Lots of cooking

Went out for a walk on Monday and picked a lot of fruit to make jam with. Doesn't it look pretty?



Not quite so pretty once boiled down.



Strained it over-night then boiled it up.



And made beautiful jam.



Then I used up some milk from the reduced section and made paneer cheese, flavoured with herbs and garlic. I didn't think to take pictures of it until it was almost gone.



I also made sunflower seed and honey bread, 3 different types of bread rolls, home-made pizza, lasagne and raspberry flapjacks. All of which were eaten before I thought about photos. They were delicious though.

What I'm working on.

I've not done a lot of sewing lately. I did have a bit of a play with foundation piecing though.

I'd had this Mariners Compass pattern sitting in my drawer for years. I can't even remember where it came from originally so can't acknowledge the designer of it. I think I might have traced it out of a magazine... maybe. I never did anything with it as the pointy points and curved flying geese looked really scary but I loved it and finally plucked up the courage to have a go. It's pieced onto Bounce tumble drier sheets and came together surprisingly well. It even lies flat.



I've got a big stack of 6" string blocks and I think it would work really well as the centre piece of a string block and white irish chain. When my cutting table is free again I'll have a go and see if it works.

You've shamed me into it!

Well Dotty has linked to me in her blog and a couple more people have asked why I'd not been blogging lately so I'm making a bit of an effort.

The obvious place to start is with the quilt that I made for Dotty.



A close up of the quilting.


The back. Foolishly I did it with black in the bobbin so the back shows every mistake I made. What was I thinking? :)


I also managed to get a huge tuck in the backing fabric which meant unpicking half a quilt and there was a LOT of quilting on this one. I am deeply endebted to whoever invented the quick-unpick.

It's back to school time for E tomorrow. He's going into Year 10, options have been sorted and it's the run up to GCSE's. Bogglingly he's also opted to take Latin as an afterschool course. This was totally voluntary. He came home and announced that he was going to do it. He's hoping to do something science based when he leaves school. When he was really little he decided he wanted to be a marine biologist and I think that's still in the back of his mind. Maybe Latin will be useful in that. :)

Y has now announced that his trainers no longer fit him, despite them supposedly fitting last week. I suspect he didn't actually try them on and has now realised that he's grown. I'm not quite sure where we are going to find the money for them. We had saved for 'back to school' stuff but that has been spent and there is no room on the credit card. I wonder if they make Tesco Value Trainers.

Just for you Miss Dotty

Here is a picture of the gorgeous lunch I had.

Pasta with homemade oven dried cherry tomatoes, chicken, garlic, fresh basil and olive oil. It was very yummy.

The green and white quilt which features heavily in the last few entries is finished and I'll take some pictures soon. It is stunning. I'm so please with the way it turned out.

I'm still alive!

I thought that while I've got computer access I'd update this but sitting down to write it, it dawned on me that actually there has been no events of interest in my life and no progress on my various quilting projects. How sad is that? Hubby travelled to South Africa, Paris and Berlin. I bought some nice Sharpie permanent markers. I think I need more excitement in my life!!!

I'm not normally up this scary early but Y had a school trip to London and had to be at the coach for 6.15. He's going to visit the Houses of Parliament and then the National Gallery. Not something I'd fancy doing with a large group of 10/11 year olds. In previous years they've visited the British Museum or the Science Museum which I would think is rather more fun for kids than the Gallery. I hope he's not too disappointed.

I've taken up Ferret on her 8 random facts meme so I'll be having a bit of a think and post up later.

My computer is dead

My poor laptop died a horrible death and doesn't look like it will be salvageable.

I'm using my husband's work machine while he's here today but after that it's back being 'puterless until either mine gets fixed or we can save enough money for a new one, which won't be happening any time soon given the state of our finances.

I'll pop on as often as I can when he's home.

Gardening

While the weather lasts there will be no blogging because there will be no sewing. I'll be out hacking back the jungle and attempting to reclaim some outdoor space. Somewhere up there is a fire-pit and a nice round picnic table which I need to find. Then I can sit and drink my wine and watch all the stuff I've cut down burning merrily.

I know that come the summer I'll be glad I did it but right now my back aches and my shoulders are agony.

I did get a chance to escape at the weekend and we went down to Wells and on the way checked out Midsomer Quilting. Nice little shop and very friendly people. It was a gorgeous day and a beautiful drive too. Highly recommended if anyone's in the area. All I bought was some rotory cutter blades, I'm very proud of my restraint.