so of course.......

............the shop near me was closed !!!!! which was a bit annoying as they had a sign pasted to their door saying "we are at the arena" when their blog said that although they were at the arena the shop would still be open, hey ho, never mind i headed off into the wilds of rowlands gill to find the other shop, it's very nice up there, saw some gorgeous houses, lots of lovely daffodils and the woods were carpeted in some white flower, not snowdrops, something else. well anyway i finds my shop, the fat quarters and made my way into fabric heaven,it was jammed to the gills with tons of beautiful fabrics of all different patterns, threads, magazines, fabric dolls, bags etc etc but not only that there was a gorgeous window display, the shop was full of lush touches like an old fashioned silver cross dolls pram, vintage sewing machines, little cupboards and drawers that just drew you in and some lovely quilts up on the walls. i spent the first hour wondering around with my mouth, open in my element. there was a class going on and the ladies were very nice and chatty, the ladies working in the shop were lovely and never hurried me along, i ended up with two books and lots of gorgeous new fat quarters, now i just need to find somewhere to put it all LOL

i have made a start on my latest quilt which is a baby quilt for a girl at work, it's looking very nice even though i have only done 2 blocks at the minute, plan to do more tomorrow, see how it goes LOL

bad blogger

shitty week+early shifts=bad blogger :( sorry

to cheer myself up i have a weekend of fabric and photos planned, i've discovered 2 new fabric/quilting shops in the neighbourhood, one is near rowlands gill near the metro centr and the other is five minutes away from where i work :) so i'm planning on giving both of them a visit and if i have any money left i just might go to the pins and needles show at the arena in town, then if the weather behaves i'm off to look for things beginning with g to take photos of, thinking of gibside chapel as i've never been there:)

catching up

on the a-z photo challenge, i had fallen behind with it because the weather was so bad i had never had the chance to get out and photograph what i wanted so i decided that the week away would be for catching up on d, e and f :) not a lot for e i have to say so this one that covers all three letters will have to do LOL it's a dennis fire engine that we saw at the lakeland motor museum :)

i managed a few for d, including a duck LOL derwent water, daffodils and detail :)

then for f i managed a fish, flag and feathers and filigree which were on an old car coat displayed at the lakeland motor museum

quite happy now that i am caught up so now i need to get my thinking cap on for the next letter and pray that this lovely weather we have been having continues :)

home again home again

and a fab time was had by all :) the lodge was gorgeous, the nicest one we have ever stayed in with everything you could possibly need, it was really comfortable and warm and the view from the lounge/dining room/balcony was superb, on a clear day we could see right over the solway firth to dumfries and galloway :) plus there was the added pleasure of the hot tub to relax in every night :D:D:D the village was very quiet but had a lovely pub just down the road from the lodge that did the most lovely food and in HUGE portions for really good value for money :) and to top it all apart from one rainy day on the sunday it was gorgeous for the rest of the week, we have been on lovely boat trips, done some lovely walks, visited some lovely villages and towns and met some really great friendly people, think next year we might just be heading back especially if we can order the same weather LOL

here's a few of the 278 photo's i took LOL will have to whittle that down quite a bit LOL


this one was taken on the lady of the lake steamer on ullswater on thursday, it was actually a really lovely day just very cold on the lake when the boat shot off at top speed LOL

this one is of ambleside from the boat on windermere

this is castlerigg stone circle, it was a lovely evening and i had the place to myself, a real spiritual special place

some of the beautiful residents of windermere and sunset through the trees next to our lodge, in the summer the sun sets right in front of the lodge which i imagine will be completely stunning if this was anything to go by

playing again :)

thought this one was kind of cute and it will brighten up the place til easter at least :)

they got the mustard out !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

no i haven't gone mad, was flicking through the channels and came across my favourite buffy the vampire slayer episode, the one with all the singing in it, it's called once more with feeling and i have it on cd and used to know all the words so i'm quite happily singing along to the ones i remember LOL

grab a seat and a snack this is going to be a long one LOL

finally got round to unpacking my bags from the sarahs cards retreat last week (was having dinner this time last week LOL) and i also got round to taking lots of photo's so get yourself comfy cos here we go LOL

first up was actually my classrooms last class, a vintage distressed class by rachael elliott, so not me but it turned out gorgeous but then again what else is to be expected it's a rachael class LOL next is this lovely class by lianne mawer, it was to use lacy paper and has given me an idea of what to do with it so i can use up the hoards i have now :) it was using the dear lizzy papers by american crafts and is another gorgeous one (ok word of warning now, i'm gonna use gorgeous a lot LOL) this one is by claire wheatley and is using websters pages, i saw the kit and nearly passed out as this is so not me and i avoid websters pages like the plague but it turned out to be one of my favourite classes i just love it :) gorgeous innit ??? LOL this one was our first class of the retreat by vanessa, an old crop friend from a while ago, it was lovely to see her and this class was right up my street :) of course i never follow the class instructions to the letter but vanessa knows me from old and was quite happy to let me go off on a tangent LOL and it had some gorgeous papers to use with the loveliest bunting :)
this next one was by lou and is another stunner and one i would never have thought of doing, a see through lay out, how cool is that ? loved the papers on this one too and more gorgeous bunting :) don't ya just love a bit of bunting LOL this is the last class i've got to upload but these are probably my favourite papers of the entire retreat, gorgeous colours and cute owls, what more can a girl want LOL the class was by nat and we got to sew a cute little embellie :) the rest are the layouts i completed over the weekend, last year including classes i managed 17 so this year i wanted to better that and was dead chuffed to manage 18, mind you in november i'm not going for 19 that would just be silly LOL so there you go, all 18, hope you like and i haven't bored you to death by now LOL