I'm sitting here and .........

it's all gone quiet.

Thankfully....  After almost three weeks the builders have finished the driveway. Phew such a relief to be sat in quiet..... and not making cups of tea and biscuits ...... and jugs of iced water.  I tell you, the front of our house is in constant sunshine, from first thing in the morning until sundown on bright Summer days.  I was so worried that they would dehydrate ... the sun was so intense late last week and early this week.  Anyway, it's all done now and looking so much better.... and when I took them their first tea early this morning they gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers to say 'thank you for looking after us'!!  I was so touched!  Lovely chaps and a first class job on the driveway too. ..........I'm still glad they've finished and left though. :-))

Here's the bouquet

                                             Definitely not a 'dash into Sainsbury's bunch'


So..... let me think..... what's been happening here since last time?  We've been busy in the garden.  I say 'we' but really I mean Ralph was doing most of the working and I was telling him what I wanted doing!  It's not an easy partnership, in the garden... us two.  Very different ideas.  Ralph likes order and straight lines and everything knowing it's place.  I love cottagey, billowy, full borders and (controlled) self seeding in the gravel and flowers that forget their place and spill onto the pathway.  And Ralph likes to think he's the boss and knows best and, in the garden, I often forget to let him think he's the boss and knows best!!  Shall I just say it's a tussle.. we have words ....quite often. Fortunately, the new garden is big and there is a lot to do so we are working quite harmoniously out there for now.  And when we do it turns out very pretty. At least I think so.

Doing very nicely in it's first year of planting

  Ralph found the slate in the compost area when he was sorting it out.  Along with house bricks, tiles and a toddlers broken slide!!  We thought the slate made a nice piece of garden art but the slide ... not so much.   

As for sewing matters.  I've been playing with a few projects.  Some of them are Correne's designs that I am enjoying doing my thing with.  The hexiestars quilt is growing slowly.  Why on earth I put it on my FAL list for Q2 as a finish I have no idea.... not going to happen.  

Hexiestars Quilt

I'm further on than this photo shows but you can see where I'm going with it and why it's not going to be finished for a while. I've added a few triangle hexies and a few strip hexies and some hexies made of one fabric with a large pattern or some such.  

Of course, part of the responsibility for me not finishing things is Correne's.... as you have seen she has been on a roll with EPP designs and I just can't resist trying them out...  before finishing one .... I have to start the next.  

 

Tessellated Madness Cushion

I love this pattern, possibly even more than the hexistars one.  I think it's the different shapes... you never know quite how they will look so have to keep going.  The fabrics are by Darlene Zimmerman for Robert Kaufman and are so pretty.  Lovely ditsy flowers in an array of gentle colours.  Perfect.

I haven't started the Nellie's Knots pattern yet, I'll be honest, I'm a bit intimidated by paper piecing so need to work myself up to it.  I know exactly which fabrics I'm going to use though.....   Nor have I started the Cartwheels pattern but that's only because I got sidetracked and made a couple of Liberty Tana lawn cushions!  And they happened because I decided to cut a jelly roll slip from all of the Liberty lawn fabrics in my stash...  couldn't resist playing  ....

Liberty Tana Lawn and Kona solids

became

Liberty Lawn Cushion 1

and then these 

Half square triangles (lilac at the front of photo)

Became

Liberty Lawn Cushion 2

to join together here

Liberty Quilt and Cushions 1&2

And all because I made one of these

61 Liberty lawn jelly roll strips!!

I wonder, I asked the question on Instagram what do you do with the off cut triangles from your flying geese or snowball blocks?  I'd love to know. That's where cushion 2 came from.   

So there you go that's what's been happening here for the last few weeks.  Maybe now it's quieter I will stop flitting from project to project and finish more than a couple of cushions that I didn't even plan to start!

I do plan to do more to my Swoon Quilt that was also on my FAL Q2 list ... to be finished ... another one .... not going to happen.  Also that is creating more half square triangles that I think I might have a plan for. 

 :-))

Thanks for dropping by and staying awhile. 

Take good care of yourselves and happy sewing 

Yvonne Xxx