A Proud Mum

It's Mr T's birthday today and he loves Chocolate Cake. 

With Fathers day tomorrow and my little one a bit short of money she decided to make him a rich chocolate cake as his birthday present. He was over the moon and as you can see couldn't wait for me to take a photo.

So Happy Birthday my darling, no more jokes about toy boys we are back to being the same age.

For 6 weeks every year I get teased about being older than him. Men are funny things aren't they.

My little one is a life guard on the North Norfolk beaches with the RNLI and last night she went off to Snetterton race track where the RNLI were staging  a 10K run and guess what--

SHE WON!!!

So I have a new ornament in my lounge. She gets it from her Dad, I don't do running.

Mr T went fishing this afternoon so I did some experimenting  with with my sewing machine.  I even made the felt it's based on.

 I love it. 

I have also returned to something I used to do years ago when the children were small, cross stitch.

Just little things which only take an hour to do

Rather than what I did all those years ago.

This cornish village took me weeks.

It's been hanging in my house ever since.

I have decided not to do the swap now as you can see from the ones I have entered there is a lot about.  I'll try to think of something for another time.

Anyway have a great Father's day.

Gillxx

A Trip to Wells

That's Wells next the Sea. 

So welcome to Norfolk. Why not take the locals advice.

I'm here to meet my friend Karen from Tilly Rose for a bag of chips on Wells Quay and have a good old natter.

How about this for a view while you eat your lunch.

But of course we aren't alone

And this being Norfolk we think of everyone

But Sods law dictates that the first real rain we get for weeks

comes on the day we want to have a wander.

Never mind it was still a great day out and the rain held off until after our chips.

The day gave me an idea for a souvenir swap, the problem is I've never organised one before and I'm a bit nervous ,plus there's been a few recently so is it one too many.  I'm going to have a think about it.

 On that note I'll see you soon with my decision but I would love to hear your views.

Gillxx

Reply to comments.

I  love to read the comments that people leave to my small literary masterpieces (well a girl can dream) and would love to reply to them but the only way I know to do this is by going through each profile and sending an e-mail. I have done this on numerous occasions but it takes so long and I spend so long on the internet as it is. Does anyone know of an easier way?

Gillx

Plant of Week

From Drought torn Norfolk.

Pink Jasmine

With Clematis Bill Mackenzie

Fun Days

First a first a few things to catch up on.

To start a huge welcome hug to all my new followers. I seem to have gained about 10 in the last couple of weeks and I'm  thrilled to have over 80 now. Hope you continue to enjoy my little efforts at blogging.

A big thank you to MuMu and Squeaks Place for the Versatile blogger award which I actually got a couple of weeks ago  and haven't got around to telling you about it. I'm supposed to pass it on to 10 other blogs but I follow so many now and they are all great that I can't pick 10 sooooo- Congrats- you all get one.

Another thank you goes to Gill at the Vintage Gardener for clearing up my mystery plant for me, It's called  centaurea macrocephala and looks like this when it's in flower. What I saw was the seed head which unsurprisingly is used as a dried flower. Anyway thanks Gill.

And by no means least, Thank you to my Summer Swap partner Heather at The Patch work Heart for my swap goodies. I suppose you want to see what I got --

I was excited enough with the box before I'd even opened it.

Lots of prettily wrapped bits.

As you know, Patchwork is not one of my skills so to get not one but two pieces was fantastic.

Heather is a very clever lady.

The pink and yellow stack is chocolate and there were note cards as well as all these others pressies.

Fantastic, Thank you again Heather.

Now to tell you what I've been up to.

Well, we have some tickets for the Olympics which I'm hugely excited about. Not sure what we have got yet but I don't care. I'm a huge sports fan and It's another thing to tick on my  list of things to do. 
You know, learn to ski(tick),drive an open topped sports car(tick), go to the Olympic games(soon to be ticked).


Then on Sunday Mr T, Loopy Lou and I went to the vintage fair at Heydon which was  lovely .
We all came away with a little something and I would love to show you pictures but silly me forgot my camera and although I did take some on my phone, Well.  The phone was my birthday present and is one of these super duper HTC things that they are advertising at the moment and I haven't got a clue how to use it, so forget the photos.

Don't you just love having a day to yourself when you know that the only thing you have to do all day is walk the dogs.  That was me yesterday and I had a great time.  I felted until my arms ached with all the rolling when I sat down to watch tennis at Queens with my hand sewing and my crochet before cooking what I wanted for tea and watching what I wanted on the TV. Mostly American cop shows which I love , the new version of the above is one of my favourites at the moment.  Sorry I hope you didn't expect anything highbrow.


Today is hair  and tennis.


Tomorrow is coffee with friends in Holt before this weeks main event.

Thursday evening I'm going to the Theatre Royal in Norwich to see Marti Pellow.


I think poor Mr T feels a bit cheated, You see as a rule he doesn't do musicals but I just said " Do you fancy seeing Jekyll and Hyde at the theatre?"  "yes that sounds good" says he. So we book the tickets.  Then when they arrived he  said" you didn't tell me it's a musical" "Oh didn't I dear,  Too late to back out now"( smile sweetly).


Then a trip to the Pick 'n' mix fair  on Saturday in Holt where I believe Potter Jotter is going to be.


All in all a good week I think.
Hope yours is going to be a good.
 I'm going back to my crochet and tennis now. God I love being a lady of leisure.


Gillx

Felting course

Introduction to felting.

This was the course I booked several weeks ago while staying with my brother and  I've been really looking forward to it, if a little nervous of meeting loads of new people.  So my sister- in- law walked with me down the hill, over button bridge, past the cheese and grain to the round tower. Sounds great doesn't it,like something out of a childrens book.

The course was run by Glady's from Spiral Garden , you should check out her stuff, the most amazing glove puppets.

There was 7 of us and, like me,most of the others had tried a bit of felting before but needed some expert guidance.

We started with the obligatory  cup of coffee to break the ice. Then went  on to the history and theory of felting before starting with our first piece of felt.

A plain Pre-felt which means it has only been half felted and can be added to another piece before felting is completed like below.

This is my second piece with shapes cut out of the pre-felt ready to be rolled--lots.

After lunch we came back to find these 2 pieces of pre-felt which we had to bond together by laying more red wool on the back. By the time we had finished you couldn't see the join.

We were given a free hand on our final piece so I added lots of different types of fibres and fabric before felted them all in.  The idea was to do some embroidery later so that it looked like Alliums in the garden.

When I got home I did a bit of machine embroideries well as hand embroidery and I'm quite pleased with the result --for a novice. Next time I will put more thought into the actual shapes.

 

Here's everyones finished pieces.

It was amazing the variety we came up with between us.

I loved every minute but lord did I ache the next day with all the rolling of the felt.

Glady's recommended this book and it arrived yesterday.

So do you think this might be a bit ambitious at the moment. 

this is amazing although not necessarily to my taste.

and little one has already put in an order for a pair of these. She might have to wait a while.

Next month I'm doing a workshop in machine embroidery with Patch Fabrics in Lowestoft . I'm hoping that eventually I can have a go at  I can combining the two.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Gillxx

Plant of the week and a mystery.

I have got a bit behind with this so here are a couple of weeks worth of my beautiful peonies.

Now for the mystery. Do any of you wonderful gardeners out there know what this plant is. I saw it at Stourhead in the walled garden but couldn't find it's name. It really is gold and feels like paper but I can't find it in any of my books.

I'll tell you about my felting course tomorrow. 

Have a great day.

Gillxx