Batemans, Venlo and Maastricht

Last Sunday we travelled to Dover to stay overnight and get the early morning ferry to Calais the next morning.  It is a lengthy journey to Kent in spite of the fact that we live on the south coast.  It involves going along roads that follow the coast or to take the motorways up to the M25 and back down to Kent, so it was the coastal route that we chose for our outward journey.

David and I visited a National Trust property called Batemans, which was the home of Rudyard Kipling, near the East Sussex - Kent border, with lovely gardens and a nice, if windy day to enjoy the scenery.

First thing we saw was the crown, which was probably covered in flowers, now passed over but still an impressive entrance.

 

The house with entrance at the end of the path

This building with the dovecote adjoined the house and is now the NT shop

A rose garden with a pond at the end

From a nice day on Sunday to a drab day starting on the ferry to Calais then driving on to Venlo in Holland. This was a distance of about 250km and we managed to get our satnav converted to kilometres from miles to help keep track of our journey and got there about mid afternoon.

 Just to show we've got there - in the market place outside the town hall.  That's him above

and he took a photo of me!

As Tuesday was another wet drab day we decided that our visits to the Floriade would be Wednesday and Thursday.  From the weather reports that we saw before leaving the UK Wednesday had the least chance of rain.  So on Tuesday we ventured to Maastricht.  Getting the was easy enough with the motorway system in Holland but trying to find the car parks was more difficult because the signs we would follow would suddenly disappear and later found out that most car parks are underground with only discreet signs to show where they were!  We did find a parking sign and followed that into the car park itself but the steps came up in what seemed like a residential area, but was just around the corner from the market square.

Guess what this building it?  Yes it looks like a church

But it's a bookshop!

This old church lent itself to being a pretty amazing bookshop with a cafe at the alter end of the building. Just near that end were a lot of cookbooks and it was funny to see Jamie Oliver's or Gordon Ramsey's books with Dutch titles! Being a tall building there were a couple of floors of books in the middle of the shop.

I had to take a photo of the old bridge over the River Maas, which has a religious figure on the bridge support holding out his hand which a gull has used to perch upon.  There were also quite a lot of artwork around the city and here's just a few things below.

 Going further along we found the old city walls and Hells Gate

It was the afternoon and as you can see by now the sky had cleared and we actually saw some SUN!

Just Catching Up.....

David and I got back hone from our holiday in Holland today. Having had limited wifi access I'm now catching up on emails and the blog. In spite of a mixed bag of weather as Europe had been suffering a fair bit of wet weather just like the UK we managed to get 2 decent days at the Floriade in Venlo, not far from Maastricht, which we also visited. I'll upload some photos to share on the blog in the next day or two, but had a fab time and got another week of holiday to go so we may be out and about locally.

Friday Night Sew In - Saturday Catch Up

I took part in the Sew in with continuing my jelly roll quilt, finishing of a Dresden Plate block and trying out a small Japanese style block.  I continued this morning with the jelly roll quilt and its looking quite good so I can leave the quilt top for a week while we're on holiday next week.

So first off is the Japanese quilt block which I made from Susan Briscoe's book of 130 Little Quilt Blocks, which is quite a handy "library" of blocks ranging from Amish style to Japanese to Crazy.  When looking at the blog on her website here the larger version of this block, Igeta, makes some super quilts so after coming home from work gave this little block a try.

The block without the border is just 5.5" square but added on comes to 7.75".  Cute, isn't it?

While watching the television last night I sat with the Dresden Plate sampler block and finished hand sewing.  This is the last of six blocks I've made this year and will work out joining together with sashing soon, here a pic of the finished block

Meanwhile during this week I have been working on the jelly roll quilt.  With piecing done I ordered fabric for the strips and started cutting out and sewing on Tuesday and Wednesday and took over the living room and dining room in the process so was glad that David was working in Yorkshire for those days.  I continued yesterday evening with adding side strips and this morning with top and bottom strips so the quilt top is now done!

Decisions to be made about backing fabric and quilting it.  Do I do this myself or get it long armed?  It'll be left a week now so it's good just to get to this point.

David and I are going on holiday from tomorrow heading for Dover then by ferry on Monday and travelling up to Venlo in Holland.  We're going to be visiting the Floriade festival which happens there once every 10 years.  Never been before and we're looking forward to going there.

See you in a week's time.

Friday Night Sew In

Ive joined in with the sew in, just before I go off on Holiday next week. More of that on Saturday. I may be working on the jelly roll quilt or a set of postcards, not sure which yet. Hope you can join in too. I've tried to link this using the iPad but it doesn't want so here's the whole address http://www.handmadebyheidi.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/are-you-there-blog-its-me-heidi.html

Rainy Days

Like the rest of the country in Dorset we have suffered really rainy days and on my day off on Wednesday it just, well, rained until the evening when the sky suddenly cleared, but by then too late to enjoy the day.  So sewing was the order of the day and I was busy finishing off my Mongolian Knot cushion covers which started off as this here to these below

 Fronts

 Backs

Quilting Detail

I initially quilted around and inside the shapes but there was quite a large amount unquilted in the corners so using the drawings that I made at the workshop I worked out a quilting pattern based on the knot on the cream cushion and sized it until I had just the right size and repeated the same pattern on the orange cushion.  I used an envelope back for both but as you will see from the green cushion back I had to add a strip of cream fabric because there wasn't quite enough fabric.

Having done all that I turned my attention to the jelly roll quilt which has been a little while in the making as I didn't quite appreciate how difficult I pattern that I chose.  This was from Pam and Nicky Lintott's book of "More Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts" and is the Twisted Braid Quilt.  In order to keep track of what I was doing I had to use a Post It note with an arrow on it and several plastic bags with the block letters and numbers on.  By the end of last week I got to the point where the units were sewing and were about to the joined into strips.  I left them on the spare room bed so I could take a few days to rearrange them if I needed to then I went for it and joined the strips. I managed that all on the Wednesday afternoon.  I've ordered some fabric for the strips in between, which I hope will be this coming Wednesday's bit of sewing, but it's looking good so far.

But before all this activity, something else was enjoying the wet weather and I spotted this and took a photo quickly before it could get away...

 Sorry not a brilliant pic but I couldn't get a better shot than this - a heron looking for some breakfast!

It'll be my grandson Leo's birthday on Monday and we had thought of taking the boys to see Thomas the Tank engine at a special event in Eastleigh on Saturday, but again the weather was so awful so instead Mum Carly, Leo and Freddie came with us to the Southampton's Solent Sky Museum to see some aeroplanes, which houses a Spitfire, a flying boat amongst its other aircraft.  They liked going into the flying boat and we must have been inside there at least 3 times!

So rainy days can be good days too.

Where's this year gone to?

It's 1st July and half of 2012 has already gone - where to? The time has disappeared in a flash, it seems.

As it's a new month I've linked to Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Month with my blog so if this is the first time you've visited here then "Hi - enjoy your visit to Suw W Sews!"

Here's the link to Lily's Quilts

And I've also joined the Small Blog Meet

 So what sewing have I done this month?

First of all the Fabric Manipulation postcard in the BQLPC (British Quilt List PostCard group)

 Fronts

Backs
I've used a commercial space dyed fabric to make the tucked postcards but cut one piece too small so two of the cards have borders around them.  After doing some plain stitching to make the tucks go in opposing directions I oversewed with some fancy machine stitches in variegared thread.  I've also made 3 postcards for upcoming birthdays in this group to get ahead of things. 

I have also been working of and on a Jelly Roll Quilt from this book which is a variation of a braid quilt (I took this image from Amazon UK, you can't really look inside from this) It is a secret one at present, so photos will appear sometime soon.


And of course there is the workshop that I went on at the beginning of the month making two cushion tops with the Mongolian Knot pattern.  They are still as they are from making at the workshop but I will progress them to finished covers this month.

So what's in store for July?
-  A postcard swap using Angelina Fibres - made a start on this already
-  More work on the Jelly Roll quilt.
-  Remember the Dresden Plate blocks?  The last one is in progress so hopefully will  be joining them together.
 - Making cat door hangings for my granddaughters

Sandown and other bits

Yesterday a group of us Bourne Quilters went by minibus to the National Quilt Championship show at Sandown.  Always quite a good day with lots of chatter on the journey to and from the venue and lots of quilts to see.  Unfortunately I can't show photos of the quilts as organisers state that photos are for personal use only and can't be shown on websites.  What I can say though is the Champion Quilt this year is by Ferrett with a really large wholecloth quilt.  Some purchases were made of course but I didn't spend very much, even though I'd won £48 earlier this week on the Bonus Ball draw at work.

I was taken with the exhibition of Gail Lawther's quilt collection following her New Zealand collection of Glimpses of New Zealand, she now has a new book called Glimpses of Britain celebrating places and people of what Britain means to her (this is accompanied in the photo with a bag pattern from Monkey Buttons).

There are also fabric opportunities with bargain fat quarters and at the bottom of the photo is a hand dyed piece from Farne Designs in a colorway that I could not resist.

Another postcard swap is in the making.  This time it's fabric manipulation and I thought I would come up with inspiration for this but I have found this a bit challenging, not sure why.  Here is my progress so far, I decided to sew tucks and have them going in opposing directions.  I've used a space dyed commercial fabric which I've had for quite a while.

 I liked the look of the back too...

So far it's made two whole postcards and a couple of small pieces (because I didn't cut the piece wide enough to get another whole one out) and joined with other strips of the same fabric.  I'll progress this further this weekend and get the postcards in the post.

Meanwhile all the others in the same swap have sent theirs, so this is what I've received.

From the top - Annette, Janet, Irene, Jan and Alice.  They're all lovely cards so I'd better get sewing!

Swanage

Seeing what a contrast the weather is today (cold and wet) and what it was like yesterday (warm and sunny) I'm glad that I made the most of yesterday.  Continuing from Durlston I went into Swanage and parked up to enjoy some time at the seaside. I enjoyed seaside-y things like having a paddle (I took a small towel with me just in case) and had ice cream (locally made, just had to).  I took a meander through the town to Swanage Railway station and this just came in.

 A Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) like the type I used to see in Slough in the 60's and 70's running a service between Swanage and Norden, just outside Corfe Castle.  It was alternating with a steam train, but I wouldn't be in Swanage for long enough to see it.

I went back along the main street to the beach again and went towards the pier.  I'd never been on the pier and it has been recently restored.  It's quite unusual that it doesn't go straight out into the sea but it has a bend in it. 

Here's a view from the pier to beach

Above is a view towards Old Harry Rocks and in the background are the tower block flats in Poole.

Walking back into town and to where the car was parked I saw this on the pavement in the square just outside the town museum.  There were a lot of people in the square eating fish and chips from the nearby chip shop and the air smelt of salt and vinegar!

And nearby was a cafe next to an abandoned building with a bit of artwork on it on painting behind the car and another where the steps are.  The car in the pic is real not art!

So that was my day out yesterday!

Today I was back at work for one day, but tomorrow I will be off with the Bourne Quilters to Sandown and the quilt show there.

Durlston Country Park

My day off today was just too nice to stay at home.  So on the rare occasions when I get my legs out as the weather looked summer-like and after doing the supermarket shopping early this morning I went to Sandbanks to go on the chain ferry.  I drove through the Purbecks and Swanage to go to Durlston Country Park. I hadn't been here since the children were small and I came with a school party as a parent helper - that was a long time ago. It has a "castle" though it is a Victorian building which houses the information centre, coffee shop and rather lovely view points.

The front of the castle

Tower at the end of the castle with steps going down to the garden

Looking to the back of the castle

View from the tower looking across to Swanage bay

There's a walkway that leads to a tower with steps down to the garden and from there more steps to the globe.

This stone globe looks towards the sea with steps from there lead to part of the South West Coast Path.

There are plaques with facts and poems to the side and behind the globe.  The corner of a stone in front is one of two purposely left for people to add their graffiti on rather than to deface the globe. The bench on the grass bank is to mark the compass points and they surround the globe.

Here's one of the plaques.

After that I made my way along the coastal path to Anvil Point lighthouse, which doesn't seem far away but there is a dip down and a climb back up. There were fabulous views out to sea. The above photo shows the entrance to a cave from where Purbeck stone was mined. Later along a route above the lighthouse there was the remains of another mine.

The lamp in the lighthouse is no longer used.  There is a strobe light that flashes from it instead.  Apparently the buildings are now used a holiday cottages.

I headed back by a footpath above the lighthouse towards the castle and found this on a side wall, a sundial, with world time differences and tide times.

 More interesting things to see a map of the Purbecks

 This shows the distances from the south coast (at the bottom) to northern France (at the top)

Trying to show that I don't just take photos of scenes, I took a photo of my windswept self!