Are you seeing double?

Bertha decided to be very naughty, so I have sent her to sit in the corner, with her back to the room, to think about her bad behaviour. Meanwhile, Her sister, Ten Ton Tessie, has come to me for a working holiday, so I could finish a couple of quilts. I think Bertha's timing got knocked out when I broke a needle on the second of the 2 raffle quilts I was struggling with, so she kept skipping stitches. I was sure it was not a problem with Mrs PP's fabric or wadding, and the thread was the combination I always use, so my friend brought Tessie over to try, and lo and behold, perfect sewing. So Bertha is in the corner. Tessie coming over for her holiday has meant that I could finish the Pineapple and do my Christmas Braids quilt.

PS Christmas Braids is finished, so I'll probably put a photo up tomorrow.

Dresden Plates

One of my blogland friends, Paulette was talking about how easy this block was to do with a ruler she bought last year. You can read her comments about it here, so I said I would show this quilt I made using the same ruler.

I made this quilt in 2006 with blue and yellow fabrics I collected on my holiday to Pennysylvania. It was made for my sister - well who else would it have been for in those colours?

Have you voted yet?

No, don't worry, you haven't missed a general election, or a local one or anything unimportant like that, but you onlyhave until tomorrow to vote in the Nature's Best virtual quilt show. Currently my Leaves Around the Cabins is in 5th place, but I am a competitive person who wants to be in the top 3, (OK, OK, I'll be honest, I want to be the top one, but there is some pretty stiff competition there) so if you haven't voted, please go and put your mark against Leaves Around the Cabins. You don't have to be a member, or a subscriber, or anything else, just click on the button on the right of this post and then click on the Vote Now bit, and vote for Leaves Around the Cabins. If you have voted, then thank you.

PS  I've just found out that the voting deadline has been extended to Tuesday, so there's still time to vote if you want to do so.

A funny story about homework.....

.... well actually, two funny stories about Chatterbox and his maths homework.

The other day, he had to do mental arithmetic and I had to ask him to tell me the answer if he took a number (given by me) from 100. He was good at it, and I think he got them all right, so then Mr Fixit suddenly said, 100 take away 105? Chatterbox just looked at him and said " -5 Grandad. I do know about minus numbers". Not bad for a boy of 7.

Today we had to do something different. He and I had to write down 3 random numbers on separate sheets of paper. Then we had to take it in turns to choose a number between 1 and 6, and the other person had to subtract it from one of their 3 numbers. With me so far? We had to do this 3 times each. Chatterbox knew it was a game, and a game has to have a winner, right? So, after the first time he asked me how you win. I said the winner was someone with one of their final answers ending in the number 1. Purely by accident he had won the first round. We had to have 3 rounds, so what does he do on the next go. He chose 11 as one of his numbers, and did not subtract anything from it, thereby winning again. Clever I thought.

OK, maybe I am biased, but I thought that both of these stories were really funny.

oh ye of little faith..

I see from the comments left yesterday that one or two of you doubted that I had a stash at all, or that I ever intended to show the pictures, so here, for all of you Doubting Thomases, ........
My Stash

My stash

Judy L has issued a challenge to everyone to show photos of their stash. She's on a mission I think to show how tidy she is (giggle). I wasn't going to show mine until I dropped myself right in it when I told Lynn that if she showed hers, I'd show mine. So here it is folks..............tada........................

My Stash

Hmm, blogger won't let me post my pictures, so I'm off for a coffee in a minute, and I'll come back later.

I have also just taken Mrs PennyPot's Pineapple quilt off the frame, so I wanted to take a photo of that to show you, but the camera is telling me it's batteries are flat. Why do I get the feeling technology is against me this afternoon?

P.S.

I saw this Halloween blog layout on Karen's blog and several others, and loved it, so I thought I'd have it here too. Do you like it? Now I've found out how to do it, I might be changing my background on a regular basis.

Post script: Several people have asked me how to do this, so here are the details: Click on the logo on the top left of my blog, which takes you to a site called Daisy Gray Designs. When you are there you can choose a free background and follow her instructions. It was really very easy, and there are some fun backgrounds there.

Nature's Best competition

Just to let you all know that the voting is now open for the above competition. Just click the link on my sidebar. You can vote once for the large quilt and once for the small quilt of your choice. I wonder if I can vote for my own entries?

I entered Leaves Around the Cabins in the large quilts category (well now, there's a surprise!) and Cherry Blossom in the small quilts category. My friend Lynn entered Braided Batiks and Summer Posies in the large and small categories respectively and Sewing Granny entered The Butterflies Teaching Desmond to Fly in the small quilts.

There really are some lovely quilts shown though, so even if you're not intending to vote, it's well worth going and having a look at them.

It's a bargain....

Well actually, it's a freebie. To be completely precise, it's a giveaway. I don't often join these, on the grounds that I never win anything, lottery, raffle, nothing. In fact, I reckon if I entered something and was the only person who did so, I STILL wouldn't win. There now, don't you feel sorry for me?

Anyway, Paulette who lives in Canada is having a giveaway, for no reason except that she wants to. If you go over to her blog, here, you can see that she is giving away the first issue of a new Canadian quilting magazine and other goodies.

Her blog is well woth visiting as she always has some interesting and amusing posts about her life and her quilting.

A touch of the Reggie Perrins.....

Mr Fixit needs an eye test. He rings the optician. The conversation goes like this:

Mr Fixit: Can I make an appointment please?
Optician: Yes, certainly. Would you prefer a morning or an afternoon appointment?
Mr Fixit: Morning please.
Optician: 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon then.

Triumph of hope over experience

or just plain stupid? I was reading Karendianne's blog this morning and she had referred to watching Wuthering Heights on TV. That led me to thinking about why I don't watch that or read it again, since I've read it several times before. The reason is that every time I saw it I hoped for a happy ending, and never got it. It is the same with some other books like Gone With the Wind. Now, when you've all stopped laughing at me you can decide for yourselves if I am an eternal optimist or just plain stupid.

Progress

There hasn't been any!
I did another row on Mrs PP's quilt yesterday, but mis-measured and fell off the end of the quilt. Oops. So the quilt is off the frame - again, and my stitch ripper and I are about to become best friends - again. Still, I have spent some time today digitizing a free pattern I found on the Urban Elementz site here. This was a panto for hand-guided LA quilting, but I really loved it, so I contacted the designer, who was happy for me to digitize it

so all's well that ends well.

On the computer/printer vs Mr Fixit, so far, let's just say that Mr Fixit is not winning. We have decided to call in a man tomorrow. Actually I have decided to call in a man tomorrow, cos I'm fed up with seeing Mr Fixit wasting his time and getting more and more wound up as time goes on. So I shall be making a phone call tomorrow, and I'll let you all know when it's safe to talk about wireless printers to us again.

Meanwhile today has been an absolutely glorious day. Mrs Nomad appeared with The Professor, The Chatterbox and Archie this afternoon and we sat out on the deck for a couple of hours and made the most of what might well be the last time we can do that this "summer".

The updated weather report

My black cloud has gone. Mr Fence, who I'm now going to call Mr Fixit, fixed it. He took the top off and attacked it with a big scarey screwdriver. The problem was that one of the drive belts had come loose, so he tightened it, and now it's working beautifully.

Mind you, he has his own black cloud now. We recently had to change our router, and that meant the setting were changed, so now, our computers can't see our wireless printer, and he can't sort it out. Any minute now I think he's going to pay someone to come in and fix it.

Bertha has been working on Mrs PennyPot's quilt, and we have done one row of one of my favourite pantos then we had to stop as it was time to collect The Chatterbox from school. Tomorrow I'm off to Mrs PP's to play in her super studio for the day with a couple of other friends, so I'll not be doing any more quilting till Saturday.

There's a black cloud............

........... over my house today. Can you see it? It's very black. The day before yesterday when I was using my PCQuilter to quilt Mrs PP's quilt, I was using a pattern with circles, except... my circles were coming out with flat tops and bottoms. I undid it, and assumed I had done something wrong when changing the pattern size, etc. Last night I had a friend here and we were going to play with Bertha. My friend wanted to sew a feather wreath. Well, what a mess. It was very distorted, the oversewing wasn't, etc. This, together with yesterday's problem made us think it might not have been me. So we tried sewing a simple circle. Flat top and bottom. Small square? Distorted. Large square? Distorted. Oh pooh sticks. It has to be something on the PCQuilter. We left it, with much muttering about blooming technology. Mr Fence is, as we speak, looking at the insidey, technicaly parts to see what he can see.

I'll keep you posted.

I've got a problem..........

Here is Big Bertha, all ready to get to work on this quilt belonging to Mrs PennyPot, BUT..... Bertha and I just can not decide how to quilt it. In fact, we've started twice already, got half way through a row and decided we didn't like it. (I've become very friendly with my stitch ripper again over the past 24 hours.) Now, I'm going to take the quilt off the frame for today cos I won't be able to do any quilting during the day, and I want to put some plain fabric on cos I've got a friend coming this evening to play with Bertha, and I thought it's better not to have a real quilt top for that, specially as it's not even my own top.

So, back to my problem. How am I going to quilt it? Perhaps inspiration will strike during the day?

Harvest Festival

Thought you might like to see pictures of Mr and Mrs Nomad all dressed up and ready to go to the party! Mrs N's birthday will be tomorrow, but she had her party on Saturday. Doesn't she look "lovely" in her 1980's finery? And how about Mr N dressed up as Jimmy Saville, complete with wig and cigar.

Yesterday Mrs PennyPot came over, and just look what she brought with her. Everything there was fresh from her garden, even the honey.

Today I was going to give Big Bertha some more exercise, but at the moment the frame is only set up at half size, and I need it at full size now. Mr Fence was going to set it up for me this morning, but he is in bed unwell, and I don't really think I should get him up to do it, do you?

Nightmare........

.........is what I've been having over the last few days.

My quilt group decided earlier this year to make a couple of quilts which would be raffled off at a coffee morning in November. Since I never know when to keep my big mouth shut, I volunteered to quilt them. I should have known better. I did stipulate the backing must be quilting fabric and the wadding was to be a decent one which was not poly. The quilts were dropped off earlier this week. The backing was so dense I think it could stand up on its own! That, plus the fact that the blocks were all made by people with differing levels of expertise so the seams were not too good at times, oh yes, and the odd pin left in! made for a tricky job. Poor Bertha nearly had a (nervous) breakdown when I tried to persuade her that she wanted to quilt the first one. Eventually, by raising the foot, raising the pressure on the foot, fiddling for ever with the tension, etc, I got going. The final result is OK, but I have to say that the backing fabric just does not do it for me. I was told it was bought specially because it went so well with the tops. Whaaat? You can see for yourself in the pictures.

Next time I am heard even thinking about offering to quilt a group quilt, please would somebody remind me of this experience?

Thoughts from the North........

.....about Harrogate quilt show.

I have been concerned about the future of this show ever since the Festival of Quilts started up, and I saw nothing this year to make me feel any happier.

There were, on the face of it, plenty of quilts on display, but when you looked closely, there weere a lot which were in one-person shows, if you know what I mean. Now don't get me wrong, I love to see these mini-exhibitions from professional or semi-professional quilters, but I did feel that there were less quilts being entered by ordinary people, which is a shame.

There were a lot of wonderful traditional quilts, but, as I said before, the judging amazed me at times, and I know it wasn't just me from comments from friends and things I overheard. (An advantage to having very acute hearing I guess?) Mrs PennyPot and I decided that to win an award, the thing to do was either use a bit of gold lame in your quilt, or sew on some sequins! I know I'm probably old-fashioned, but to me a quilt is for snuggling under, and some of the things I saw would be better in an art gallery.

There were even less traders this year, with some of the well known ones having gone missing, but on the plus side, there were a couple who had never been to Harrogate show before. However, I don't think people were spending. I was able to get to every trader easily to look at things, rather than seeing the usual crowd 3 people deep on the first day.

I think there is a combination of problems here. 1) the economy is probably hitting home; 2) those who do have the money to spend probably went to Festival, where there is far more choice and all the big name traders go; 3) as less traders turn up each year, then less people go to the show.

All-in-all, I saw nothing to make me feel more optimistic about the future of this show, which is a shame.

Well, you did ask! (Well, actually, only Bilbo asked, but there you go.)

Cars'n Quilts

OK, you asked for photos of my new car, so here they are. Isn't she beautiful?

Now for the quilty things. This picture shows everything I bought. I was really quite restrained, wasn't I?

Now, I'm sure you'd like to see it all in more detail? Oh OK then, since you insist:

First I bought this wonderful bundle of fabrics which are from a range called Spice Trail.

Then I found a bargain:




Just look at the price of that. £4/metre that worked out at. It was too good to miss, and I was even more lucky cos I found two bundles, so now I've got the backing for a quilt and loads of light cream tone-on-tone to use in quilts.






Then, with Christmas in mind, I bought these.



I have been wanting to make a Christmas quilt for years and I have decided that 2009 is the year to do it. Mind you, I'm not saying that 2009 is the year to finish it!

Still thinking of Christmas, I bought these next:

Sorry, you can't see any more of what's in there cos it's a surprise for Mrs Teacher for Christmas.





I thought these were so cute, they had to come home with me too.

Now I thought I didn't like batiks, but.....



These were such lovely butterscotchy-toffee colours I couldn't resist them





My final buy for the day was this jelly roll.



I just loved the soft, slightly dusty colours in this roll, so it had to come home with me too.





That, much to the relief of my bank manager and my credit card company, was the end of my shopping for the day.

I even know what I'm going to do with some of the things I brought home with me!

The Great Northern Quilt Show

is where I've been today.

Mrs PennyPot and I had a lovely day there. We saw some amazing quilts, some "interesting" quilts and some that you look at and ask "why". No doubt you want to see all my photos? OK, here they are............




...........Did you enjoy that? I'm really sorry folks, but I forgot my camera. We did have to wonder at the judges reasons sometimes for awarding the ribbons as they did. It seemed to me that you could throw together a top, add some gold lame of a couple of sequins and win, but some of the most amazingly executed quilts which were completely traditional did not win anything. I wish we could see the judges' comments, perhaps I'd understand better then.

I did see the quilt Ms QuiltingProlifically entered. It's called Basket Case and you can see it on her blog here.

Sadly, I noticed there were less traders again this year, with a number of my favourites missing, but on the plus side there were also a couple of traders there who have not been in the past. I obviously did do a little shopping while I was there and I'll show you what I bought tomorrow.

I'm off now to put my poor, aching feet up.

I've got it........

.......I picked up my new car this morning. I drove it home, and was very happy with it's handling and comfort. I got back at lunch time, and since then it has been persisting down, and it's been thundering too, so I haven't been able to go out and play this afternoon. Mind you, the manual is a very thick book, so I'll spend some time reading that instead. (It's a big, thick book, but I don't think much of the plot!)

I've done it again!

The Quilting Bloggers site competition also has a small quilts category, so I've entered this quilt in that category. Don't forget, you can go and look, you can go and vote, but you can't go and enter cos I don't want any more competition than there is already!

I've entered a competition.........

..........on-line at the Quilting Bloggers' site. They are having a competition on the theme of nature's best, so I entered Leaves around the Cabins - well now, there's a surprise isn't it? If you want to go see the entries, or enter it yourself, just use the link on my sidebar. If you all enter, by the way, I shall sulk cos it'll reduce my chances of winning!

P.S.

I heard this afternoon that I can collect my new car on Monday morning. So it's really been a good couple of days for me.

Who's a lucky girl then?

Me!!!

Postie came today with this parcel for me.

I was expecting some special popcorn from a friend in the USA,
but when I opened it look what I saw:

Rather more than a packet of popcorn.

In fact there were 4 boxes of popcorn and other things.

There were 3 boxes of CrackerJacks, all in really nostalgic type packaging,







There was also this box of a different type of popcorn.

Of course, I opened one box of the CrackerJacks straight away. (Well, it would have been rude not to, wouldn't it?) It was delicious. Mr Fence tried it too, and between us we demolished half a box in seconds. I took one box into my father, he opened his, tried it, and did exactly the same as us. It's VERY more-ish.

As well as the popcorn, were these gorgeous gifts:

This lovely little notebook will be going in my bag with me wherever I go. It will be so much better than scrabbling round for a piece of paper whenever I am out and want to write something.










The other thing is a brilliant gadget for hanging your bag from the edge of a table when you're out. I don't know about you, but I hate putting my bag on the floor, not just cos of dirt and germs but cos I don't like it being out of sight, so normally I end up cuddling it when trying to drink my coffee or whatever, but no longer.

So now you see why I say I'm a lucky girl. Thank you very, very much Ms Red Geranium.

Alls well.........

........ that ends well.

You will all be very pleased to hear that this morning the postlady appeared on my doorstep with an envelope from the publisher with two copies of the magazine in it. So now I'm happy again!

So, just how stupid can I get?

The answer seems to be:

very stupid indeed.

This morning I made a special trip out in the wild, wet, windy, wintry weather we are "enjoying" here in the UK this August, to buy a copy of the magazine where my pattern has been published. I came home clutching said magazine, made myself a cup of coffee, sat down with the magazine and the coffee, and realised.....

I had bought the wrong one.

Not bad really, since there are only 2 P&Q magazines published here!

A well-deserved rest.........

.....after all the excitements and exertions of the past week, I think we all deserve a rest, so, ever mindful of the fact that this blog is called "Quilt" Times, I thought I'd give you a chance to see some more of my quilts.

This was made in 2004 for my sister, who loves my quilts. Blue and yellow were her favourite colours at the time. Because she uses them all the time, she actually reckons that she wears them out (!) and therefore needs a constant supply of new ones. She's not daft is she?









This was made in 2004 (I think) for Mr and Mrs Teacher. It is cotton fabrics on top, backed by a gorgeous soft brushed fabric. Very snuggly. The design was my own, and it is hand quilted.







I think I made this for myself in 2002. It is another of my own designs and it is made entirely with brushed cotton. I think it was also my first attempt at machine quilting. Nothing adventurous, just straight lines, but it did tell me that I do not like machine quilting!








I adapted this from a commercial pattern because I wanted to try using fusible bias tape. It is a centrepiece for a table which I called Going Round in Circles. It was made in 2004.







I liked the pattern, so then I made this one in Christmas fabrics. Showing great originality, I called this Going Round in Christmas Circles!







I was in Christmas mode by now, so then I made these placemats. The design was my own, and they are all the same, and all made from a collection of 6 or 8 christmas fabrics. All I did was to make one with 3 fabrics, and then make another with the same 3 fabrics in different places. The "reversed" mat can be seen underneath the original. The 2 mats at the left were made for The Professor and Chatterbox with children's fabrics. This year I'll need to make another one so that Little Person has one too.




Luckily I finished all of these by mid-December, because by the 18th I was in hospital having my gall-bladder out! I vowed then never to leave my Christmas quilting till the last minute, but guess what? I still do.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing these quilts, because I've got loads more for you to look at in the future.

Well, guess who won?

.....and it wasn't the dealer!

When I didn't hear from them by lunch time, I rang to tell them to forget it, but the salesman was with a customer, so I left a message to call me. Then I sat and waited. (sounding familiar?) 2 hours later, he hadn't called, so I left another message. I was pretty cross by then. Oh, OK, that's an understatement, I was VERY cross by then. I rang another branch of the same company and was told they had exactly what I wanted (you remember, a certain spec, that dealer 1 told me the company hadn't got, and if I ordered it, delivery would be December, at the earliest?) So guess where I went this morning? An hour after arriving, I had bought the car I wanted (oh yes, and I even had a choice of colours), for the price I wanted, paid the deposit and was on my way home again. I felt that I had been treated like an adult this time, there was no posturing. The salesman came up with figures, I said no and told him what I wanted, he checked with his manager, and said OK. Simple! So by this time next week, I should have a new car. Whooppee. Guess which garage I'll go to in the future?

See? Told you I would not be beaten!

PS Tomorrow I'll post photos of more quilts, just in case you're thinking I might have forgotten what this blog is supposed to be about.

How to Waste Time......

........ as I promised yesterday, here is a lesson about how to waste half a day!

Go to a garage and try to buy a new car.

I don't need a new car. Mine is less than 2 years old, with a mileage of 5500. BUT I wanted a new car. Actually I wanted this particular new car;

I already have a Honda Civic hybrid, and this is the Insight hybrid. I had A figure in my mind, as the maximum I would pay so, yesterday morning, off I went to the Honda dealer. Luckily, I had put dinner in the Slow Cooker before I went.

When I got there, they had 2 available. One was a very top of the range demonstrator, and the other was a brand new almost bottom of the range one. I wanted the model that was one step down from the top. So now begins the pantomime.

Salesman pops up and finds out what I was looking for. He knew my current car - well he should, he sold it to me 18 months ago! But, we still have to go through it. I tell him what I'm looking for. He shows me what he has. I don't listen - I know what I'm looking for. In the end, I know that really either of the cars he had might be OK, so I ask him for a PX valuation. That's when it really starts. Up till now we've just been playing. He goes off to look at my car. I sit in showroom and wait. He comes back and returns keys and goes off to work out figures. I sit and wait. He comes back with figures, having added in all sorts of things I didn't want, like extended warranty, internal and external "scotchguarding", etc. I don't like the figures. He goes off to talk to his manager. I sit and wait. He comes back with his manager and slightly revised figures. I don't like them. Manager and salesman go off to try and do better. You know what I'm doing. They come back. I still don't like their numbers. I tell Manager in words of one syllable exactly what I am prepared to pay, and that if we can't get to that I'm walking. Manager goes off to phone his area manager. I.. well I'm still sitting. He comes back, having got close to my figure, but still not there, so I walked. That all took three and a half hours.

Why, I ask, can't we cut out almost all of the silliness, they tell me their "well-it's-worth-a-try-someone-might-go-for-it" price, I say no, they tell me their real price and that's it. It makes me so mad.

I think the garage were surprised when I left without buying! Ha, don't mess with me! This afternoon I had a phone call from the salesman to see if I'd changed my mind. I told him I hadn't, especially as neither of their cars were actually the model I really wanted. He's going to talk to his manager tomorrow and see if they can find anything else within their group. I told him which of their group did have what I wanted and suggested they follow that up.

I WILL NOT BE BEATEN BY A CAR SALESMAN!

Choo, choo...........

.....well, I left you reading the menu for breakfast, so here I am to tell you lots more about the day.
Here's Mr Fence sitting at the station, waiting for the train and probably dreaming about breakfast.

Here comes the train, hurrah.

Only kidding. This was at Carlisle station, isn't it cute?

This is a look at our carriage as we walked in, and a picture of breakfast (well some of it anyway)

Off we went and were happily eating our way through some great scenery in Yorkshire on our way to Carlisle. Unfortunately, there was a problem. They must have been giving us all too much tea and coffee, because we stopped as the engine had run out of water. We were only about 5 miles from our scheduled stop to take on water, but there was no way we would get there. There were lots of groans when we were told we might have to be pulled the rest of the way by diesel. But, no, the fire brigade came to our rescue. They came out with sirens and blue lights, and. most importantly a hose and a pump.

Our driver had very cleverly stopped on a bridge over the river, so the firemen ran their hose from the water to our engine and got enough water in to get us to the proper water stop. We were delayed for about an hour and a half, but why would we mind? We were comfortable, and we had plenty of food and coffee or tea on board, and some beautiful scenery to look at.

Then we were on our way again, and it must be lunch time by now? Lunch was a Ploughmans which was tasty and not too heavy.

The scenery was beautiful, but it's impossible to get decent photos through the window of a train, so you'll just have to take my word for it I'm afraid.

When we arrived in Carlisle, we didn't have much time, and so went for a short walk. I must say I was less than impressed with what I saw of Carlisle!

After an hour it was time to get back on the train. I managed to get a photo of the chef in the tiny area where he worked to produce this superb food for us.
Now we're off on the homeward journey with more stunning views out of the windows and a fabulous dinner to look forward to. We saw loads of sheep and cows on both journeys, and on the way home we had a good view of a herd of deer and loads of flocks of geese.

This was the main course for dinner:
as well as the chicken, the starter was crabcake with a chilli sauce, pudding was sticky toffee pudding with caramel sauce and this was followed (if you had room) by cheese, biscuits, grapes, coffee and chocolate!

Now I'm on a diet - well I'm not actually, but I jolly well should be!

And this is the engine that took us on this great journey:
Tomorrow I'll tell you how I wasted half a day at a Honda dealership!

To everyone who is waiting to hear about my trip....

..... I apologise for the delay in posting. Life has just got in the way for the last couple of days, but I hope to post tomorrow.

Just to whet your appetite: breakfast was Bucks Fizz, choice of porridge, cereal, melon or muesli. Followed by either kippers or a plate of cholestrol (!), toast, tea or coffee.

We still had lunch and dinner to eat.............

All Aboard!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow is our steam powered train trip to Carlisle. Does anyone know of any quilt shops there? (One track mind? Me? No.) I think we will have about 3 hours there so I am wondering what else there is to do that won't involve Mr Fence in too much walking. Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

It's F R E E!

Who wants a free digital subscription for 6 months to Down Under Quilts?

I can't see any catch in it, and I've just signed up for it. The link, for anyone who is interested is http://www.creativelivingmedia.com.au/info/digital. I'm off now to read my first copy.

Yippee, and a question for you all..............

I've just heard from the Editor of Popular Patchwork that Leaves Around the Cabins has made it into the September issue, which will be available at Festival of Quilts from next Thursday.

Being a bit of a big-head, I LOVE seeing my work in a magazine like this!


Now for a question: next month my daughter, Mrs Nomad, is having a significant birthday, and no, I'm not telling you how old, cos it makes me feel ancient. She has decided to have a 1980's themed party (leg-warmers rule OK?) and wants 80's food with it. She doesn't want anything with chicken or prawns in case we poison the guests and so far we've come up with vol-au-vents (but don't know what to put in them, cubed cheese and pineapple on sticks stuck into foil-covered grapefruit halves, cocktail sausages, also on sticks, garlic bread and Black Forest gateau. Can anyone else think of anything else that's appropriate?

Cinnamon Snickerdoodles.

It seems there is some sort of a problem with the last 2 posts, so I have deleted them both and will re-post the recipe again here.

Ingredients:
300 gm or 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
450 gm or 2 cups brown sugar, packed
225 gm or 1 cup softened butter
2 eggs at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla

For the topping:
2 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon (not sugar, as I originally wrote, sorry all, and thanks Ms QuiltingProlifically for spotting it) mixed together

Optional:
500 gm or 2 1/3 cups cinnamon chips. (Note: I did not add these as I don't think we can get them in the UK. The recipe did not seem to suffer from the lack of them.)

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C or 350F and lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan. (Note: don't use a very shallow pan as the mixture will rise during cooking.)
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar then beat in the eggs (one at a time) and vanilla until smooth.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon, add it slowly mixing until well blended.
Stir in the cinnamon chips if using.
Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan and evenly sprinkle over the sugar and cinnamon topping over the batter.
Bake for 25 mins or until the surface springs back when gently pressed. The mixture will rise during cooking. Stay around to enjoy the wonderful smell!
Cool slightly. While still warm, cut into squares and remember to reserve one for me.

These are delicious served warm or cold, with or without cream!

Did you miss me?

Well, I'm back now. I haven't actually been away, just busy with visiting family. Mr and Mrs Teacher and Little Person arrived on Monday afternoon, so we didn't really do much. We made up for it the rest of the week though.

On Tuesday we made some cakes. I had found a recipe online for Cinammon Snickerdoodles (love the name) so we tried them.

Little Person enjoyed the mixing,


but oh dear, look what happened when Mummy and Grandma both turned their backs at the same time. You'd think we'd know better, wouldn't you?





When he saw the finished result he was convinced it was chocolate cake, and couldn't get enough of it. Mind you, we all loved it. They were sort of like a cinammon brownie, and were wonderful.

On Tuesday we went to a place nearby called York Maze. which is a great place to take 3 energetic boys. There is a large maze planted from, would you believe, maize, and I think they do a different design every year. It had been raining (yes, again) overnight, so it was very muddy. We took the other 2 grandsons with us, and all enjoyed ourselves. We were all rather muddy when we got home though!






This is a picture of the boys at lunch time.








Blogger is obviously getting bored with me and my pictures now though, so I will leave the next part until tomorrow, when you can see us at Diggerland.

Here's a question for you..........

............can anyone explain to me why the state of Kansas in the US is pronounced can-sass, but Arkansas is pronounced R-can-saw?

Amazing the things that float through my mind when I'm not busy isn't it?

Visitors

Woohoo!!

Today, Little Person is bringing his Mummy and Daddy, Mr and Mrs Teacher up to see us. I think they are staying until Friday so we'll have to find lots of things to do. I hope the weather is OK as I've already thought of several things, but they all involve being outside, so please, would everybody STOP doing their raindances until next weekend? Thank you very much.

OK, so who's an idiot then?

The answer has to be ME!!

Why?

I have done something so stupid it is almost beyond belief.

"What have you done?" I hear you all cry.

Well, I'll tell you.

It all started earlier today when I was downloading a zip file which contain ed several different files (some text files and some diagrams). Somehow I have changed a setting so whereas before I would automatically save anything as it downloaded, then go back, double click and the zip file opened so I could extract everything, now when I try and open the folder the computer (which obviously thinks it knows better than me) is trying to open in Adobe and says it can't do it which is fair enough. So then I try to change the default program it uses to open my files and it's all gone horribly wrong. I have wasted almost all day trying to sort it, so nothing constructive has been done and I am not happy.