Friday 11 June 2010

Thank You.

My Mum taught me that you should always say " thank you" for a gift. Well a few months ago I was very lucky to win (another) wonderful give-away and although I said thank you to the gift giver at the time I very naughtily haven't thanked her here yet.
So here goes............................ many, many, many thanks to the lovely Julia who runs the on-line fabric shop Gone to Earth for a very beautiful give-away prize. I won these fat quaters from the beautiful Nicey Jane range by Heather Bailey. I even got to choose which fabrics from the range I wanted.



 

I have a plan of what I want to make with the fabrics which involves another give-away gift I recently won. I'll leave it as a mystery for now and show you if it turns out ok.


We recently had a wonderful week long holiday staying in the lovely little town of Bakewell in the  Derbyshire Peak District. My husband took this early morning picture of the river Wye which runs through the town.


We visited Chatsworth House which was used in the 2005 big screen version of Jane Austen's book Pride and Prejudice as the setting for Pemberley, the fictional home of Mr Darcy. Many people believe that Chatsworth was Austen's influence for Pemberley. Austen's description does sound like this is likely, and even if it is incorrect it's fun to imagine that you are at Pemberley when visiting Chatsworth.


 "It was a large, handsome, stone building standing well on
rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front,
a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but
without any artificial appearance." (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)

 Here's a better view
of the river.













And finally, I hope this year my garden provides an abundent supply of cut flowers for the house, this may be a little optimistic but this little bouquet is a good start.


Bye for now, Maria.

Monday 7 June 2010

In an English country garden.




I'm still here! I can't believe how long it is since I last posted. I seem to have fallen off the blogging and sewing wagon. My google reader sits at 466 posts to be read and my poor sewing machine must feel as though I've fallen out of love with it. There's been a bit of sewing going on, a few summer tops which have been waiting to be finished for a few weeks and this bag for my Mum which I'm pleased to say has had an outing with the the pink and green outfit which it was made to accompany. The photo of the bag is up there as couldn't get it down here where I want it to be.

I've been busy in the garden and am delighted with the little sitting area we started last year. I can't believe the change in just over a year.
It's gone from this:

To this:

 To this:

I'm looking forward to seeing how it will change again in the next few weeks as the lavenders burst into a haze of purple and the cosmos and zinnias which I've grown from seed hopefully flower.


Bye for now and if there's still anyone out there who reads this please say 'Hi'.
Maria x