All about the waiting ....

For what? You ask.


For lemons to ripen, our desert grape vine to settle in after planting and the basil, well, I guess we are waiting to find it frost free zone so we can continue to reap the benefit of its wonderful flavour.

 

And I am waiting for one more day before unwrapping the fabric around a great selection of rusted bits and pieces .... watch this space for the colours and patterns that'll emerge!!!








I'm hoping for some fabric that will be suitable for book spines. So far I've printed a photo of the book spine onto fabric ... some are interesting,

others not so much. So maybe what I need is a mixture of photos and free motion quilting of the lettering onto a matching fabric. One more reason to watch this space....  I'll post more pics soon.



And I will leave you with beautiful morning sunshine now the mist has cleared ... looks like a day to be outside.

Today chez moi ....

Its been a while! I've been busy  ... so a quick catch up mostly in pictures ...

.

The transformation of 6m of white cotton to a beautiful set of colours for  my next stitching project  well, that was last Friday and Saturday taken care of ..

So relieved that all the buckets and bags remained whole as I drove home ....

Its hard work rinsing and washing all that fabric but exciting as the colours emerge

Some sunrise colours here

and the black to pale grey set will be perfect for pavements and stone walls ...

Finally, I found them a nice resting place  .... but they won't be there very long.












One short flight on Sunday and now I'm enjoying some late autumn sunshine at home in France .... there are five dogs, two people and walks twice a day  ... so twice along the quiet back road in the morning and twice around the lake in the afternoon. Lots of steps and lots of time for reflection.

In between my kennel assistant routine I slipped in some sedentary jobs. So, big news here, today I sent my novel, well, the first three chapters and a synopsis, out to several agents.

It felt the right time and I now have to wait for, what? Well, who knows. Fingers crossed ...

But doing that leaves my mind free to continue with what at the moment I am calling Novel 2.

That felt a big thing to be doing so in between  I tacked a small quilt ready for, yes, you've guessed, quilting. There was a slight hiatus in this gentle activity when in the middle of the morning I lost the thread and scissors.

They were there when I went out to feed the hens and gone when I returned.  The fabric was undisturbed, my pincushion was there but no scissors and spool of tacking thread

The culprit was Naomi ... loveable and naughty and very fond of chewing ... and eventually I found the evidence.  She now has a hard(ish) rubber ball to chew and I have learnt not to leave temptation in her reach!!!


There's a book review coming up in the next post .... do read on or is it up?

Around and about chez moi in early September ....

Title says it all really. Enjoy the photos.

New rusting tool glows in the evening sun 

The slow and careful burn of all those dreaded seed heads 

 This stone wall has not seen the light of day for a long while ... hence the need for the bonfire!!!!

Extra large, large and very small tomatoes are all available  ... and are all very delicious.

Thanks for being here.

NB Its still hot. 30C as I write ... what a wonderful summer we've had.

2017 .. a final post about puppies and projects

My day here in Le Gers has gone from warm and sunny  - morning yoga and breakfast on the terrace - yes, really, and a sunny walk with Crumble - to whippy wind and rain as I turn on the lights.

So a chance to write a final post for 2017, or rather to post some pics that speak more than words.

The puppies continue to give much joy ... today they all had a wash and brush up by the stove  - the way to shiny coats  - and one of their now regular runabouts  - and then, of course, lots of sleep afterwards.

And here are some pics of stitching ...

Eco printed leaf ... and my favourite stitch 

Still plenty of room for more lines of stitch 

More blanket stitch ... leaves, steam, paper, muslin and tea dyed silk  ... loving this combination.

Off the needles at last ... colourful yarn and simple stitiching  

 Happy New Year, thank you for reading this. See you in 2018.

A few days in a few pictures

Bonjour, its warm and sunny outside and some weeds need pulling, so this will be brief.

Finally, I'm set up to do some natural dyeing .... its a wonderfully slow process

Logwood, Persian berries and onion skins ... 

Solar dying with avocado skins  ... might be ready in July

I'm learning how strong the Logwood dye is even after several days 

I'm also doing more slow stitching, inspired by Hazel http://justtotheleftofthemoon.blogspot.fr  from Institches Creative Textile Courses http://www.institchestextilecourses.co.uk

... this is an old, rust spotted chair cover (provence unknown) and, with some hemp thread that has proved useless for anything else, I'm learning some new embroidery stitches from several great websites including http://www.embroidery.rocksea.org/stitch/

and relearning some old favourites ... only one stitch a day mind, and only one length of thread.

Finally, as I'm at home in France a photo of the new dog kennels and the lime and hemp bricks that will soon be the walls. 

Oh, and by the way last week the wonderful Reuben Woolly published one of my poems on I am not a Silent Poet.
Here's the link  https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/?s=hammick   ... there are lots of other great poems there, so do visit the website and just in case the above link fails here's my poem.

Westminster, March 2017

The people who won't be going home today

are people like you and people like me.

This morning they checked their emails,

read another chapter of their book,

bought a coffee to go and, wrapped against

only the March wind, chose the pavement.

The people who ran towards the blood

are people like you and people like me.

This afternoon they took off their coats

to pillow an injured man's head,

blew their breath into a dying women,

put their palms across pulsing wounds.

All these people walked from the south

or the north, they were willing to cross over

and look east and west towards the other side,

the side with plenty of places for more bridges

if people like you and I make the space. 

Waving goodbye to 2016

Good morning, a few photos to show the tea bag work in progress.  

Tea bag paper sews well, its tough stuff and easy to get an accurate 1/4 inch seam with the very precisily cut edges.

One nine patch and the first book 

In contrast, until I removed the paper thin metal flange from inside the Juki bobbin case,
my end-of-year quilting was rubbish!!! Thank goodness for Google and the leather workers website with its wealth of help about what can go wrong with Juki bobbins and how to fix the problems.

Unsurprisingly the solution was simple - remove said flange. Quilt now done and just one more to do (for now).

To leave or make a mark in some way ... tomorrow's decisions 

Loving that pages that arrive with their own marks 

And the very tedious news is that it is still foggy here at Enmatte, four days now and we'd like our January to be warmer, drier and lost clearer please. Oh, some sunshine would be good as well, thanks. 

from the terrace ...  

My not favourite corner on days like this but Crumble likes this route away from the giant tractors driven by our farming neighbours 

And to any keen knitters out there here's a challenging challenge for January  - brioche stitch, maybe with more then one colour. For more details see http://www.louisetilbrookdesigns.net/blog/   

I'm still undecided:  to join or not, to begin yet another project, or perhaps just to knit a sample? Its a great looking stitch, new to me and sounds perfect for cosy hats and scarves. Maybe one more project won't matter? 

Wishing you peace, good health and happiness for the New Year ... and see you in 2017.

It's an Elephant

...  hanging on the wall, wearing diamanté from one of my grandmothers evening gowns and a cap of fabric scraps - enough said.

Getting ready for a new deck ... plus a quilting winter challenge in progress

Well, the old one has given great service and some of it is still fine but much has had too much weather.

and lots of it will be recycled into some raised beds. This summer the beds along the fence have already given us so many peppers and aubergines.

It's wonderful to have a garden with lots of place to relax ... not that we need the hot tub at the moment!

Yesterday was also hedge trimming day.

I'm amazed at how much variety there is and now we can see all of it including the Medlar Tree full of unripe fruit that Poppy seems to love. Half chewed bits appear in odd places and surprisingly, the bits she swallows don't seem to have any ill effects!

And in other news I've started the Mole Valley Quilters Winter Challenge piece ...  A4 sized and using a small square of given fabric and my stash.


Here it is in progress and try as I may I cannot import it edited to be the correct way up! If you know how to do this please leave the answer below!

I keep fiddling with the lake and trees bit ... and have no idea how to best fix in place!  Updates may be posted and maybe the right way up.

Off now to make some banana bread with fruit that has ripened at speed in this heat ... back soon.

The final kitchen at Enmatte ...

Finally, Enmatte has a wonderful kitchen, its been a while in the making but its all we planned and hoped for.

It's spacious, with enough room for several cooks and their helpers, and possibly dogs underfoot!

One of its best features is the compost bin in the scene of the island. The wood surface can be used as a chopping board but so far I've not taken a knife to the beautiful surface!

 Its amazing how knocking down the walls between two small rooms and a dark hallway has given us this great front of house family space.

 

Perhaps, most importantly, it's proving to be a cool place to cook this heatwave summer -so nice to see so much of the garden from a room we spend lots of time in.

Off now for a cup of tea and meringue -the inevitable  byproduct of keeping hens and having new oven that need cheating out!!!

Kitchen news ...

Looking more and more very wonderful with every passing day  ...