St Valentine hearts

Tomorrow is THAT day.... over many years not one of those days has been forgotten.... Husband has blushed and flowers, a poem or a card has appeared. Every time. So I hope tomorrow will be no exception.... Hearts can be found on lots of my quilts:

In the garden...

On a chicken...

A gate at Ironbridge....

With pearly buttons...

On a bucket given to me by Jenny...

and now on a hanging in the window... and this is how I made it:

Get 6 long bendy stems of willow and tie together with string

divide into 2 bunches of 3 stems and plait each bunch, plaiting in the sticky out bits too

use those clip things for freezer bags to hold the ends

clip both plait ends together

bend the ends down into the middle to form the heart, twisting them together.

Secure the ends to the bottom of the heart with string and snip off the bits which hang over. Your willow heart is finished!

Add a ribbon hanging loop and hang in a window. Here you can see mine with  an added  robin given to me by Jo. It was made by Sharron in Cambridge. You can see her things here 

Happy St Valentine's day to you all and thanks for dropping in. Do say hello and tell me what you are making this week..

Scary moments

Living in rural Lincolnshire, we have lots of wildlife. Some families live in the garden, hedgehogs, blackbirds, frogs, toads, and some are frequent visitors, squirrels, pheasants, deer, ducks. But some visitors are not so welcome, big rodents on holiday from the common, many more grey squirrels who steal nuts without conscience, large and raucous families of jackdaws.... fun to watch but who terrorize smaller birds.....  I send husband out to chase away anyone who I am not at home to... bigger rodents...hmmmm! But a few nights ago he came into the kitchen looking rather pale. It was dark outside. He had been to lock up the garage. And there appeared to be someone inside. Someone very big! Two large eyes looked straight into his and looked mean too!

Could this be the biggest scary rodent yet? Was he brave enough to go out and look again? 
In daylight, all was explained....

Our little one's personal transport, put away until her next visit!

I make a lot of transport quilts and here is one I made for Jenny to give as a present at the Christening service of Joseph:

This week I am making a memory quilt and I will show you in the next post. I hope you enjoy reading about the funny moments in my day. Do leave a message and tell me what you are making too.

January mornings

I woke up this morning to a clear blue Lincolnshire sky and deep frost in the garden. Winter green sparkled with diamonds, seed heads were transformed into the most expensive jewellery designs...

In the vegetable garden my untidy ways, the not cutting back seed heads of majoram in the autumn made a lovely picture against the terracotta forcing pots which protect the rhubarb crowns...

Under the Bramley apple tree something magical had grown overnight,

a fairy ring of toadstools... wish those fairies would pop in and do some dusting as well as making beautiful installations in the garden...

There was an amazing scent from the mahonia bush, tiny little yellow bells for flowers, and in one corner a very brave and chilly looking primrose, the very first, made a pale wave towards spring. 

The pale spring coloured quilt is finished too, just waiting for it's new owner to arrive to delight his family. Here it is:

It is always lovely to hear what you have been making too, do join me and leave a message....

New beginnings and gratefulness

I have just moved my blog from my website to Blogger. It has been a sharp lesson in tidiness. Finding the old photos has been a long process as I hadn't filed them properly....or tidily....or in any order at all. But it has been fun. Reading old blogs, remembering happy times with Barney the dog, at last I can look at photos of him with a smile rather than tears. Here he was emptying my waste paper basket when he was bored...

 I remember when I first started my business Green Star Quilts, you can read about it here I had just stopped work as a community nurse and thought I would like to start making quilts for children. Now I have lots of returning customers who have become firm friends too. I know about their children and rejoice over new babies with them too. There is a lot to be grateful for and I am looking forward to 2014 and its quilting challenges. Here is the first quilt of the year, nearly finished:

I will show you the whole quilt when it is finished. In the garden the blackbirds are still eating the fallen apples, we are all apple crumbled out! 

Those of you who are reading my blog for the first time, I hope you enjoy it, do leave me a message, I will be adding buttons and lists when I have learnt how to do it!  

Happy New Year

Now all the commissions have been made, everything has been posted and has arrived safely in time for Christmas. This week I have been cooking and I don't want to sound smug, but my freezer is full. We have a minimalist Christmas here, a £10 limit on presents which can be supplemented with things homemade.... lots of biscuits, jam and scurrying about in the garage by husband who makes tablemats from corks. They are very fine and very much desired by friends, I can't think where he gets all the corks... And then there is The Cake.... a winter spice cake made with star anise and white chocolate. As for the decorations, well everybody deserves a chance, so Snow White  meets Bambi and Father Christmas amid holly leaf candles! So Happy Christmas everyone and thank you so much for all your support, your lovely generous and kind e mails, your encouragement and enjoyment of my designs and many repeat orders. I hope you all have a lovely holiday and a peaceful 2014 too.

Looking up

Sometimes I forget to admire the city I live in. I focus on my sewing, scurry to buy groceries, whisk to the post office and forget to look up. And when I do, I realise that there is so much to enjoy. So here is a little walk around our cathedral close. Here sits the most patient dog.... with an expectant look that us dog owners will recognise... the ' I am sitting just as you asked, now hand over the biscuit' look....and the man holds his hat, reading his book, will he notice his obedient friend? This is Tennyson, (sorry about the blurry photo) just on the cathedral green....

and look to the left....

and if I look up....

Now back to the sewing room and today I have finished this quilt for Louise to give to Sam as a Christmas present. It is big enough for his first bed and , as he lives on the coast it had to be a seaside design.

I do love a rolled quilt too.....

Lonely boys

I have two lonely boys here, looking for love, young and handsome, they are just waiting for the right girl to come along... They sit around in the garden all day and regularly at about lunchtime, they call out rather sadly..... 'Whooo Who....' They are our teenage tawny owls and they need girl friends! In the evenings they are out on the town, well the common actually, casing the joint, looking for a date, but not much luck yet it seems. A few nights ago I heard a rather saucy 'Weeeek' from lady owl, out in the evening, checking out the boys, but I haven't heard her since. Maybe they were too shy to ask, looked a bit bashful, who knows? But they were back the next day with a lunchtime hoot, so still single I suspect!

In the late autumn garden I am counting. Husband has been growing Turkish Hat squash. With no care or attention he has seven and three which don't look the same..... I have been growing Butternut squash. With every care, feeding, watering and a daily chat. I have three very small ones.... Humphh!!! The  courgettes appear to have gone into overdrive but my biggest triumph are the sunflowers. The seeds were sent in June with a request for Granny to plant them. It was very late to start, but here they are, six fine sunflowers, providing a late autumn treat for honey bees and bumbles in the vegetable garden. We all raise our faces to the sun and enjoy the beautiful weather here!