Lovely work

It was great to catch up with many friends at social stitching and at classes over the last few weeks. Karen has been working on her gorgeous Birdsville quilt. Looks wonderful.

 Jayne has been very busy too and has finished her beautiful runner from the lovely pattern by Anni Downs.

 She is also hooked on foundation piecing and completed both of these projects from last term.

On top of all the normal chores, I have been busy with kits and pattern making for our retreat which is less than 2 weeks away! Fiona and I are looking forward to a lovely weekend of stitching, laughter and catching up with good friends.

Busy times

We have been home almost 2 weeks and things have been very busy. So nice to have a day at home today to catch up. We are minding the little men on Mondays for a few months and they are lovely boys but are we tired on Monday night. Going to work at the shop on Tuesday seems easy in comparison.

Lovely to catch up with this little miss too. She is taking a few steps now and is into everything.

Last week was a week of celebrations too. On Thursday I went to a lovely birthday afternoon tea to celebrate Jan's birthday. 

On Friday, we celebrated quite differently as we farewelled a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother and friend. Gwennyth lost her long battle with cancer and her funeral was such a wonderful celebration of a life well lived. She and her lovely family have a wonderful faith which helps so much at times like these. 

The last few days away

On Monday, 9 August, Bruce and I went to our last National Trust property. We visited Berrington House and it was a lovely place to visit. Probably the highlight was the display of the outfits worn in the BBC Pride and Prejudice series (the one with Colin Firth as Darcy) and several other shows as well.

 The house was wonderful to wander around and had a very interesting history. I very much enjoyed seeing the servants' quarters and the laundry.

 Upstairs there were some original pieces of clothing on display.

 There were also some ladies stitching reproductions of these original garments. Lots of hand stitching and embroidery.

 These pieces were just on display in the house.

 If you wanted to, you could dress up.

 This old quilt was on the butler's bed.

 We then headed back for our last night at Hay on Wye. We had a very lovely time visiting Penny and John. We then packed up on Tuesday and headed to Oxford where we stayed nearby in a station hotel. Not a good choice as it happens as it was a bit noisy (not just trains but the large road nearby and some dodgy plumbing!). In the afternoon on Tuesday we went into Oxford and had a wander around. We had a quick visit to the Natural History Museum and the River Pitt Collection. There was so much in these museums that we really only saw a little. I think we were probably too tired to be tourists any longer!

We then got up early on Wednesday and drove to Heathrow and then spent the next few days on the plane. Lovely to get to Sydney and have a good sleep at Ma's place. We caught the train to Canberra on Friday and that was a very nice way to travel home. So lovely to see our kids and the little people on Friday night after being away for 2 months.

Shopping and walks

We did enjoy the quilts but we liked the shops too! Here is what I bought. Remember space in the suitcase is limited and our dollar isn't very good against the pound at the moment so a lot of things seemed expensive. I stocked up on some liberty fabrics and bought some patterns and some other little bits and pieces.

 Couldn't resist this lovely book by Janet Clare.

While we were in Birmingham, Bruce and John went for some long walks. Here are a few of the lovely places they saw.

After all the excitement of the Festival of quilts we had a quiet Sunday. We went to church and then had a lovely afternoon stitching! We hand pieced a block of the pattern Penny bought from Somerset quilting. It is a small block and a little tricky for novice hand piecers but we were pleased with the result. In theory, if you make one block per day you will have the quilt done in a year!