France

This was supposed to be a post on our trip to the Malvern Quilt show, but I seem to have lost all my pictures.  If  I stumble across them, I'll do a post then.  We had a great time though, saw lots of beautiful quilts and did a bit of shopping.  Obviously bling is in, lots of the winning quilts had crystals glued onto them, pretty and sparkly but not necessarily something I would want on my bed.....

We went by coach to Malvern;  it was the Swindon Town Football team's coach, which, funnily enough, with the same driver, picked us up from St Pancreas Station to bring us home from France!

So - our French adventure.  We went as part of the Hungerford Twinning association.  We have hosted members of the Bertrand family to help out over the past few years, so this year I decided we should have a long weekend over there.

We got up at 4.00am on Friday and left Hungerford at 5.  We then caught the train at St Pancreas and went all the way down to Tours.  A coach picked us up there and took us to Ligueil, which is Hungerford's twin town.

We spent the next few days eating our way through the Loire Valley.  Francoise, Daniel, Ofilie, Coco and Elodie were the perfect hosts, and made us feel so welcome.

Here are some pics

 

Visiting a goat farm



Working our way through a six course lunch

A beautiful old village

Jonathan with Daniel and Francoise in the square

Inaugurating the English Telephone Box Hungerford sent to Ligueil

Enjoying lunch on the terrace

Daniel entertaining us with his hurdy gurdy

On the last day we went to the beautiful Chateau de Chaumont-Sur - Loire and walked around the beautiful gardens where they have the International Garden festival.

 

 

There were loads of different gardens, with different themes.  The one above looked like a wild patch but the mirrors on the wall at the back revealed the beautiful secret garden planted behind.

 

 

This was obviously supposed to be a potting shed and one garden was devoted to the different plant dyes:

 

 

And of course we had a picnic:

 

After that we went to Reggis and Thereze's farm and saw their cows

 



 

and had something to eat

Their farm had been in the family for four generations and the stuff in the old barns was amazing

Everywhere we went we could hear the Cicadas and frogs:

 

 

What a brilliant time we had! 

Thank you very much Mr and Mrs Bertrand and the Hungerford Twinning Association!

Late Spring....

The year is whizzing by again and now it is definitely late spring; lambing is finished, the cattle are out in the fields, and Barney and Big Boy have had a trim ready for summer

 

Nice and cool!

Our 60 ewe lambs are due to be shorn at 7.30 tomorrow morning, so I'll be helping Jonathan get them down from the hill this afternoon.

My six lambs are now able to feed independently off the rack, so I only take ten minutes to feed them

 

AND they have taken a liking to their creep feed so I can look forward to weaning them.

Time to turn to the garden and we have started sorting things out.  I have cleared up the raspberry patch and Jonathan uncovered the path to the greenhouse which had been so neglected I'd forgotten we had one

(path that is, not greenhouse).

Things in there are slowly coming along; toms, cucumbers, courgettes, beans and flower seedlings.

And, most importantly, Sandra and I have drawn up our summer schedule! 

We start with a primitive stitchery on Wednesday, and of course the Medallion course is continuing.  On Saturday 13th June we have a bunting party - get a gang of six friends together and make personalised bunting,

  on Wednesday 17th June we have Helen C teaching crochet

 

Saturday 20th June Helene B will be doing a Foundation Piecing class  (not as tiny as her usual work so good for Beginners)

1st July we will be experimenting with Pentagons - which could be described as the new hexagons!  We'll be doing lots of 'fussy cutting' so, like a kaleidoscope, new patterns emerge

Lynne Johnson will be giving another class on the Yoko Saito Town Quilt on the 8th July and then on the 15th July Sandra will be making lovely big bears

and the next week we have a bit of Christmas in July when we have the Advent Elf day.

So, busy, busy, busy!

 

Di Ford Workshop

What a brilliant day we had yesterday when we were invited by the Little Coxwell Quilt Group to join them for a workshop with Di Ford.

Di is an Australian Quilter, teacher and author who is famous for her beautiful reproduction quilts using loads of needleturn applique, fussy cutting and Broderie Perse.  She has done mystery quilts for Quiltmania, and designed the Antique Sampler quilt Lynne teaches at our workshops.

And what an inspiring, down-to-earth and very, very clever lady she is!

We started making her 'Pendle Hill' quilt, which meant honing our needleturn skills under her excellent tuition.  She also introduced us to the latest quilting craze - pentagons!

At the end of the class she showed us some of her quilts

including an antique one she had bought in France last week

 And then finally the quilt group had a show and tell (mostly of Di Ford quilts)

 Celia Knight showed us this quilt she has made, a copy of an old quilt that is kept by a family who were happy to let it be reproduced, but don't let people see the original

 

They were all absolutely fantastic and rounded up a perfect day!

A Busy Day

What a busy, bubbly, high-spirited crowd we all were in the workshop today - hardly surprising when Lynne Johnson was taking the class.  The door was open wide to let in the sunshine and from outside we could hear the sounds of spring - lambs bleating, bird song - a perfect day!

Alice brought in the Butterfly quilt she made to show us

This picture really does not do it justice - I think the colours haven't come out because it was such a bright and sunny day - the quilt is actually all different, vibrant shades of purple - not greys and blacks which it looks like in the picture.

Ros and Alice showed us what they've done on their Medallion quilts:

 

 

We loved Alice's flower border - she's used bondweb

 

 

and then the ladies working on their Antique Samplers compared blocks

And then it was down to work for the rest of the morning.

After lunch, we returned to the workshop but Sue and Jenny were missing and even Lynne had disappeared........
                                              ...............Aha!

 

 

Thank you Ladies - made my job a bit easier!

Lambs and More Lambs

I can't believe it's only been a week since my last post - we've been so busy round here. 

There is only one cow left to calf now, which is good news, but sadly we lost one cow - she prolapsed before giving birth but had seemed fine after she had her calf.  She was eight years old so it was a great shame and of course her calf will have to survive by stealing milk from the other cows.

The lambs I am feeding are now penned up outside with a little hut made from a fertilizer drum that they can get into.  All the feeding is really exhausting. 

Then this afternoon the sheep were giving birth almost too quickly for Jonathan to bring them down (serves him right really because yesterday he was grumbling that nothing was happening).  Anyway, I went outside just now and saw this

Two more, who were only born today, have been added.  So, now I'm up to five - but at least three of them are used to the bottle now so it's just a matter of putting the holding on the hurdle and they'll feed themselves.

They were all very happy just now skipping around in their pen in the warm sunshine.