Hexie Play and Goodbye Tex

I thought I had talked before about making a small hexagon quilt out of some of the scraps left over from my Dear Jane blocks. I had seen one started here done, I think, in Joe Morton materials, but I wanted to use the materials which had been sent to me from all over the world, when I started my Dear Jane. I would be able to think of all those kind ladies, when I looked at my quilt. I will do a tutorial at some point, showing how I sew my hexagons, but I have a few pictures showing a little progress. I use Inklingo or Incompetech for the graph paper. The photo below shows a piece of hexagonal graph paper and on it I have drawn some arrows. This helps me keep my grain line true, when I am sewing the hexagons together.

You will not believe there are approximately 134 hexagons in the picture above, and I have only done two rows!! I am working on other projects in between, so this project is ongoing slowly!

If you read this blog regularly. you will know we live on an island off the north coast of Scotland, and we have a smallholding with a number of animals, including sheep. We started off with caddie lambs, i.e. lambs who have been rejected by their mothers and who are therefore orphaned. My husband bottle fed these lambs, until they were able to fend for themselves. One of these lambs was Tex. He was supposed to be castrated, but somehow it did not work, so he became a prolific Daddy and also a BIG ram. Sadly this year we decided we had to change rams, so we got our neighbour to help us get Tex into the trailer to go to market.

Our neighbour, trying to entice the ram with feed.

 Using a gate to get to Tex.

 Nearly there!

 Husband grabs him.

Get in!!

Gotcha!!

Doesn't he look sad?

Kiss!!

 Goodbye!!

Baa!

The end of another era. Tex is now in a good home over in Orkney Mainland.

Till next time.

tich

What a Mug (Rug)!

 I am a member of a small group of seven ladies (including me) on the Net. We live all over the world, but usually someone emails something each day. We swap patterns, jokes, stories and encourage each other when our sewing is in the doldrums. These ladies are wonderful. This Christmas it was decided we would make a mug rug for each other, and we could use a pattern of our own choice. Now we had plenty time, as this was decided way, way back in 2012, but as usual, life got in the way, and I was rushing to get the mug rugs done towards the end of the year. As you know, my sewing machine is the love of my life, so I decided to make an embroidered mug rug using my machine and quilt on it as well. I bought fancy initial designs for each person and got started. I was going great guns until I received my first mug rug from abroad. My mug rugs were way too small, so I had to start again!

Here are the five mug rugs I received -

Aren't they gorgeous? Each one is so individual and also meticulously done. I love each and every one of them. I decided I was going to use them, when my friends on the island came in for a cuppie. What a reaction they have got! Everybody picks them up to have a closer look at them and they have had so many compliments!

I have learned so much from this project! 

• Find out the proper dimensions of the project - you can see below one of the mug rugs I made initially, that was too small. I will be able to use it, as the initial is appropriate, but you will notice that I have not bound it yet. After sewing on six bindings in a very short time span, I decided it could be a UFO for a while. By the way, I used the tutorial from this blog to help me bind the rugs.

• And when I do a project, I usually have a major learning experience. This was mine below!! My iron broke down, but fortunately I had another one. I ironed this rug and thought the stitching looked a bit funny. The second iron must have been a hotter one, as it cooked the thread (Isacord)! The design turned into a shiny, hard bob, which you can't really see from the picture. It was back to the sewing machine, yet again.

Despite all the moans and groans, I did enjoy making the rugs, but I enjoyed receiving the ones back even more so! Thanks, dear friends for all your hard work!
Till next time.
tich

Busy, Busy, Busy!!

Here it is February and I still have not caught up with 2012. I have not been wasting time, but trying to catch up with some WIPs and some UFOs. On top of that Blogger decided it did not want to upload the pictures from my computer, so I decided to wait till it was mended.

The photograph above shows part of my table at the Christmas Fayre. I make a variety of crafts, and this part of the table has earrings, dyed and carded wool, embroidered bags (folded) and two woven scarves. The reddish woven scarf has a story attached. My husband was fascinated by my weaving loom. He watched me weaving some scarves and wanted to have a go, but thought it would take too long to make a big scarf. I had bought some special material for weaving fancy fibres, so I cut the fibres for him, showed him what to do and away he went. It was gorgeous!! The scarf was so successful that his sold even before the sale was officially open. I made some more in different colours.

Below is the next part of the table with dyed silk scarves, embroidered lace coasters, wine glass coasters, scissor keepers, flower hair clips, bangles and notebooks.

The end of the table has more silk scarves, jewelry kits, aromatherapy crackers, beads and findings. The willow branches behind are from the next stall.

These are some of the embroidered bags and backpacks I make. 

My husband always helps me with the sales and eggs me on to do greater things. We had great fun at the sale, and it was nice catching up with islanders we had not seen for a while. Hopefully this ends 2012,and I can now post about 2013!!
Till next time
tich

Trifle Recipe

I can't upload any photos, as Blogger has an ongoing fault. I will upload them as soon as possible!! 

Still having great problems with blogger, but after a lot of trouble, managed to get these up.

 

Birthdays, Christmas and New Year, we always have trifle. My grandmother made it and so did my mother, the same way. When we got married, my husband said, 'That's not a real trifle. It hasn't got cream on top of it!' But he had a bowl of it and then another. I did offer to make a 'proper' trifle after that, but funnily enough, I was told to make it just like my mother did.

To make the trifle, you will need-

Harvey's Bristol Cream

2 Jam Swiss Rolls (no cream)

Tin of sliced peaches

Custard powder

Tin of evaporated milk

Sugar

Raspberry jelly

Water

• Drain the juice from the peaches.
• Fill a large whisky glass almost two thirds full of sherry, then add a small amount of juice from tinned fruit. (have a small glass of sherry for yourself, just to check it tastes good!)
• Chop up the Swiss rolls and pour over the sherry mixture. Mash to mix well in.
• Make custard, using the evaporated milk, instead of ordinary milk (don't add any water). Make it slightly thicker than normal and pour over sponge/sherry mixture. Arrange the peaches  on top of the custard. Leave to cool completely.
• Make the jelly, but instead of making it up to 20 fl. oz. (1 pint), make it to 17 fl. oz, with the water and the rest of the fruit juice. 
• Carefully pour jelly over the custard and peaches. Leave to set.
• Serve with cream or ice cream. 
• Stay in or you will be breathalised!

Enjoy!

Till next time

tich

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Wishing you all your dreams come true in the New Year!!

Storms and Snowballs.

Well, we had a wonderful Christmas. It was a beautiful day and we walked to the far beach. It was so warm I took off my jacket and opened my jumper, but now we are back to torrential rain and high winds. It is supposed to be a stormy weekend again, so what's new?

As you probably have read on the Net, the PTA of Sandy Horne School have decided to welcome the students to the new school by decorating it with snowflakes. They have asked people to make snowflakes, and details can be seen here There are loads of free snowflake designs to download, but they have to arrive at the school before 12th January. Go and make some! Here is a picture of some of the snowflakes I made to send -

In the last few posts I haven't been showing a lot of the things I have been making, so I will have to get my finger out.
Perhaps next time,
tich
  

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you all, wherever you may be, seasons greetings and much love.

tich xxx

Storms and Floods

Last Friday the winds got up and we had a lot of rain. If it is a high tide and the wind is in the right direction, we get the spray from the waves flying over the road into one of our fields. My husband had moved the ram into new pasture, so all that could get wet were the geese. They enjoyed the flood that ensued and went swimming quite happily in their newly acquired pond. This happens every year and it subsides just as quickly as it arrives, so we don't worry.

On the Saturday the wind direction changed and the waves were now hitting the road past the bridge and round the corner from us. The wind did not seem particularly high, but the waves were spectacular. We had to go out at night and the road was completely blocked to a depth of two feet with stone and seaweed, so we about turned and got out the other way. Sometimes the road gets stone and seaweed on it after a storm, but I have never seen it as bad as this. I went along on the Sunday morning to take a few pictures. 
The council worker had been at it for hours, and he said the road had been blocked for 70 yards. It was the worst damage he had seen for years. The fencing on the opposite side of the road was broken, and one of the houses nearer the road has a curved dry stane dyke through the force of the stones hitting it. The storm had hit down the east coast of Scotland, so we were not the only ones to suffer. We have high winds and rain this weekend again. Never mind. The shortest day is passed and we are now heading to Spring!! I will leave you with a short clip of the stones being cleared (the council worker stopped as he was wondering if I wanted through) and some other pictures. Some can be enlarged.

Till next time.
tich

News

I started writing this weeks ago and it suddenly disappeared! I was looking at Blogger today, thinking it was about time I got organised and started to blog seriously again, when I saw this lurking in Drafts. It wasn't there before, but perhaps it was fed up hiding! So I will continue from where I left off. At this rate the New Year will be half done, before I catch up!

  My blog sebatical was due to a little illness, a bit of procrastination, a lot of visitors and finally a computer that died of old age. I didn't enjoy the illness, loved the visitors, but my computer!!!!! It was like a death in the family!! I had religiously made back ups, but when it came down to it, I still lost a lot of files! A friend helped me a lot over the Internet and eventually my cousin, who lives in the south of England, sorted it out, and my baby is back up working! I did go onto a PC when my Mac was away and I still don't like them! I think eventually I will revert to a PC, as I have so much software I cannot use on the Mac, but that does not mean to say I will enjoy it as much.

The embroidery above was done for one of my visitors. Let me state now I do not like canvas work all that much and I usually do not use kits, but this was an exception. I have known this person for over fifteen years and even though we moved away, he has kept in touch and is a lovely person. He had just moved into his first home of his own, so when he asked me to make a cushion for his sofa, I could not say 'No'. He is an avid gardener, so I thought I would bring a little colour into his house, during the dark, dreich days of winter. When he came with his uncle for a visit, he was delighted with his present, so I did not feel so bad.

We have been seeing some terrible pictures of freak weather conditions on Mainland Scotland and England, with enormous floods, torrential rain and rivers bursting their banks. We have been so lucky. We have had a little rain, but in the main the weather has been good. I leave you with a little clip of our bay, taken last week. I thank God every day for this beautiful view. We are so lucky to live here!  

Till next time.
tich                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

We Will Remember

 

The service at the War Memorial was lovely, but it was so cold!! A new name was added to the list on the Memorial. A Rear Gunner from Sanday was killed during the war.The aeroplane crashed in a mountainside near a remote French village in the winter.The villagers had to wait until the spring to retrieve the bodies.The parents would not believe their son had been killed, so would not allow his name to go on the Memorial. It was very sad. Recently his relatives asked if his name could be added, so today we learned of his story, saw his picture and at last his name was there for all to see.

WE WILL REMEMBER!!

 

Till next time.

tich



YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

Alex Salmond

I'm back!
Today is the most important day in Scotland for over three hundred years. Today the terms for the Scottish Referendum for Independence was signed by Alex Salmond and David Cameron.

How will you vote???
Till next time
tich

Baa!

When people ask me what my hobbies are, I immediately say patchwork, then beading and finally spinning/dyeing. Recently my granddaughter asked me for some pictures of our sheep for a school project, and I realised just how involved I am with them.

This is the first lamb born last year. The ewe had twins, but she rejected the second lamb, which was very weak, so my husband bottle-fed it.

 

Our ram was also hand-reared by my husband. The sheep are really friendly, and always come over to see what you are doing.

 I got given this fleece by one of the islanders. It is a Jacob/Suffolk cross. In the picture above part of the fleece has been washed and then it is carded on a drum 

carder. 

The carded wool feels so soft, after it is taken off the drum carder. It can be spun on the spinning wheel. or felted.

 This is actually a felted bag shape (below), but I did not like it, so I cut a bit off, so that I can make a clutch bag out of it. I intend to embroider the flap.

 I also made some felted balls. One of them is embroidered and another has various types of material and thread embedded in it. I want to experiment more with these. 

 Remember last year I experimented a lot with Kool Aid and a crock pot and got some interesting results.?

 My granddaughters using a diz, so that it is nice and easy to spin.

 A variety of colours for selling.

 This year I have started experimenting with natural dyes, and I have organised a dyeing workshop to take place in June, with the tutor coming from another island. It should be great fun. 

I am amazed just how involved I have become with wool. Now I will just have to learn how to feed the sheep and it will be a full circle (and also please my husband no end!)

Till next time.

tich