Seend, Seeding & Sandown

My computer is poorly - it keeps freezing all the time (problems with Vista I expect) so until I can do a back-up and re-load , I'm writing this on Ian's . Kind of him to let me on but with an ergonomic keyboard and a screen that I can only look at through the wrong part of my varifocals, it's a bit of a struggle. Enough moaning - what have we been up to? We spent last weekend in Seend , Wiltshire with F&T who we haven't seen since our wedding nearly 4 years ago. The excuse was the Open Gardens and we had a lovely relaxing time. Walking round the village , I couldn't resist the peeling paintwork on the old WI hall (above) but there were plenty more scenic views of the canal and surrounding farmland and of course the gardens.Inspired by the gardens and fortified by 2 cream teas, on our return home we got cracking, raking the soil where the lawn had been and laying down the membrane. Just weighting it down with stones when the heavens opened so it was G&T's in the bath rather than on the bench admiring our handiwork. Next task is laying down the 'service area' and path with slabs before pouring out the bags of gravel -still lots to do! I got the labels for my quilt entry for FoQ so with deadlines looming I took a couple of days leave to do some stitching ( detail above) - I decided it needed some hand as well as machine quilting so have been 'seeding' large areas with perle thread. I was running a bit low on House of Embroidery 'mystique' threads in the right colours so had the prefect excuse to go to the National Patchwork Championships at Sandown today!! (apart from meeting up with Brenda for lunch)

A relatively modest haule I think - 1o hanks of thread from 'Out of Africa' ( I was allowed to delve through all they had as well as the basket on display) and 6 metres (for backing) of different colourways of Makower 'Japanese Garden Raked Stripe' a bargain at £4 a metre from Fabrics Galore.

Some interesting quilts from Frieda Oxenham, and Sheena Norquay among others and an amusing take on Batik Beauties 'Delights of the Sea' by Susan Briscoe ( cat on a Fish and Chips counter!)

The Narrative threads exhibition by Corinne Gradis and Elodie Watanabe was intriguing - I was particularly taken by a series of pieces with the theme of blue baskets using African fabrics (there's more on their website) which reminded me a bit of Dorothy Caldwell.

Time to go and do some more seeding with my new thread.