Fruitless Labours

Well, we all have days when however hard we struggle with something, it's all a bit pointless in the end.  It can be so frustrating and demoralising.  How many times have I tried and tried to make something, and finally given up, or at least put it away to rethink it at a later date.

Today fruitless labour took on a new meaning for me.

Milly has spent most of the afternoon racing around the troughs picking up great chunks of diamonds.

She made a little pile of them, and then carefully selected only the very best to bury very carefully in deep holes in the vegetable patch.

She will no doubt hunt them out in few weeks' time, just to admire them and then rebury them.

She has no idea of the fruitlessness of this occupation.

Her treasures are chunks of ice I've dug out of the trough.  Here's the little pile of rejects she's left on the lawn.

Poor Milly - all that work, and nothing at all to show for it.

A Bit of Tree Hugging

Well, not really, at least not intentionally.  Tree planting is really what's been going on.  Just after Christmas Jonathan and I took a detour on the way back from Hungerford to Wessex Woodland Management and bought some trees - only nine, not a whole wood.  Yesterday the 10foot trees arrived and Jonathan and George started planting them.  To begin with it involved a lot of this:

and this:

But eventually two Field Maples and three Hornbeams were planted.  The three Limes and remaining Maple will go in the paddock out the back to give the sheep some welcome shade in summer.  The bark of the Maples was really strange

Anyway, because we woke up to such a cold (-6), frosty and sunny morning, Reuben, Milly and I walked down to take a look at their handiwork

Looked very good.  When we told some of the caravanners that we were putting some trees in, they were concerned that it would shield the view, but it won't.  It will just make more of a boundary between the field and the site.

There are already trees on the other side.

On our way back we had a look at the ice on the pond

and then I came home and took a quick picture of the quilt I finished yesterday.  It is from a panel of winter scenes called "Too Many Snowmen". It's been in the making for a few years so that's one more I can tick off the list now!

It's hanging over the radiator in the kitchen and I brightens things up a bit!

Just a Couple of Mistakes.....

Well, as usual, feeling under tremendous pressure to get the schedule out, I made a couple of mistakes.

Firstly, regarding Lynne's Scrappy Quilt day on Wednesday 19th April, the three methods you can choose from are machine piecing,

hand sewing,

and the third was English Paper Piecing, which is, of course really popular at the moment.  Not applique which is what I said - although that's very popular too.  And looking at the picture above, can you see the bottom star third from the right - clever bit of piecing there Lynne!

The second wasn't really a mistake, just that Helene hadn't sent me the pictures for her workshop on Saturday the 18th March.  Of course, once she saw the picture I'd put in, she sent me a better one over:

Well, how was I to know it was a selection of purses?!

Anyway, I think that's all that was wrong, so not so bad.....

Classes are already getting booked up - and a couple are nearly full, so don't leave booking until too late!

New Year, New Schedule

It's that time again, when I seem to spend hours working out the new schedule.  I had banked on having a snow day on Friday, and doing it then, but the heavy snowfall that was forecast was a bit disappointing (although Milly seemed to quite like snuffling around in it!).

So I had to go to work instead. 

I was also planning on working on my puzzle on the snow day (Gibsons had very kindly sent me a picture of the puzzle I have, and will be sending me the puzzle I should have) - I could picture myself sitting in front of the log burner, working on the puzzle after a few sled rides down the hill, but, sadly, it was not to be.

So, instead, whilst the rain is lashing down outside, I have spent the morning working out the schedule.

Lots of good things, besides Lynne's lovely Quilt workshops, including a great knitting workshop with Ros on Wednesday 5th April

a Blackberry crochet class with Helen on Wednesday 1st February

I really think it should be called Waffle crochet, it's so warm and snug,

a little zipped pouch with Helene on Saturday the 18th March

 

Felted soaps with Sandra on 22nd March (she didn't want to do it - said it was too mad but I like a bit of madness)

and some great ideas for using up scraps with Lynne

Oh yes - and a bit of Prim with me

I made this for the workshop.  Because Sandra isn't coming out every Tuesday morning, I wanted to encourage the ladies to make their own drinks.  Do you know what they said? - "Will it cost less than £4 a session now we make our own coffee?"

What a cheek!

Anyway, better get on with mailing out the schedule now, and then try not to take it too personally when all the "please take me off your mailing list" replies shoot into my inbox!

A Puzzling New Year!

So - I'm hoping this is not a sign of how 2017 is going to go.

As I do every year, this year I bought a new Christmas Puzzle - a picture called 'Sunset on Snowflake Lake' by Thomas Kincade - very seasonal.

I made a start on it and really struggled.  First of all I searched out the four corners  but they didn't really match the picture - I had expected two to be pink, one snowy and one dark green but three were green and one was blue.

As I started to put the two sides together one was very distinctly blue with bits of cloud, and the other looked like a muddy track.  I decided the picture on the box must have been cropped and persevered.

However, more and more it was looking nothing like a winter lake scene.

Inside the box was a little catalogue showing all the puzzles so, because, by now, I was really puzzled, I had a quick look through.

Unbelievably I believe my puzzle is 'Lovelight Cottage'!!

 

The wrong puzzle was in the box!!  How often does that happen?

So now I have to try and make this puzzle using the tiny, postage stamp size picture in the catalogue.  I'll be lucky if I finish it by Easter!!

Any way,

Happy New Year

and let's hope this is the worst of my struggles in 2017!