnight on Orkney Mainland. The Sanday ferry had left at 3.20pm. The roads on OM were really bad. We saw a lorry trapped gong up a hill, and we had one bad skid.We could not go back home on the early ferry. We had one sad task to perform. During our visit away, we got a phonecall from the person who was caring for our animals to say that our cat had broken its leg and had to be sent over to the vet. We spoke to the vet, but she recommended we put the cat down. We saw the vet and paid our bill. 


We got home just after five, after a calm crossing. I can honestly say I was never so glad to get home! We have both been sitting, doing nothing, for the past two days and it has been wonderful! Hope you are all warm and cosy wherever you are!
Till next time.
tich