Bird, beach and birthdays

How's this for trust?  That's my late husband's hand - found the old photo and couldn't resist sharing it.

The days have been rushing by - you know how it is sometimes, one's best laid plans can go out the window so easily.  I've never been one to turn down an offer of lunch, or a coffee - or a plea for help for that matter........ and so the days pass.


I've been toying with the idea of making a family photo quilt - as though I didn't have enough ideas to keep me busy! - so I had a go at printing onto fabric - I think I need more practice -

The lady on the left is my mother when she was in her mid twenties I think and the one on the right is of me and big sister - I'm with my back to the camera in case you wondered!  We were  playing on the sea defences of one of the 'big houses' right on the beach [we lived on the south coast of the UK] and this would have been taken just before the start of WWII; the beaches were closed for the duration.  I'm sure my sister would love to be immortalised in this way!

Now the next photo is another of my son - similar to the one I took of him recently at Lake Ferry but this was many years ago on a family holiday on Norfolk Island.  If I still did serious embroidery this would be an interesting subject, come to that I've seen quilts made like this......

Taken I think at Slaughter Bay........

I have been doing some stitching, knitting too more of the peggy squares, and have finally finished another flimsy that I pieced in the nineties when I was living in Whitby and stitching with friends, the same time that I made the Ikat in the Contrary Wife pattern.

For this one we agreed on the Delectable Mountain block, any size and colour but it had to have some of a fat quarter we bought to share - this was one of the series produced by the Smithsonian to celebrate - not sure what, so here is my piece of the fabric - it's the very dark grey, almost black next to the deep purple.

You can see here the whole block; I used a constant fabric in the small triangles - another one I bought for dressmaking; it was to have been a summer skirt.  I didn't want the points to be too stark so used soft colours with another constant in the square at the top, which was hand dyed in a manner that made me think the maker had used the fabric to mop up the splashes!

That's not meant as a criticism, I love the fabric!

I also love the batik I used for the setting triangles - how lucky was that to have it in my stash!

At this stage I hadn't finished the hand sewing of the binding but took advantage of a visit by my granddaughter who held it up for me.

One thing I have found since I had to reduce the size of the photos I use is that they load far faster - duh! but it makes a big difference to the time taken to produce the blog - should be able to do so more often......

I get funny looks in stores when I take photos of odd things, but this marble app is so much fun -

So to finish today, it is appropriate that I share my little bundle of daffodils

and leave you with this quotation from Brittany Murphy, "Everybody has difficult years, but a lot of times the difficult years end up being the greatest years of your whole entire life, if you survive them."

Is that what one would call cold comfort?

Thanks for stopping by and for your comments, they mean a lot!

June