Oxford part2 (overload of pictures!)

After we had coffee, DD gave us a tour at Malmaison. Check the Original cell they kept!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Original cell doors are kept. Note the dents in the iron doors, made by the prisoners. This is the inside of our room.

 To make matters worse: when a prisoner misbehaved, they were locked up in a punishment cell in the dark, for 24 hours. DD happily locked her dad in.

 Inside DH made this pic. If you look closely, you can see the image of a face on the wall. I have a better pic, but am unable to upload that one. I tried several times! Perhaps there IS a ghost ....

 

Second day we checked in and how welcome we were!

 

 Fancy smelling toilettries :)

 It is easy to believe in ghosts at night. ....

Some random pics of Oxford............................................

 

More to come!

Malmaison Oxford

It's autumn break/holiday and I have to whole week off. DH had some free days and so did Quilting DD and her dear BF. What better thing to do than get in the car and drive to Oxford UK???
See for ourselves how baking DD is doing over there ánd see the Malmaison Hotel . Is it really as great as Baking DD tells us? Her hotel stories are always very enthousiastic...

We got of at a rocky start. On Friday, the day before we were supposed to leave, Expedia called and told us the hotel, we planned to stay the first night , was overbooked. Luckily Quilting DD managed to find something else.
Saturday we drove off very early to Calais to take the ferry to Dover. A bit of a rocky crossing but finally: the white Cliffs of Dover appeared.

 Notice that square blue miniature car? That's us :)

 

First we checked in, at the last minute motel en by bus (yep, a red double one)we drove to the city centre.

 

walked to the Malmaison, found DD and gave her a big imissedyou hug.

 

We were offered coffee/tea and Baking DD was told to go with us and "take your time" How nice!

Before returning to her duties, she showed us around. DH took pics and even captured a ghost on camera. Whooooo....More later!!

Summer's over..

I had planned to post more Birmingham pics, but after the holidays, life quickly passed that by.
Meanwhile, like I already said in the previous post, the house got empty when Baking DD moved out to do a 6 month internship at a posh hotel in Oxford, UK.

It's an old prison built somewhere between 1000 and 1100 (if I recall correctly) and according to DD it's amazing.
We app, we Skype, we call, but I truly miss her, since she was home most of the summerholidays.
But most important thing is, that she's doing fine!

Haven't quilted or sewn in weeks, I thought it time to start doing something. I had the intention of finishing those wallhangings that are laying around, made to try a technique/pattern or just because I felt like making it.
  One more is done, scrappy/dotty circles, inspired by Freddy Moran is quilted, bound and is even allready on my quiltroom wall as a last bright leftover from summer

 One more down, a few left to go...

Since today was my day off, I had time to do some (delayed) chores, like vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen, dust, and more nasty stuff. It's pouring outside and temps dropped consideratly; a sure sign the long summer is really over and autumn is at the doorstep.
Time to put up some autumn decor!

 

 

Lighting a cinnamon scented candle, enjoying what's left of the day....

Technology

A friend is on a trip and made a whatsapp group to keep others informed of her where-abouts and added me. Someone else is turning 50 soon and made a whatsapp group to keep everyone updated on the planning of the festivities. I.m part of that group.
Baking DD left the country last saturday for her internship in Oxford UK. She'll be gone for 6 months and made a whatsapp group to keep us informed. Group 3.
( and being in such a group means you get every message of every groupmember..)

Then there's Google play. Yes, I downloaded a game and presently I'm at level 97 which is undoable. Oh wait, just got extra time for this level. (because I suck and I need it or I'm doing great and I get a reward?? No ofcourse it is so I can waste one more minute of my life playing)

Ah, another friend found out I have a new Phone with whatsapp and decides to chitchat.
 Wait! I get a message that I need to update all my updates.

What's that bleep? Ah, my alarm will go off, 16 hours from now. (sooooo, 17 hours from now, I'm expected at work....)
 

I think I need a nap. Alone.

Festival quilts

I must say that last time Lotte and I went to Birmingham, there were more "wow" quilts than this year. We saw lots of art quilts that did not appeal to us, neither did the almost philosofical descriptions provided by the makers. I mean: "I studied menopause for over 2 years...." and then came up with a quilt in which a dozen empty anti-conception-pill boxes were sewed is NOT my cup of tea.
We even didn't make a pic of the "best of show" quilt: we just didn't like it although it was no doubt greatly sewn/appliqued. It was a circle with roses I think...
Some pics we did make in no special order

We have a thing for bright colours combined with white ánd traditional patterns as well as for "quilts you can sleep under".That being said; the quilt with the jeans/allstars/Union jack socks was beautifull!
More to show next post!

The Festival!

Back after 4 exhausting days in Birmingham....

Thursday I had to rise very early to go to the airport, where we (after some delay) boarded on a somewhat unusual (to me) plane. A Haviland

 On arrival we dropped our bags at the cloakroom and decided to get lunch first

 We had a mission on day one. I brought C's fav Kaffe Fasset book and promised her to get it signed by Kaffe himself.

 

He was happy to oblige and carefully wrote :"for Corrine" before adding his signature. Not that he had something better to do :)

 After that mission was completed, we went for the quilts and the stalls along with LOTS of other quilters

 Later in the afternoon, we called it a day, checked into the hotel

 freshened up and went to eat something at the local pub.

 Cheers!

 

Tomorrow....

Birmingham: here we come!

 

 

Can you tell I'm NOT a frequent flyer?

Summer

With long sunshiny and hot days, summerholidays went by faster than i wished for.
Too hot too quilt and some days too hot to do anything but sit in the garden with a book and a cold drink and trying to keep the blackbirds from the grapes. I really want to eat some myself this year!

 
There were other things to "entertain"myself. I took baking DD's Phone over. Omg, it's a SMARTphone. I came a long way from my old Nokia with which i could only make a call and send a textmessage to this HTC. It took me at least a week before I managed to answer an incoming call.Ofcourse, personalising the "new to me" Phone was a big deal: I did not only order one, but two cases. The left one is very appropriate for me struggling and polka dots just had to be!

 Quilting DD also had a summerproject in mind for the both of us. She insisted we had to sew clothing . I did sew shorts and dresses for the kids when they were little but haven't done anything like that for áges. Furthermore, DD wanted to sew with KNITS. Last time i tried was a downright disaster. But DD was persistend and said that, whatever the outcome, she'd wear it on the way home.
So I plunged into the world of jersey needles and twin ones and took a trip to the market with DD for knitfabric.  She had a pattern for a "30minute pencilskirt", but we had to modify, wrestle with the twin needle and ofcourse most of the afternoon went by by searching items, misplaced by ...yes, by me.
After DD left, I had this

and a skirt! It turned out quite easy to do and I intend to try more:)

Last but not least: Quilting DD and I will be hopping on a plane coming thursday to Birmingham!!!!
We're going to The Festival of Quilts for the second time. I'm só looking forward to that trip!

At last..

It took ages but finally there's something worthy to blog about. I finished a quilt. Whoohoo!!
What took me so long? Well, I've  been reading a TON of books, spent some saturdays at quilting DD''s new house (painting and helping with the big moving in) and i also was heavily involved on the annual ''war on weeds'' in my garden.
Falling down the stairs didn''t help either: I got black and blue and could hardly sit, let alone quilt.
But all that''s past and last saturday i put the last of the quilting stitches in

Yesterday the binding was on....

 I even attached a label, so I can really say that ''Patches 'n Pinwheels' is done!

Too bad it''s cloudy today and you can hardly see any quilting, but I know there''s a lot of stitches there:)