Silence Has Been Golden

I've only just realised how long it's been since I last blogged.  Well I haven't been overly creative, we've only half the electrics done in the workroom due to the wrong lighting track being sent, and the blinds don't arrive until this Thursday.  Too much moving things around to fully settle in yet.  It is a great place to be though and everyone else seems to want to be in there too, which is nice really (I could always lock the door if I wanted to be that alone!!).

I was kindly given a couple of pieced tops by one of my ladies, Barbara, to use to play on the long arm.  Barbara is an incredibly particular piecer and all her work is always 110%.  I was quite worried but I did offer and she complied.  I know she will be having a top quilted for free but I need the practise too so I thought it a fair trade off (she did say it would be in the loft for another ten years other wise!).  I have discovered that deciding what to do is so hard!  And finding what to do that the piecer agrees with too can be a stumper, though I was given free rein I wanted her input. This is the result of my first 'someone else's' top.

I didn't want to do yet another all over design which would have been the easy way out.  I wanted to use the opportunity to actually think about a block design.  I managed to only use the ruler for the diagonals and freehand the in the ditch and curves.  It's not an overly dense covering but we think it works well with the log cabins.  The other top I have from her I will do a totally different way and it wasn't too hard to decide what to do on it.  More of that when it is done.

I have finished the Goldwork star, about 4 inches across.  An interesting exercise, I'm not sure I could really do lots of it but I have had a taster of another technique.

I have had nasty hay fever for the past two weeks too.  I've not really had it before other than a brief few days last year.  It seems to be dying down at the moment along with the hazel catkins so I'm hoping it's plant specific and I can plan for it.  Our field behind us seems to have Oil Seed Rape in it this year though so that may be a little interesting.  I must admit to not feeling great on the antihistamine but it's better than the hay fever.  I've also had a pulled muscle in my neck which has been very painful and the tight nerves have been giving me dizzy spells, sometimes very scary ones.  Another reason for the lack of creations.

This morning John called me to see this fellow on the bird box on the Atlas Cedar.

He is a blur because I managed to catch the moment he was drumming.  There have been Great Tits in and out of the box so if they were in there I'm sure they were rather unhappy!  We think he was using it as a sounding box as another, rather elusive woodpecker came to see what all the noise was about.

Guests for dinner tonight so slow roast Spanish lamb to be prepared and left to do it's thing before the rugby.  Have a great Sunday.


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