rubykittyruby

Sunday has rolled around again.  A sunny June day, bees buzzing like crazy around the purple flowering sage in the front garden, popping in and out of foxglove bells, intent on finding food and paying me no attention.  I caught up on The Archers omnibus this morning - I was distinctly underwhelmed by the storyline about Jim's missing glasses.  Yup, he'd lost his specs, hold the front page! - then a mooch down to the allotment to admire the rapidly ripening strawberries.   The afternoon was fairly aimless, a botched attempt at making a bag, I hadn't thought it through properly, and another chapter of the Alice Hoffman book.  This evening will be sewing and telly, and I probably won't shift far off the sofa.  If you're wondering about the photo above, I was browsing on Instagram and came across a post from amandanadigart.  She'd cut out squares of plain fabric, then sewn on two randomly shaped scraps.  As she wrote:   ' Stitch a shape...

  Having finished my '31 days in May' fabric challenge, I was pondering on what to do next in order to keep my mind ticking over.  Then I recalled this book, Clemency Burton Hill's 'Year of Wonder'.  I bought it ages ago, and every late December I pull it off the bookshelf and decide to include it as part of my New Year resolutions.  Cue failure.  Don't most resolutions peter out way before the end of that long, dark, dreary month?  All grey skies and freezing cold, no cash after Christmas and expanding waistlines from too many festive treats.  New Year resolutions disappear, along with the last of the wrapping paper and boxes of chocolates.   If you've not come across 'Year of Wonder' it's an introduction to the mysterious world of classical music, and the author picks a short piece to listen to each day of the year, along with a few paragraphs or a page of explanation/introduction/history of the composer.  The music's easily accessible...

  I've just completed the last fabric postcard as part of my challenge to produce one per day for the 31 days of May.  Today's effort was based on the zero waste idea of using up every tiny scrap.  Even these little shavings from where I've levelled up edges of scrappy blocks with a rotary cutter and ruler.  Before I show you the finished textile piece, I thought I'd do a final here-they-all-are blog post.  So you can see the progression throughout the month.  Right, here we go.  1st May, the Klimt one. The sea and sky one. The tomato red and mint green one. The one with Neapolitan ice cream colours. The one recalling Janey Forgan's 'Liberty Jack' quilt. The one with the black velvet line The vaguely dissatisfying one.  A.k.a. the 'meh!' one. The one that reminds me I intend to make a winter quilt.   The one with curves. The one with a pear. The one with little pockets for feathers and seed-heads and Mother Nature's treasures. The one wh...

Every time I walk outside and nose around the garden something new's come into flower.  This - iris? - is a beauty.  Sadly, there aren't too many alliums, but maybe more will pop up in early June.   This poppy's not shy and retiring, is she?  The sage is flowering too.  (Sorry, not the greatest photo, is it?) Here are some chives with their purple poms poms!  And these blooms are pretty in pink.   This is a cistus, the plant bought a year or two ago from Wilko, I think. It's been growing happily, but this is the first time it's flowered.   For part of my Bank Holiday Monday I made yet one more of my fabric postcards.  I hadn't a clue what to make, and was staring blankly at the scraps bin when I had the idea.  The scraps bin is where the teeny, tiny bits of material and lengths of tangled thread end up, before they get re-purposed as cushion filling.  I grabbed a handful of straggly bits and a glue stick, plus my 6 x ...