A Break for a Week

I will be going down south for the week but before I leave I thought I would post a few photos. Last night David & I went to Brodsworth Hall near Doncaster for their Enchanted Gardens event, where the house and gardens were lit against the dark autumn sky. It was very busy, but well organised and it was a delight to walk around in the warmish (for this time of year) evening. Of course the bright lights are challenging for the camera so I took a lot of photos but they were more miss than hit, but a few decent-ish ones were taken.

Above is the Hall all lit up. There were different coloured lights shone on it, but when I took this it was white.And above and below, some spooky looking trees as blue light was shone from underneath some Monkey Puzzle trees and yellow for another group of trees, emphasising the autumn colours. The photos are a little fuzzy but the best I could get from the challenging conditions.

I've also put a couple of other photos, one is of the bell that I made at the Regional Day a couple of weeks ago.

And my white orchid, which is flowering like mad. To date it has 9 blooms with a 10th about to come out and another 10 buds at least on it. I put some mobile phone pics on my Facebook page too. How many more flowers will appear while I am away?


I will be going to my granddaughter's christening on Sunday in West Sussex, then after spending some time with my parents in Christchurch.

A year in Yorkshire

Just a short post to mention that it was a year ago today that David and I moved from Poole to Pontefract. It's been an eventful year of missing friends and relatives, but making new friends. Finding work was a challenge, but doing temporary work at the beginning of this year, confirmed to me that I have skills that I can use, even though the numerous interviews seemed harrowing at times. I've now got a temporary contract which'll keep me going until about halfway through next year, which I'm grateful for.

I've also got to know some lovely countryside, nice places to go and visit and made the most of what seems at present like a long holiday with a bit of work in between! I love the markets in Doncaster (a town I discovered I liked when I worked there for a few short weeks) and Barnsley that are nothing like what there is down south.

I've enjoyed the visits from people that have stayed with us and have been out and about with.

Still miss Poole, but it doesn't hurt quite so much as when I first moved up here. Just thought I'd share my thoughts.

Quilters Guild Regional Day

I hadn't been to a regional meeting since long before I left Dorset, so decided to go to this one for the Yorkshire and Humberside at Dewsbury, only 40 minutes drive away yesterday. The speaker in the morning was Dilys Fronks, who is shortly to retire from the speaking and workshop circuit. She told of her discovery of patchwork and quilting in the early 80's right up to the current work she is doing today and of her speciality of applique. She is best known for her wrought iron reverse applique.

There was a show and tell where I took my 10 little calendar quilts and there were a lot of others showing some fantastic work.

After lunch there were mini workshops which included a christmas bell, christmas cracker and Colonial Knot mini cushion. I went for the Christmas bell and sewn the little sections, however they aren't completed at present so I'm not showing it here just yet. Just got to be stuffed and joined together, which I hope shouldn't take too long.

However the most tempting thing were the traders, one from the Skep Mill shop (from Pudsey, Leeds) and another trader who it seems is selling off her stock. I managed to buy some fat quarters of Christmas fabrics with some country style ribbon and a metre of fabric with turtles on. Also I'd bought Dilys' book Enchanted Views, on the wrought iron reverse applique and an Australian caft magazine.
It was a great day out and lovely to be amongst quilters albeit that I didn't know anyone there, but it wasn't long before I got talking to people.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Our latest foray in Yorkshire this weekend was the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, just off the M1 between Barnsley and Wakefield. The weather started off grey and wet, however the sky broke then the sun shone and it was a glorious, if windy, autumnal day.

This part of Yorkshire is has two well known sculptors that are represented here - Barbara Hepworth (who was born in Wakefield) and Henry Moore (from Castleford). This year also had an exhibition by Peter Randall Page.

Unfortunately, I can't show you any of the exhibits as photography is for private use only so here I've just included the scenery, but the link above to the Park is quite comprehensive so do take a look. The gardens were wonderful with the autumnal colour. Below is a pic of the formal gardens with the underground gallery on the right hand side.

And this is something that I see on my way to work, on my way home and here from the park... the Emley Moor transmitter tower, over towards Huddersfield. It dominates a lot of the scenery around here.

Below is the colour of the trees in the park . This was part of the hillside area, where to the left there are sculptures by Barbara Hepworth. Husband (in the red coat) is unaware that I've got him in this pic.Below are some people taking the trek across the field to the gallery about 2 kilometres from the main gallery. The small white square just about the middle of the photo is where we were aiming for. This is looking towards Barnsley in the distance.

Aren't these winter cabbages gorgeous. I could resist taking a photo of these when we went to a garden centre last Saturday. The Wentworth Garden Centre is between Barnsley and Rotherham and it has gardens for the public to enjoy that are currently being restored to their former glory. While there we saw some deer in a paddock, and the stag below, looks rather magnificent.

And there was another small fallow deer feeding from the vegetation growing just outside the fence.

Just to show I have been sewing this week, here is the BQL Challenge Quilt. If you go to my side bar there is a link to see more lovely quilts that has been made for October so far.
Not sure if you can see clearly (click on the photo to get a larger image) the pink pinwheels are 3-d folded a lovely effect in real life that doesn't quite come out in the photo. I didn't have enough of the batik to do a border, so I used and orange/brown one instead to keep with the autumnal look.

Just 2 more quilts of this challenge to go now. I have enjoyed the calendar quilts challenge a lot and like the bag one last year it's good to have something completed than being part of a larger article. I have been thinking about forgoing the challenges next year to concentrate on a large quilt. Haven't done anything big for sometime now and would be nice to do a project that I can "get my teeth into". I had cut out one postcard group and decided to scale down the postcards for now. So there may be less finished stuff and more in progress stuff instead.