Wednesday 28 October 2015

a random ten

a random ten, inspired by Annie

1. I feel as if we are living in a cloud. It is Very wet, very grey and very very foggy which makes it hard to see past the end of the car, which makes driving difficult....

2. So far I have gone out three times in the car already, and I have at least two more trips to make. Sometimes I don't go out in the car for days and days on end. Those are the days I like best......

3. It is also very muddy. And someone with little white but not clean paws is in disgrace. I sent the photo to J who suggested we might be having kitten curry for dinner. Luckily for the disgraced cat in question I had already planned tonight's dinner.....


4. I made cookies. It is Leanne's fault. I read about them about an hour ago, and now there are two trays of cookies in the kitchen. I used Doves Farm gluten free flour and gluten free certified oats, and they are thin and crispy and probably won't last very long.


5. I'm taking E back to the opticians later. This will be the 4th lesson in "how to fit contact lenses."
Oh it looks so easy and really really it isn't. He wants some for sport lessons occasionally and for youth theatre (curse you English teacher who doesn't like to see children in glasses in his productions..........) but he really can't get the hang of it. 
The impossibly long and curly eyelashes aren't helping. They keep getting in the way....
If only I had those, and he had my almost non existent short and straight eyelashes....

6. I messed up ordering tickets for the world record attempt of most witches.
Now I only have to make two costumes.......  Every mistake has a silver lining........

7. We're planning on going to the Woodhorn Museum tomorrow to see the Weeping Window installation of poppies from the WW1 Centenary.  All the pictures I have seen are incredibly dramatic.

8. I bought some tortilla chips from the supermarkets earlier. I've been buying the same ones for months, and they used to be gluten free but now I see the label says "not suitable for wheat allergy sufferers due to manufacturing methods" The ingredients are maize and oil and salt for goodness sake. Presumably they're made on a line that also produces wheat products. I looked up on their website and their more expensive tortilla chips manage to be gluten free - they also cost twice as much and have more salt on them.......... grrrrrrr. makes me so cross. It's bad enough that there's gluten in so many things anyway, and then when manufacturers change the production so you have to check every time you buy something...... oh and pay more. ok rant over.

9. J is going to London next month for a meeting. I have convinced him that he has to go to Selfridges foodhall and buy gluten free donuts. When you spend too much time on instagram you learn that such things exist and where they can be obtained from.

10. The Coffee lady has got me addicted to Chai tea. Oh the irony..........

Friday 23 October 2015

Starry Starry Night

Starry Night Quilt. November 2013-October 2015.

Hurray, I just got in under the two year time window! Although a good part of the latter part of this time was putting off the actual quilting of it, and then finding a solution to the endlessly snapping threads that were driving me mad.

Anyway enough of that that. You want to see photos right. The problem is that photographing the largest quilt in the world is not easy. I enlisted a friend. We went out into the woods. One person really can't hold it on their own. We tried a self timer on the camera, and I nearly fell off the wall we were balancing on, and nettles stung me through my jeans. You have to really want a photograph to put up with nettle stings in my world.......... 


Then I balanced it on my head and pretended to be a giant ghost.



We tried out some props, but I really couldn't bring myself to drape it over the rather mucky but lovely vintage tractor........



so we retreated back inside for me more tea and I just draped it on the sofa instead.......


in reality though it's easiest to photograph quilts in their natural environment.


on the bed.



details of the rest of the quilt story can be found here, here, here and here!

Thursday 1 October 2015

October


Hello October. 
You are Miss K's favourite month. 
Well apart from December, but then that has Christmas and birthdays and so it wins.....
Miss K loves you because of Halloween. Even at nearly 17 she loves it. Spiders and pumpkins and decorations and this year we'll be joining in with a Guiness world record attempt for the most people dressed as witches in one place.
 I'm less keen on Halloween personally, although I suppose I can make soup of out the pumpkins so it's not all bad.....

I am looking forward to be proud of yourself day, I'm happy to join in with  feed some ducks day
but most of all I'm excited for duvet day.

Happy October everyone.