North Country quilting weekend

The best bit about getting the earlier train to Durham for this "girls quilting weekend away" was that we got to explore the Botanical gardens for the afternoon....

There was lots of colour...

 

 

Some interesting characters watched us ...

 

I found some big hints that there were bee hives in the vicinity...

 





We decided to explore the woodland walk...

 

And found some mighty strange things...

 





And sure enough I found the beehive in the middle of a woodland clearing....

All too soon it was time to head back to Collingwood College to spend the evening admiring Lilian's collection of wonderful quilts...

 

 

 

Saturday brought lots of hard work.

So much hard work that I only managed to take four photographs...

The template for the Weardale chain...

My three chosen patterns...sketched, traced and inked...

Fabric pinned and ready to be marked....

First stitches quilted...

and after that arduous day's work we had to wind down with an evening stroll around Durham...

If you find the right cobblestone alley... 

It takes you right to the most magnificent cathedral...

 

The castle is pretty impressive too...

We walked on...to the Kingsgate bridge over the Wear...

The views back up river and into the city were amazing as the sun dropped even further over the horizon...

One last glimpse of the cathedral and it was off home to bed...

Sunday brought some more busy quilting, I managed to take one photo of my work table...

The weekend finished with show and tell from the other workshops..some had quilts nearly finished and others some exquisitely embroidered butterflies...

 

Then we packed our suitcases and took a meandering walk through Durham back towards the station, appreciating the landmarks in autumnal daylight...

 

 We had a fun weekend, though I for one have a pretty large quilt to finish before I can show my face there again!

Quilting in the snow light

One of the joys of living in the UK is its unexpected weather.
You make a plan for a day off and suddenly the weather changes and you discover it isn't such a good day to mow the lawn.....plant seedlings..... or wash the car.


That's when an indoorsy kind of hobby really comes into its own.  Suddenly your disappointment at not being able to do what you originally planned to do... becomes an unexpected bonus day to do something else with...


So imagine my joy when I woke up to find unexpected snow!

I didn't want to leave all the appreciating to the fox running past and the light was just superbly reflecting all around.  
Nothing else for it - time to trace a pattern for a project!!

This is actually part of a secret project for a birthday present for a friend with one of those Special Birthdays that ends in 0 later in the year... so I'm only going to show you some snippets of it here - you know - just in case she is peaking....
The light was so good that having transferred the design I got straight on with the important job of auditioning the thread....

Important decisions had to be made about high or low contrast .....

colour highlight or low light

Or even a little bit of sparkle.......

Then thread decisions made I discovered, joy of joys, that I could indulge in a whole afternoon of armchair rugby appreciation and quilting as the snow wasn't so bad that the 6 nations match had been cancelled......

A superbly productive day was thoroughly enjoyed!
Wonder if I can order more snow for next weekend?