Last Week

I've been doing a fair bit of sewing last week, more of that later, though I did take myself out on Tuesday afternoon, when the weather was far too nice to be indoors and went to Compton Acres.  This is a landscaped garden in Canford Cliffs in Poole and I hadn't visited there for years.  There have been many changes but the main areas have remained the same, the Italian Garden with the water lilies just starting to flower, the Woodland Garden, the Rock Garden and the Japanese Garden.

There are quite a few sculptures within the gardens

The bronze girl really does look as though she is running through the geraniums

Glass sculptures in the rock garden

One of the sculptures made by Zimbabwean artist along the sculpture path.

Here are some photos of the Japenese garden

I remembered when the children were younger, they enjoyed walking over the steeping stones across the pond and seeing the large koi. There were some koi, but a smaller than I remember.

On Friday I went to embroidery class and I have now finished my landscape picture.  It will need a good press and it'll be framed at class next month. This is how it looks for now with the mount frame placed over

On Saturday I went with friends (both called Jenny!) to Exeter for the area day at Clyst St Mary hall. All was well on the roads and got there early, so time for a coffee at a local garden centre.  There was a disappointing turnout, but it was good to catch up with other regional committee members in the Quilters' Guild.  There was an interesting talk in the morning about the Chinese Whispers project undertaken by a local group of Contemporary Quilters for the Loch Lomond Quilt Show last month. The photos are still on my camera as I didn't use the iPhone, so will share those in a later post.

The speaker in the afternoon was Jamie Malden of Colouricious, who does workshops and You Tube videos and sells Indian block stamps.  She had so many pieces where dyeing and stamps have been used just so much came out of boxes! Some to be looked at after the talk and some handed around and so much energy!  She designs the blocks and is in contact with people in India who carved the designs, so it keeps people in work and also does tours there too.  I could not resist buying a couple of blocks which are made a hard wood and have a lovely solid feel to them and they came in a lovely bag. Watch out for some block printed pieces some time this week.

Lastly, what I've been working on this week

Making lots of blocks, they are now in rows.  I will update on the quilt's progress soon.