The weekends go so quick

Last weekend saw us going down South and visiting our 2 sons and their families.  Little ones grow up so fast and so much has changed in their lives recently.  Sophie our eldest granddaughter is now at school, our eldest grandson, Leo, is at pre-school and our youngest, Freddie is now crawling and walking around the furniture and Isobel, Sophie's sister is talking a lot more than when we last saw her.  It was also good to catch up with my Mum & Dad before we headed back up North again.

I haven't been up to much last week but I do have a new toy.  Nothing to do with sewing, but could come in useful perhaps.  I have a Big Shot die cutter, which can also emboss items too.  I had some in texture plates come with it which I tried out on some sketch paper.  I will get around to getting some dies to go in the cutter as I have seen some "stackable" ones of basic shapes that stack inside each other which will come in useful.  In the meantime here are my attempts.

These samples were from the basic texture plates

The samples were on green foiled card and on kitchen foil glued over card

 

And this is the Big Shot machine

Yesterday as it was a lovely if cold day David and I went to Skipton on the trail of sheep in the town.  These were the "Flock to Skipton" sheep and armed with a map of the town went looking and photographing the sheep. Quite a few of them are on my facebook page, so click on the facebook badge on my sidebar to have a look.  We could not leave without visiting a bakery shop - Wild's, of course - where we bought a Yorkshire Curd Tart. 
After lunch we went on to Bolton Abbey just a few miles further north of Skipton.

The ruins of the abbey are fascinating and both David and I were clicking away with our cameras.  The sky was turning cloudy by now and with the autumn colours of the leaves they made for some good photos. These ones below show the doors on the church adjoining the ruins I was quite taken with the fancy hinges - quite a work of art

And at Bolton Abbey we even found a beach!