Bristol blue

Bristol blue glass... I just love the colour it's so deep & rich.

I only have 2 pieces .. if funds allowed I'd have loads!

With the ongoing sort through & clear out of my seldom used hobby stuff I decided to get rid of my remaining patchwork fabrics stash.

A few weeks ago I listed it all on ravelry... whoever replied first could have it all if they paid the postage to get it to them.

I had lots of replies but unfortunately the postage for such a large quantity of fabrics to ship to the USA was more than the fabric could be bought for there...

The next lady in the queue from the Netherlands only wanted the blues and whites... so off they went and arrived quite quick too. So now i'm left with all of the above... aren't they delicious! I could take it to the charity shop but I've decided to carry on the give-away here first!

So if anyone fancies this selection of 100% cotton patchwork fabrics... some are totally unused fat quarters and some part used. Just under 1.4kilos of fabrics that are originally from a quilt project that I never quite got round to finishing. Just leave a comment with your location so I can quote you for postage :)

If no one wants them by the 30th September off to the charity shop they go!

Close up of the fabrics is below....

P.S. I've just checked and postage to anywhere in the uk by first class recorded is under £6!

Embellishment

It's a beautifully sunny day today... may be even sunny enough to wear my hat! So as soon as F wakes from his nap we're going to make the most of the rays... while they're here.

Melody

Ripping back so many rows has made a pretty looking ball..

clover

Today's photograph is dewy clover...

Ravelry project 365

Brussels lace

Originally uploaded by fiona-kelly

The Omnia has inspired me to join a new group... ravelry project 365! What is it? It's simple... the aim is to take and upload a photo every day.

I decided to give it a go as I have now activated my shozu account and I can send any photos I take straight to my flickr account (amongst others).

There are some beautiful pictures in the group pool & you should definitely take a peek if you're looking for inspiration.

Haggis Update and other decisions...

Well after the heartbreak of having to rip back over 100 hair tendrils earlier this week Haggis is coming along again nicely. I took a break from his hair... just couldn't face re-doing all those rows so soon and moved on to his legs instead. After a bit of playing with decreases I'm happy again... and the pattern for his legs is finished.

I've re-positioned the slip stitch markers on his body closer together and I'm now feeling brave enough to start those rows again... phew!

I made a decision this week on the Omnia/Tocco quandry and the Omnia won & to replace the funds for my new purchase (bought the Omnia on Sat!)...I am going to sell one of my beloved sewing machines... my Bernina 1260QPE.

It may seem a bit drastic but I really don't need 2 Bernina sewing machines & since we moved F into the big room (that was our dining room) we now don't have the space in the flat to store both Bernina's anyway.

So another decision had to be made... which one had to go? My Artista 200 with embroidery unit gives me far more options & capabilities... so unfortunately it had to be my trusty 1260QPE. I'm going to get it serviced and get all the extra accessories together for it so it will be ready to list on Ebay in the next few weeks.

I'll be extremely sad to see it go but it's in a great cause & the Omnia was worth it. I took the photos above with the Omnia and I'm a very happy bunny... here it is below (photo taken with old samsung 830) & I'll let you all know how I'm getting along with it in my next post...

My Omnia now has a picture of F when he was just hours old ahhhhhh as my backdrop :)

F's 2nd Birthday Koala Brothers Cake

I was really pleased with how F's birthday cake turned out. It may not be aerodynamically correct but it looked kinda right and most importantly F loved it when I showed it to him the morning of his party.

I know this as in the nano second I popped out of the room he managed to climb back up on the dining room chair and help himself to a red propeller... and had eaten half of it before my return... including the dried spaghetti (used as support) inside it! Luckily I had some red icing left so we made another before putting the cake out of his reach.

I baked two 6 x 12 inch cakes the weekend before last & filled them with Marks & Spencer's hedgerow jam (mixture of berries) after they'd cooled. I cut about 3 inches off the end of each cake to be the wings and stuck the remaining two large rectangles that were now about 9 x 6 inches on top of each other with more jam to make a high cake for the plane's body. After individually wrapping them in tinfoil they went into the freezer for the rest of the week.

Friday night was cake assembly night... It may sound weird to freeze the cakes but it really does help. Apart from keeping the cake itself fresher for longer it also means the frozen solid cakes are much more stable to carve into shapes without corners crumbling off. There were plenty of cake shavings for us to try after I'd finished carving the wings and the aeroplane body :) too.

I covered a 16 inch square drum board very thinly with sky blue ready roll icing and used butter cream to stick all the cakes in position. More butter cream was applied to the whole aeroplane shape to act as 'glue' for the yellow ready roll icing. At this point I called it a night... quitting before anything went wrong as it was 10.30pm.

Saturday evening was the finishing touches...

The plane's blue nose is just a disc of ready roll icing stuck on to the yellow icing with water. The red propellers are made of solid icing with a rod of dried spaghetti inside for support as are the yellow nose cone, back wings and windscreen.

Frank & Buster were a bit more of a challenge and I cheated a bit here. I stuck the red cockpit seats to the outside of the cake so I'd only need to make a head & torso for each of them. The last things to make were some marbled solid icing clouds and a ribbon of red ready roll for the banner.

My cheat for piping the lettering is to 'write' the lettering with a cocktail stick first and then use it as a guide for you to follow to do the piping.

The cake was demolished Sunday afternoon within minutes. Great fun to make but never around for long when finished!

Gearing up for F's 2nd birthday

We had a relaxing day today... well deserved as this week has been exceptionally manic with errands & various appointments. We headed off to meet up with friends and see the old fashioned steam fair on our beach lawns. F decided he preferred to look at the rides and flat out refused to go on anything. So we stood and watched his 3 pals have a ball! While they were on the mini cars we went off to the hook a floating duck stall. F's prize for catching a big yellow duck on the hook at the end of a long stick was a bottle of bubbles.... and he was delighted. We spent the rest of the afternoon with buckets and spades on the beach making sandcastles for the little ones to demolish before they'd hardly left the bucket!

On the way home we wondered up the grand pier walkway for the first time since it's recent opening. We made a donation to the pier fund, bought a couple of Mr Whippy ice creams with flakes and saw close up what's now left of the pavilion. I was really glad to see the walkway full with lots of people... sitting having an ice cream or cuppa & just watching the world go by and not just heading for the wreckage at the end.

Well I'd better be off as tonight I've got to get cracking with F's birthday cake. I have to decorate the cake board to look like sky with clouds and start carving out the koala brothers plane pieces from the cakes I froze last weekend. I've never tried doing a plane before so I have no idea how this is going to turn out. But I've got plenty of source material (F's dvd's) and all the colours of icing I need so fingers crossed I'll manage something half decent. I promise to take photos of the process & I'll post them next time.