Holiday Week 1

I finished my contract officially last Wednesday, but actually finished work the Friday before so I am treating last week and this as a holiday.  It's been quite nice to pootle around and do odd bits and pieces.  Last Thursday David and I decided we'd go out for lunch and had a really long lunch break - about 4 hours!  First of we went to Wimborne, just a few miles away and have lunch at the Wetherspoons pub there and it was quite pleasant sitting outside under the shade of a parasol.  After a wander around the town and stopping off for an ice cream close to the Minster I didn't feel like going home so we went to Kingston Lacy, an NT house just outside Wimborne.

On our walk around found some wicker cattle

Wooden toadstools

Views overlooking the Japanese garden

A couple of "squiffy" photos, yes I did mean to take it at an angle, but not that steep!

Colourful acers

One of the lion statues on the steps leading to the garden.

On Saturday I joined friends at my friend Brenda's house for a sewing Saturday in her garden.  I kept busy with some hand sewing hemming a binding onto my Dresden sampler quilt.

Still have a bit more quilting to do on this, but it looks nearly done.

I didn't get time to make it, but on Saturday evening I made this. It's a thread bin, which I'd seen around as friends Ann and Linda had them and I found a tutorial here from an embroidery group's blog.  Instead of using an embroidery hoop for the support at the top of the bin I've used the rigid packaging tape that Linda gave me and wrapped that twice before joining and putting inside the casing.  I used the top of my mug for the size of the circle

And just to finish off I put some ribbon with buttons on around the top.

Here it is squashed down

Neat, isn't it.

Today (the start of the second week of my holiday) I decided it was time to think about Christmas (oh no!).  I got some postcards prepared for a large swap, there are 12 people listed at the moment and I've got 16 cut out and ready to make, with fronts, backs, pelmet vilene and fusible web all ready to go.

Looking forward to Festival of Quilts at the end of this week - I'll be there on Thursday and Friday.  Have a good week.