More drains

This was this week's entertainment.  Somewhere behind this digger are Martin and Craig digging along the electric cable so that they can get the digger bucket in without electrocuting themselves, or depriving us of any power.  This is our front garden and what was once our drive.  There are three trenches running into the plastic manhole in the foreground - so not much drive left.

The main waterpipe also runs along the trench, but perhaps cutting through that would not be as bad as cutting into the electric?  Found more problems with the drains today where they connect to the mains, but thankfully they are not on our side of the fence so would appear to be the responsibility of Severn Trent Water. Just need to nag them to fix the problem now.

Star Quilt

At long last some progress on this king size quilt.  I have managed to piece all the blocks and am now making lots of maple leaves and hearts to go around the outside edge.  It has been a bit of a marathon really and I have tried really hard to ensure that the points line up.

I did not like the quilt colour so have added a double edge of strips of the fabric to brighten it up a bit.

The unpainted and partly plastered bedroom walls do not show it off to its best!!

Flying Pickets

Tried different techniques to add acrylic paint through the stencil I created.  Paintbrush wet, paintbrush dry and sponge I think.  Need to make a similar funky foam print block and then I can bleach out another piece I have made, which has good old Quink Ink on it over various colours of acrylic and some candle wax rubbed through the stencil.  Come to think about it - I might also have put what was underneath under the running tap - which means it probably had some koh-i-noor dyes on it somewhere along the line.

Just realised that if I had used black acrylic over the top I probably could have scraped into it.

New Links

Just added a couple of additional links to my favourites - 62 Group and Alice Fox.

If you like rust follow some of the links contained in  the text on Alice's website.  One suggests using red cabbage combined with tea and rust on habotai silk.  It looks good. (see Tea and Rust post 20 June 2012)

There is a new book available on the 62 Group website called 'Radical Thread'.

Birds

Birds and ribbon cones

These little birds were made of felt and either hung singley or strung together to form a hanging.  Very nice.

I am afraid my photograph of the embroidered buttons has not come out very well, but you can get the general idea.  They were quite large, I would think 3.5 - 4 cm in width.

Lingen Stitchers

Lingen Church

Shingles above the church door

Had a day out on Saturday.  First of all we went to Ledbury to see the exhibition of work by Malvern Makers in the Weavers Gallery and then headed over to Lingen (near Presteigne) to see the exhibition put on by Lingen Stitchers and Needling Along.

There was a very good selection of both patchwork and embroidery and much reminded me of Harrogate branch's annual exhibition at West Park.  (There were some patchwork birds and embroidered buttons)  Several small marquees in the church yard provided fabric and plants for sale, demonstrations and, of course, tea and coffee.  Excellent fruit cake!

Fabric Book - one of several

Quilt over a grave stone in the church

In addition there was an art exhibition just around the corner (seven artists art@the granary) which included work by Peter Horrocks and Bronte Woodruff.  The big surprise was the textile based work by Kate Morgan Clare made from dress patterns.  It was part of the Presteigne Festival.

Ditched

This is the state of our drive at the moment.  Can you see the tree roots? - the main reason for having to have the drain replaced with new plastic ones.  Hopefully next week should see us with most of the existing drains replaced and a new water supply pipe instead of the current pipe  (which the builders managed to cut through accidentally earlier this week!).  Up to now they seem to have missed the electricity cable, and have not yet found the gas pipe.

Had Thursday without water and toilets for most of the morning.

Today the trench was dug across the front of the house to put in a pipe for what will be the new downstairs cloakroom at some time in the future.  Just got to get the section dug down to the main road now.  Oh such fun.  At least I have got on stitching together with blocks for the King Size Quilt I am making.

3D Flying Geese

Had fun finding out how to create 3D Flying Geese after visiting the Festival of Quilts at the weekend.  You can turn the edges so that they are a bit like Cathedral Windows.  Do not look too closely at the stitching as my eyesight lets me down and I have no idea how I got the top of the folded one cockeyed.  I try so hard to measure, cut and stitch as accurately as I can.

Picket Fencing

In a moment of madness I challenged Annie to do some work based on a subject plucked out of the air.  Picket Fences was the first thing that came to mind so here we are.  I have promised to try and produce one piece of artwork, stitch or a sample of some kind each week.

I altered one of my photographs on Photoshop for this week's piece.  Hope you are taking note Annie as I am awaiting your contribution.

Down the Drain

As you can see the digger is back and we have soil and broken pipes everywhere.  Work started on Monday of this week and is progressing.  Note the temporary water and soil pipe from the ensuite bathroom.

On Tuesday it had disappeared as we now have a temporary proper pipe connected to the new drains.  Building Inspector came and thank goodness we do not need to have soakaways for the surface water drainage.

Seems to me that the amount of rubble is growing too.

It has managed to stay rain free for two days but can it last?

Apart from Sox finding both the wheelbarrow and the channels that had been dug out for the pipes amazing places to play and stalk me from - the moral of the story is .....

Ensure you can actually get your wheelbarrow around the outside of the house to the rubbish pile before filling it so full!!

Festival of Quilts

Had a wonderful two days at the FoQ on Saturday and Sunday with Annie.  Having only recently had the benefit of seeing some of Marie Roper's work at Worcester EG meeting and having heard her talk prior to her untimely death, it was wonderful to be able to view the work that her friends had put on display at Birmingham.

As usual there was lots to see and products to purchase.  This hanging with panels worked in three different methods depicting Lichen was lovely.  As were the moths on this hanging.

Visit

Thanks for initiating me into the world of blogging

Patchwork Maple Leaves

I have been trying to make a block with maple leaves to represent Canada.  This is my first attempt.  There are several ways they can be put together so I think it is back to the drawing board.

At least I have made enough stars now so I can play about deciding how I am going to join them all together.  Do not think much sewing will be getting done the next couple of weeks as the builders are back on Wednesday to dig up the drive and put in new drains.  We also have several visitors this week, plus I am going to The Festival of Quilts at the NEC on Saturday and Sunday.  Oh bother .... almost forgot the visit to the dentists on Tuesday ....