July Mini Mania

For those of you who are going to join us in this months Mini Mania project

July is time for sitting in the garden, sipping a drop of your favourite tipple, and maybe doing a bit of hand sewing so.....

Pop over to Sew Scatterbrained  and download the templates to EPP this lovely Ferris Wheel Mini

Pic from www.sewscatterbrained.com

Again - the colour choice is yours. If you print at 100% the finished Mini will be 10.5" x 11.5" finished.

You can post progress pictures here but don't post a Ta Dah! until the end of July.

Happy Stitching

Mini Mania

Willow Weaving

 When maybe I should have been at home, finishing the decorating or doing the ironing or packing my bags ready for a little trip to France, I tripped over to Lamport Hall to do a class on Willow Weaving (as you do!)

The old Laundry

Our Instructor, Sue gave us the choice of several items that we could weave, including some very nice plant supports, which I do need, and sculptured creatures (which are just for fun).

 I opted to make a chicken for my daughter 'S' who is about to move into a lovely rural setting. She was hoping to have a garden big enough to raise some chickens, but though the house they are moving to is huge larger that their present home, I don't think the garden would actually be suitable for the feathered sort.

Anyway, Sue gave us a quick run through on the process and we began to make our own chooks

some of the willow is grown locally

the basis of the body

Henrietta taking shape

Filling in the body

 We stopped for a short lunch break and had a stroll around the gardens.

This 'ruin' was built to display all the rockery plants and former owner, Sir Charles Isham's,  collection of garden gnomes. "Lampy" (thought to be the world's first Garden Gnome) still lives at Lamport Hall and has made celebrity appearances at the Chelsea Flower Show.  Apparently on the demise of Sir Charles, his daughters promptly went into the garden armed with shot guns and finished of all the other wee folk as they thought they were awful!

 The gardens however are beautiful

 some really weird seed pods

 A simple but charming piece of stained glass

 The Aliums are fantastic

 Lamport Hall has the largest walled "cutting" garden in the country

 It is a huge plot and all so the Lady of the house could have fresh cut flowers whenever she wanted. There are some unusual plants, and so many that are not native to this country but they seem to thrive in the shelter of these walls

 We did find this clump of Rhubarb had found a home here

many a pie to be filled here

 I don't know what this plant is, the leaves are huge but the flowers are ike stalks of snow

 I love Delphiniums, (and think mine could rival these)

 But I was quite envious of the superb collection of blousey Peopies

 Anyway - back to the weaving. I think Henrietta looks more like Mr Rooster so I started another one who will definitely be more girly

 I didn't get them both completed, but Sue packed me up with enough willow to finish off at home. (must do the ironing first!)

A couple of the ladies made Dragonflies for their gardens

 And when all the feathers are fluffed I will show you my finished first attempts at willow weaving (but definitely not the last).
I had a lovely day doing something quite different.

And now back to the chores.........

The Pirate has Returned

 You may remember that I had wanted to go to Leigh Art Festival a couple of  weekends ago but the plumbing incident put paid to that.

 Well,  yesterday we were called upon to help out babysitting and who doesn't want a trip to the seaside on a lovely day.  We travel down on Tuesday evening because it was a very early start to T & E and our morning began with a visit to Jo Jingles . Great fun and I knew most of the songs.
 We had a trip along the coast a bit and though the sun was shining, there was a cool, strong breeze ( not unusual for the British seaside) so we headed back to Old Leigh for some lunch as it's a bit more sheltered there.

I was delighted to see that the Pirate crochet had been returned to its postbox outside Chalkwell station  ( cannot believe that someone would have kidnapped him!!)

photo from twitter.com

 so we detoured to Leigh station and had a photo taken with this little lady

photo from twitter.com

 The detail on these creations is superb!  Little Miss O thought they were lovely but wasn't so happy being perched so high on top of the postbox!

 Anyway - today was spent catching up on neglected tasks and took a couple of hours off to get on with June's Mini Mania Challenge

 Tiny pieces had been cut and something must have been going right because I got the whole thing finished before Tea Time! Just the binding to sew down by hand

 Can't show you the finished item because we "reveal all " at the end of the month

Finished block size is 1 1/2"!!!

This little group is open to newcomers just pop over to this site to join in the fun!

A few more chores and we head off to the airport again!  This time we are visiting with Sister3  and we are hoping to see some of this

But if they are not out yet ( we have mis-timed it every visit!) there will be beautiful, peaceful countryside with some great food and quite a bit of relaxing ready to start July off.

Another "What a Week!" -

But not in a good way....

We are redoing our bedroom. This is a very much long awaited project.

So - walls stripped ready for new paper.

A two week long impasse regarding replacing the fitted wardrobes or not.

I give in on condition I get full charge of the new curtains and colour scheme.

Move all contents of (three double and a single cupboard and twelve drawers!!) current wardrobes into spare room cupboards.  So by smartening up our room, we have trashed three other rooms.

It had to be done

Remove current fittings and purchase new ones.

"Shall we remove the artex from the ceiling and have it re skimmed?"  Knew that one was coming.

Our lovely plasterer came ( three weeks later - he's really busy and we had a holiday) and skimmed the ceiling.  "I could do the walls too"  Knew that one was coming too!!  But not till next week.

Flat pack fun on Thursday!!

My contribution!

Fit the new cupboards and remove radiator and wait for the plasterer to return to do the walls.

Call the plumber as the caps on the radiator pipes are leaking. Plumber (angel) arrives and caps of the leaky pipe.  "That radiator could do with replacing". 

Order new radiator!

Plasterer arrives and makes a fabulous job of the walls.  This is quite an old house and there were lots of cracks and repairs that had been done over the years.

So now we just have to paint the walls and move everything back, hopefully before the family arrive mid week to stay for a few days and attend a wedding.

(I say "we" but will readily confess that Mr T has done just about all of the work)

Saturday evening.  Sitting doing a bit of sewing. I have joined a "Swap" and am working on that as well as June's contribution to the Mini Mania group.

can't show too much as it's a "secret" swap

"Come quickly!" - Another leak from the removed radiator pipes that was now dripping through the sitting room ceiling!!

That's the shortened version to my ..... eventful week!

I did get to complete 4 more blocks of my new quilt - only 15 to go now!

I really wanted to get to see the Yarn Bombing pieces at Leigh Art Trails this weekend but that's not going to happen.

So - we await the plumber and there's not much else to do but crack on with a bit more sewing.

Hope that your week have been as much "fun"!