End of an Era!

I've never known such changes in our village in such a short space of time as are currently happening. The hotel and 2 pubs are all (or have) changed ownership, the senior citizens' sheltered housing block has closed, and the village 'Fun Day' has restarted this year on a grand scale, for the first time since the 1980s. The biggest change, however, has been in relation to the village school.

The school was made up of 2 buildings: the infant school (above) and the junior school. I was one of the first pupils to attend the infants because it was built when I was about 6 years old. I took this photo shortly before it was demolished, ready to make the site into a car park for the new school. The junior school is also closed, but future plans for it are still uncertain. We've had a brand, spanking new school built by the council  (on a site just behind the trees behind this school) and the children have all started there this term.

This is my first class photo at the infants school, where my gran was the school cook; a role that I also took on many years later. I am in the top row, second from the right, with a yellow cardigan on. I can name many of the girls here, but the boys all look the same to me now!

Just before the demolition of the school, a get-together was hastily organised and some past pupils met up to reminisce and look at old photos.A few of the people in the class photo are here (amongst some from other classes), including one of the teachers (the lady in the middle with the white handbag). In this pic, I am in the front with a light jacket and black trousers). I haven't changed much, have I.......!!??

Bye for now
Teresa x

Stories from my Makes

The more eagle-eyed readers will recognise these makes from previous posts. After I've sold an item I don't just forget about it when I'm working on something new. I'm always pleased to hear how it's being used in it's new home or, best of all, see it in action. So, as well as my makes having a 'past' story, based on the various places the materials came from, they also have a 'present' story. And, hopefully, a long and full future.

When I sold the pink baby quilt, the customer told me it was destined for the first baby girl to born in their family for 50 years. It was a great honour that they thought my humble quilt suitable for such a momentous occasion in their family.

The blue quilt was bought by a friend for a friend of her's baby boy. She reported back to me later how her friend loved the quilt and would lay the baby on it, noting his position on the design so she would know if he'd moved when she looked at him again. That she thought enough about it to pass on the story was quite special.

Another friend asked me to make the purple bag for her step-daughter when her previous one wore out. I see her around and about quite a lot and she, more often than not, has the bag over her shoulder. It's so lovely to see that she likes it and that it gets plenty of use.

Finally, an elderly friend bought the daffodil bag from one of my stalls. I see her quite often and she likes to tell me where she has taken it and how useful it is. Apparently, it's been to Norway on it's travels!

I hope the stories keep coming because it, somehow, makes what I do more meaningful (although I'd still do it even if I didn't hear anything back).

Bye for now
Teresa x

Processing!

Hello folks! Hope you had a good Easter. We had a quiet one at home, with a few hot cross buns and a little chocolate consumed. I enjoyed a lovely, impromptu coffee with friends after a simple, meditative Good Friday service, then a rousing Easter Day service.

An airer full of donated fabric drying.

I am very lucky that lots of lovely friends give me yarn and fabric they no longer want. I usually try to wash fabric before storing it in the shed. This is mainly to make sure any shrinkage happens now, and not after it's been made up into something. When I have lots of bitty-bits, I put them in a duvet cover to wash. They still get a bit tangled but it prevents the washing machine getting clogged with frayed threads.

Along with the lovely, pristine, unused balls of yarn I get from people, or from charity shops, I also un-run jumpers etc to use the yarn. This is a deconstructed jumper after being tied into hanks and washed by hand. These are now dry and rolled into balls waiting to be made into something else.

I finished this longer term project the other day. A crocheted hexagon throw that I've been gradually making at my  2 weekly crafting groups. I had a couple of photos showing more of it but they've disappeared from the laptop. They should still be on the iPad, though, so I'll load them onto my Facebook page in a couple of days (I don't know how to get them on this blog from there without a lot of faffing). This throw was sold and paid for before I'd finished making it, by a lady at one of my groups.

 At home, I'm still on bags. I don't know why, but every piece of fabric I pick up in my shed says 'bag' to me. It's about time they started saying something else. This one,covered with applique flowers cut from another fabric, is my usual boxy style. The main fabric is a sort of strong hessian type. It's lined with a flowery fabric and has an inner zipped pocket.

And this one is a completely new design that I made up in an oddment of plain fabric, to try out before making the 'real thing'. The outer zipped  pocket is also a new thing I tried. It's made from 2 tea towels, a pillow case and a belt. 

I'd like to say I'll have something completely different to show next time, but I have a strong suspicion it may be more bags!

Bye for now

Teresa x

A Question, a Request and some Crafting!

Do you trust your Google STATS? I get suspicious when my stats suddenly shoot up for no apparent reason. My last post had hundreds more views than normal, mostly from the USA. It's happened once before, a couple of years ago, but that time the views were all from Russia!

I''ve recently published a Facebook page for my Thread Shed crafts and currently have 20 'likes'. If you could take a little look and 'like' it too (if you genuinely LIKE it, that is) I would be very grateful.

I know the dragon should be red but I needed a red square to finish it off. The green is a much nicer, deep shade than in the photo

A friend recently gave me a pile of red and green knitted squares that her husband knitted before he died, a couple of years ago. Not being a knitter herself, she didn't know what to do with them, but as he had originally knitted them for a charity project she wanted a charity to benefit in some way and thought of my stitching group's charitable work. I knitted up the remainder of the yarn so that I had enough to make a blanket, making a feature of one square by knitting a Welsh dragon, and crocheted them together. When I took it back to her she kept it, gave me the charity money herself, and was looking forward to showing it to her children.

This little purple bag (yes, it is a lovely purple, I must learn to use my camera properly) started as a phone cover but was working out much too big. It's made from some of the wool that was donated to our group, so will go on the stall at our next event.

I've been thinking ahead (well ahead, for me) and making some Christmas products. I made a few of these stocking, Christmas tree decorations last year and they sold well. So, after modifying the design to make them easier to construct, I  ran up a few more with the limited festive fabrics I have. They're not as big as them seem next to that cotton reel!

When I un-ran a charity shop jumper and started making granny squares I didn't have a definite end result in mind (as usual). Luckily, though, 4 of the squares fitted exactly around these bolster cushion pads (I have two pads). I looked up how to make granny circles to finish off the ends and here's the result.

We've had a busy weekend looking after daughter's and SIL's 2 dogs, while they are at their cousin's wedding in Germany. We also went to a wedding ourselves on Saturday, of two good friends. Is it just me, or are there a lot more weddings than usual taking place this year? Another friend at the wedding told me she had been invited to SIX weddings (and three christenings) this summer.

Bye for now
Teresa x

Festival and Fun Day!

Trying to get giant bubbles through hula hoops

My stall

The Saturday Singers 

Abertillery Orpheus Choir

I was pleased for the organisers of this year's Raglan Festival that the weather was so good. It was important for the relaunch of the Raglan Fun Day to be a success and give them something to build on for the future. Attendance numbers were high and great fun was had for the whole afternoon, starting with the Big Lunch at 1pm, and with bands on the outdoor stage keeping everyone entertained.

On the Sunday, after a community service on the same school playing field and a quick lunch at home, I went to the Beaufort Hotel terrace and spent the afternoon with crowds of others listening to various local entertainers and chatting to friends.

I was chuffed to notice that, as well as having one of my homemade bags with me, one of the Saturdays Singers had her music in one, and the daughter of a friend had hers over her shoulder too. We were joined by my friend's brother whose daughter also had one of my bags. It appears that my bags have a 'look' because my friend said she could recognise them now. Another lady said she'd have to get one because 'everybody's got one'! It was a good afternoon all round!!

Sunday evening's performance in the church of Abertillery Orpheus Male Choir was very popular. It was good to see a few younger members in the choir; probably as a result of the popularity of groups like Only Men Aloud, and choir singing in general being more fashionable. Roll on next year!

Bye for now
Teresa x

2014 Use My Books Challenge!

The consensus seems to be that this phone cover is the favourite. It was also the one that my friend, J, bought for herself (along with one of the other cases, to give to a friend of hers). Can you see the difference in it from the last post, though? J wasn't keen on the loop fastening (not because of the look of it, but the fiddly-ness) so I replaced it with a flap that has a press-stud fastening.

And this cushion is what the pile of grannies from the last post ended up as. It will now be added to my stitching group's stock for the school fete in May.

The design was inspired by a combinations of patterns in this book, which I bought last year with birthday money.

I've bent the rules in my 2014 Challenge to include cookery books, because, like my craft books, I don't get enough use out of these either. I tend to stick to the same familiar cook books (or not use them at all) when there is plenty of inspiration in the rest. 

The chocolate brownies are from this book, and yes, they were cooked in the slow cooker! My son and his girlfriend bought this book for my birthday, last year. I didn't follow the recipe exactly because I only had a quarter of the required cocoa, and no chocolate chips (I added ground almonds to make up the cocoa). They turned out fine though. I think they'd have been too chocolatey with all the cocoa, if that's possible!

Bye for now
Teresa x

Another New Hat and a Challenge!

Hi all!
OH and I got back from a week in Austria on Saturday: a skiing holiday, on which (as usual) I did not ski. I was joined in my week-long apres-ski by J who was not skiing due to the fact she is expecting her first baby. During the week we celebrated, amongst our group of 6, a 50th birthday and an engagement. We knew about the birthday and went prepared, but the engagement was a complete surprise.

In previous years I've made myself a new hat to take away, so decided to do the same again.  This time it was knitted in a cable design. It was supposed to be knitted on a circular needle, but I didn't have one the right size so I adapted the pattern to knit it on a pair of needles. It's also supposed to be more like a beret but, due to my tendency to knit too tightly, it's more like a beanie (The pattern is called Saffron but I don't remember where I got it from I'm afraid. I have a pdf if anyone is interested.)

On the last day of the holiday, J and I bought tickets to join the rest of the group at the top of the ski lift for lunch. I was really pleased we did, because the other time I went up it was too foggy to see the amazing view.

Another day we watched the men ski, from the bar half-way up the mountain. We managed to pick them out with the help of M's rabbit ears.

Back to normal now, and to the 'challenge' I decided to set myself for this year - or however long I decide to continue. I felt that I hadn't got my money's worth out of the crafty books and magazines I've bought over the years. When I thought about it in more detail, though, I realised I've taken inspiration from my books for a few of my projects, but the only item I've made from scratch and word-for-word is the knitting needle roll (above), the pattern for which I followed from The Crafters' Companion

Because it's my challenge I'm not going to put any pressure on myself, such as a time limit or amount of projects. The only rule is that there are no rules. As you know by now, I don't plan much when I start a project. It just sort of evolves. But this challenge means I'll occasionally have to plan a little. And it doesn't mean following patterns exactly - I might just use them for inspiration. As I said before - My Challenge. My rules!!

Bye for now

Teresa x

France, June 2013

Our base for the week - Moulin de Garreau

 Hello all!  We got back from a lovely week in France in the middle of the night, the Sunday before last.  Our car came back the following Friday!!! But I don't want to start on a negative note, because we did enjoy ourselves, so I'll leave that until later.

The lake we walked around or fished in.

 There was so much to do at the house we could have amused ourselves there for the entire week, but we did take time out on a few days.

The Green Room (ours!)

 The weather picked up nicely after the drizzly drive down from St Malo and we didn't have another bad day until the day we left, which meant it was more comfortable to drive in.

 This is the first of four evening meals we ate at the house.  I think I enjoyed these meals more than when we ate out. It was quite a rural area where the locals didn't speak much English, so choosing from a French menu without much help was a bit hit and miss.  Who knew that 'gesiers' were gizzards!! Apparently they were quite nice.

 This is our communal sitting/dining area with the table set for dinner.  That shoe dumping area became quite messy by the end of the week!

 We dined alfresco a couple of times, making good use of the brick BBQ in the garden.

A couple of glasses of Pimms went down well while the BBQ was cooking.

A day on the beach at Isle de Re was just the thing on the hottest day of the week.

The 15 minute walk to the pizzeria was through the beautiful French countryside (You can't see the brick and tile factory on the other side of the road from this angle :-) We met an ex-pat at the pizzeria who works at the factory. He helped translate a little for us and arranged for us to go with the owner of the pizzeria to one of his wine suppliers, after we'd asked if there were any vineyards we could visit.  We met them one evening at 4pm and they led the way.  We would never have found one without their help because they don't seem to advertise for tourists.

There seemed to be a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, in general, towards tourists in the area, and sites of interest were tucked away down side streets with no signage until you were right there.  We followed a town map of Fontenay le Compte, that was in the house, in order to find a couple of gardens and a castle to look around.

This was the fate of our car after filling it up, following the day on the beach.  To cut a long story short, the steering 'went' when we were 45 minutes from the house. The following days involved 3 taxi journeys, 3 different hire cars (one with a crack nearly all the way across the windscreen) and many phone calls.  In total, we probably lost about 8 hours to-ing and fro-ing but, luckily, we had taken out extra European cover with the AA. The car couldn't be fixed in France so we still have that cost (and we haven't had the phone bill yet either), but it could have been so much worse.

Incidentally, in attempting to converse with the first taxi driver we told him we were from Wales (Pays de Galles).  OH told him, more specifically, 'Raglan' which he repeated like he knew it, which I thought was odd.  He must have been trying to think of the right words for the rest of the journey, because, when we got to the house, he turned to us and said, "My - girl (daughter we presume)  - work - Raglan - Arms"!!! We managed to communicate to him that our son worked there too and he said, "Small - world!"  

Small world, indeed!

-------

I haven't heard anything, yet,  from Penny who won my giveaway before I went away. I've joined Google+ but have yet to find a way to get in touch.  If I don't have any luck soon there's a chance I'll be re-drawing the winner.

Bye for now

Teresa x

Sunny Weather!

The longest sunny period for over a year (according to the weather boffins)!  It's very welcome indeed.

The old advertising sign is up on my shed at last, and the flower beds are in bloom.

We are optimistic that this year's garden produce will be better than last year - it couldn't be much worse!

Messing about on the river at Symonds Yat.  That's not us in the canoes - we're waiting for the ferry to come back so we can cross the river.  

Taken from the ferry as it's pulled across the river by the rope.  Thirteen of us have just had a lovely lunch. Half of our group are cycling back to the cars, but we are walking.

Bye for now

Teresa x

P.S. There's still time to enter my book giveaway here.

Chalet Antics and Cheating!

Goodness me, I didn't realise it's been over a month since I last posted.  I intended popping in before we went away but time ran out.  I haven't any holiday snaps, without people in,  that are worth viewing so here are a few from before I went away. First though, a few comments on the holiday:

Clean beds
Good chalet staff (except for psycho host who broke his collarbone snowboarding and had to be replaced, and finally got sacked after getting drunk and going berserk, resulting in door entry code being changed to keep him out)
No hot water for 36 hrs
Good food (mostly - psycho host wasn't a very good baker)
Good skiing (apparently - I don't ski)
Good walking
Nice people sharing chalet (mother and daughter)
Coming back after a walk to find our chalet's French door wide open and no one inside, the day after having the door code changed due to psycho host's snowboard being stolen (or was it?).

Could have been worse - one of us could have come home with a broken leg and we're definitely going to dine out on this for quite a few years.

Now, back to reality, or so it seems.  OH loves apple pie but I don't make it very often because I don't like making pastry.  The only times we've had any recently is when my auntie makes it for us, from the apples we give her from our tree.  Due to a shortage of apples last autumn, apple pie was also in short supply and OH was beginning to suffer withdrawal symptoms.  What could I do but cheat?  Yes, I gave in and bought ready-made pastry.  And do you know what?  It was very good.  Easy to use, not too expensive and very tasty.

There was plenty in two blocks to make the apple pie, a spinach and mushroom quiche and a dozen jam tart cases.  It was pretty foolproof and I can see it making an appearance in my kitchen in the future. But perhaps I shouldn't leave it until the apple pie craving starts to re-surface.

Anyone who wondered about the tumbling block patchwork should be able to see from this photo why it's called that. The overall effect should be like cubes.  I tried to keep the darker fabric of each set of 3 to the right to continue the effect, but managed to sew one set on the wrong way around.

Just before I went away I revamped this bag that I had lying around.  I won it in a giveaway but didn't use it because it was like a back-pack and wasn't really practical.  I took off the straps, added the decorative ruffles and a matching lining, made the bottom corners 'square' then re-added the straps and fastening tab like a tote bag.

Progress since last time:

More tumbling blocks
Revamped bag
Prepared more un-run yarn 
Started crocheting hexagons from un-run jumper yarn (on holiday)

Bye for now
Teresa x

Very Berry Inspiration!

Some of the crafty and baking stuff I show here is inspired by fabulous bloggers that I follow or chance across from time to time, none more so than Ali from Very Berry Handmade who designs and makes gorgeous stylish things and sells lovely Liberty bundles on Folksy.

It was a coincidence recently that a crochet project and some baking I did both came from Ali.  I had book-marked the pattern for this triple layer crocheted flower quite a while ago but didn't get around to trying it out until the Christmas holiday. Then Ali blogged about this Chocolate Cardamom cake the other week and I couldn't resist giving it a try.  The flower came out quite large because I used some chunky yarn I had lying around. I made it into a brooch after finishing it off with ribbon and a button.

The cake is definitely only for special occasions as it contains two slabs of melted 70% chocolate, but despite being rich, it's not heavy or stodgy.  I made a full-sized cake by doubling all the ingredients (except the cardamom, which I was glad about because it had enough flavour with just the 2 pods).

Ali's cardamom pods looked huge compared to mine (I suppose being 4 years out of date might have had something to do with it)!   Above are the contents of 2 of my pods (one lot hard and crunchy, the other soft and much bigger).  All previous pods I'd used were filled with the small, hard seeds so I was reluctant to use the ones that resembled mice droppings (hence only using half the amount).

And while I'm on the subject of lovely inspirational blogs, here are a few more to browse:

Betz White (beautiful creations from felted woollen jumpers and her own organic cotton fabrics)
Wayside Sacraments (inspirational words and pictures from Leslie, who has become a good blog-friend)
The Scrappy Appleyard (Another blog-friend, John'aLee, who creates wonderful quilt patterns, and is so busy I wonder that she has time to blog let alone read and comment on mine!)
Posie Gets Cozy (If I could could take photos half as good as these, I'd be happy)
Patchwork Pottery (A blog full of wonderful, intricate patchwork designs with their own unique style)
Attic24 (Crochet fans should definitely visit Lucy's blog for a fix.

So, there you have it; I felt I should share some of the wonderful blogs I've discovered over the years (although I suspect they're not much of a secret to many of you) and not keep them to myself.  They've given me much food-for-thought and (as I said at the start) much inspiration in my own life and crafty journey.

Progress since last time:

Purple scarf finished
Charity shop jumper un-run
A few more tumbling blocks added

Bye for now
Teresa x