Patchwork and Pottering

 Two of my favourite things...patchwork and pottering in the garden....and i did some of both last weekend.....

 ...we were able to garden properly for the first time this season....i weeded and mulched one of the borders (mulching sounds quite professional don't you think?) and Mr P did lots of his favourite kind of gardening... that is, pruning things ;-).....we were both very contented and it was lovely to sit outside and have a cup of tea again in a sheltered bit of the garden, with the sun shining and the birds singing (and some homemade tea bread from the Mary Berry Baking Book).........

....and then a bit of pottering in the potting shed for me....with some new spring plants to either pot on and enjoy indoors or to decide where to plant outside......

 ....weekend breakfasts.... i just love that leisurely feel to a weekend morning....are you noticing  lot of CK things appearing here?......there is a reason for it which i will show you in a moment.....

 ...........a quilt i made a while ago, inspired by CK fabrics, especially the gorgeous blue strawberry one, my regular breakfast cereal bowl...... and a cute little CK badge on a gift that arrived this week.......

....lady luck has smiled on me again this week and i won the Cath Kidston Patch book  in the giveaway at the gorgeous Mary Jane's Tearoom....so exciting...(here it is being pictured with my Strawberry Hearts quilt..)

 ...a big huge thank you to Susan for this wonderful giveaway ...Mary Jane's Tearoom is one of my favourite blogs....not only do i love all the delicious colours and pictures, but i love to see Susan's original designs for her knitted mice and bunnies, they are so delightful....if you don't already know this blog do go and visit, you're in for a real treat.....

 ....it was lovely to be back in the potting shed again, i have swept it all out, tidied it up and found my gardening things again....it really feels like spring is here once i start to garden once more.....

 .....a bit more patchwork....this is a peek at a new quilt i've been slowly working on over the last few months...it will have more applique and some colourful quilting....i will be back with another update on it soon i hope, as well as another farmer's wife block......yesterday i taught my elder daughter how to begin to crochet a granny stripe blanket...i think she's hooked.... she rang up today to say she's now on to the third stripe :-).....

......i love my crafty things, they make me sooo happy....and it's always wonderful to hear that it makes others happy too.....thanks for popping in to visit me here today, it's a pleasure to see you.....enjoy your week, i hope you find lots of happy crafty moments, and the sun shines for you too......back soon xxxxx

Buttons and Patches

 There has been rather a lot of rattling of the big button jar here this week, as some of the projects i'm working on include an array of buttons....and so did these little projects .....two nine patch pincushions.....

 .... my elder daughter needed a pincushion so i stitched her one, embroidering on her initials and a few little flowers in her favourite colours too to make it special to her.....

 ....and then i made one for me too....with some tiny pieces of the gorgeous ruby fabric that i haven't decided what to use for yet, and some grey spotted fabric left over from one of my earlier book projects....i love the combination of grey with spots and florals.....

 ........lovely colourful buttons....so many to choose from.....the perfect one is lurking there somewhere....

 .......ck buttons still on the card but not for long as i have a special project in mind for these......and a little covered button with an initial cross stitched on.... i have just been given a button making kit by my younger daughter when we visited her last weekend so i will be making more of these very soon.......i will also be making a pincushion for my younger daughter too of course :-)

.....here is the back of my pincushion with an extra stitched heart, tag and button, next to the big button jar.....

 .....thank you  for all the crochet love in my last post, i was so delighted to hear from so many of you and as a novice crocheter it was very heartwarming that you liked the projects.....the spotty red and white crochet hook that many of you asked about was made for me by my lovely blog friend Robin at my nest of yarn and buttons here...just pop over and visit her and choose a spotty hook too.....

...thank you for visiting me on this cool but bright morning.....it's lovely to see you......wishing you a happy week, with sweet spring flowers (or summer ones if you live on the other side of the world) to brighten your days...and plenty of sunshine too.......back soon xxxxx

Lots of Dots

 It's a sunny, dotty week here so far.....dotty fabrics are being sewn for exciting new projects to be published in the future, and I thought I would show you this dotty pinwheel patchwork cushion today. I found the pinwheel blocks in one of my patchwork storage baskets and as I'm trying to use up everything and waste nothing this year I decided to make the blocks into a summery cushion....

...looking around me I spied lots of dots on different things, many of which I've had for years as I've always collected dotty china and have some very old pieces as well as recent finds... 

 ....a friend gave me the dotty retro doileys which I think is what really made me think about dots this week...I made the cakes in dotty cases and added dots to the icing with my Tala icing pen, then put them on a red dotty doiley...

 .... summer has returned here and it's been sunny and warm enough to take a tea tray out to the garden...

 ...to sew some work projects sitting in the dappled shade and enjoying the flowers and the buzzing of the bees... 

I hope you are having a lovely sunny week too wherever you are. Thanks for popping in to see me here, I do enjoy your visits and comments very much. Back soon xxxxx