What I have been up to...

Hi all

I am currently laid up with Sciatica! Have been resting flat for 10 days already and am very frustrated and bored. Frustrated because I was in the process of finishing one job and was due to start a new one on Monday. However, this has been put back a week, I just hope I will be able to start the following Monday, as good as the firm is about being understanding at the moment I cannot expect them to wait indefinitely. I am currently seeing an Osteopath and going for acupuncture next week, I am also doing regular exercises as prescribed, taking magnesium and moving about as much as I can until it becomes too painful down my lower left leg. I am up to just over 5 mins but am hoping for fast progress next week, fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I am able to use the computer without any discomfort so thought I would put some photos up of what I had been working on.

These are some drawstring bags I recently made for gifts. Wendy showed my how to make these years ago and they are still one of my favourite things to make. I don't know if you can see it but the blue and white one has tiny blue and white china beads attached to the end of the drawstrings that I bought in Shanghai. When I give these as presents I sometimes put a small packet of tissues, hand cream, lip gloss and nail file in as they are handy on the bedside table, other times I might put sewing things in as I have one that holds the sewing items I use the most, or I might make some cookies and put them in there (in a plastic bag first though), just depends who it is for.

 

For Christmas this year I plan to make lots of these little Christmas boxes and fill them with candy as gifts. I bought the pattern at the Quilting Expo in Melbourne earlier this year:

Last Christmas I went home to England for a month. Whilst there I bought some Tilda fabric squares from Coast & Country quilt shop.  I love visiting that shop as it is out in the country rather than in a town and next door is a lovely deli/café with good country food and coffee. There is something very special about going to these sort of places around Christmas time as they are always decorated so beautifully and feel so homely and welcoming.  Sally stocks a fabulous range of Tilda products which is why I particularly like going to Coast & Country. I find the Tilda range of fabrics are always so fresh and crisp and make me smile when I look at them. I decided to slice the squares into various width strips and then join them in rows. This is it so far:

 

I am thinking I might put a wide white border around it with a red/pink bias. Just need to take it to a quilt shop and decide there.

Seeing Joanne's Inner-City Quilt finished has inspired me to get on with mine.  I also started mine in Shanghai but hadn't touched it for a few years. As you can see it is still really small but I will probably not make it quite as big as Joanne has made hers. I have been furiously stitching more blocks and so have about 30 more to add. I might be able to do that lying down, we'll see.

I have been enjoying my time in the kitchen recently too, although that has ground to a halt, I am so glad my 17 year old has been on school holidays, he's been brilliant running around and doing things for me. He even went off and did the groceries this morning! I think he will be glad to go back to school tomorrow for a rest! I am also glad he knows how to cook or it would have been never ending takeaways for the last couple of weeks. Anyway before all this happened I had been experimenting with pancake recipes and tried Lemon Ricotta ones and Gingerbread ones. Although we liked the lemon ones it took quite a bit of time and multiple bowls to prepare the batter, whereas the Gingerbread ones took one bowl and were very quick to put together. Here is a picture of our weekend brunch:

Gingerbread pancakes, bacon, caramelised apples in cinnamon & nutmeg (homemade), Greek yogurt and Lemon Curd (homemade from the WI book you gave me Wendy)... Yummy!

Well that is about all my news for now. Hope you are all well and healthy!
Susan