Quilt while you're ahead

eight years ago today...

at this hour I was putting on my wedding dress...

We've come a long way, me and you, Mr M, haven't we?

But I've never looked back.

Only forward.

that was the weekend that was

and what a fab weekend that was too!

It started with a train journey on Saturday morning

and it finished with another train journey on Sunday evening

and in between there was a lot of this

and a gorgeous picnic under this tree

(these were divine... from here)

and whole day of learning knitting secrets  here.

The greatest thing was meeting in person other like minded girls:  Ali (again), Christina who doesn't have a blog and of course should..., Tracy, Val and the mastermind of it all Alice.  What a laugh.  Ali and Alice have got a much more detailed account of the event so head over there if you want to know more.

I can't stop smiling.  Do you know that feeling?

(A special thanks goes to Mr M without whom this weekend wouldn't have been possible!)

cookies and flowers

is there anything nicer?

(well, there is... I've got ahead of me a weekend of divine crafting: on Saturday a workshop with Jessie Chorley and on Sunday a workshop at Loop.  And yes, Mr M is looking after the boys... and yes I'm in good company)

But a part from that I love flowers and I love 'cookies'. 

These ones in particular:

Thanks to Nigella's super quick receipe... mmmm nice, especially with a glass of ice cold milk.  Needless to say they didn't last long.

And who says boys and flowers don't mix?  Check this out (thanks to www.kidscraftweekly.com):

Colourfull muffin cases, some long wooden skewers, felt circles, sticky tape, glue, a pot and a couple of potatoes.

Voila'.

a very simple quilt

No 3's new quilt is done

It's very simple

Simply stripes/blocks of fabrics  (3 on the front, plus binding and one for the back)

Simply quilted in straight lines one inch wide

It looks great on his bed ("I'm older now, mummy")

And hanging from the goal net in the garden...

Have a great weekend.

on my window sill you can find

mummy's cookie jar.  my biscuits. 

living lettuce

a card and flower from Mr M

my mini cacti

fossils from our holiday in Dorset and a Chinese money plant

What's on yours?

felted knitting basket

My latest felting adventure

to hold my current knitting project

and other things

WIPs

I've joined Amanda's star quilt-along... c'mon do it too, there's still time!

No 3 moved to a 'big boy's bed' on Sunday... this made rethink his quilt

And what are you working on? Do share!!

Indigo dyeing (and the new kitchen)

Have you ever tried indigo dyeing? You should.

It's magic. 

You take a white piece of fabric, you fold it, stitch it, roll it, knot it.

Then you dip it.

And when you take it out it's dull green and  it smells  horrible BUT right in front of your eyes... it turns this amazing shade of blue... (something to do with the oxygen in the air)

this

turned into this

this

became this

and this

surprised me with this

But my favourite of all is this

which unrolled into this magic piece

Magic or what?

Oh, and the kitchen... drum roll please...

ta dah!!!

So clean and white and calm and new and MINE!!!!

sometimes they come back - a totally random post

And so we're back. 

Not from out of space (name that song) but almost.  Let's just say my parents' village is ... 'tiny'.  In fact, it's smaller than that, so it's nice to get back to the real world.

To recap:

Sunday was a gorgeous day

so we went for a walk in the old village orchard, nobody looks after it now and it's going wild

The trees are still flowering though

even if they're covered in 'stuff' (can someone give me the right word for it?)

I love that 'stuff'

I also finally got round to taking photographs of the log cabin quilt I made for mum a few years ago.

Boy, did that take ages of what? (and why are quilts so hard to photograph?)

It was all done using the foundation method (I wanted all the strips to be exactly the same... fool!) and I spent days ripping the paper off the back.  DAYS!!

Oh and this is Georgina (the boys named her...) the cat that showed up at Christmas time and never left.  She thinks a pile of herself if you ask me.

Well it's enough for today.  I need to go and excavate my house from all the dust left by the builders.  And yes the kitchen is done, pictures to follow...

no word for knitting

yes it's true.  The verb 'to knit' doesn't exist in the Italian language.

People do knit.  A lot.  They just have to use bizarre turns of phrases which are quite untranslatable.  The most used one means something like 'working the irons', because here needles are predominantly made of metal.  And lets not get into the whole crochet thing...

Regardless of this I've had quite a bit of knitting time here.  Mr M is getting ready to wear his first pair of handknitted socks (and probably his last... his feet are too long) and I'm discovering the pleasure of a Chevron scarf

who would have thought that combining two apparently not mixable balls of yarn

would create something so lovely?

Originally this was meant to go into the Christmas piles... but maybe it'll get redirected around my neck...

Maybe.  Definitively.