I know I mentioned it last summer but in Frankfurt on the weekend I was once again amazed by the absolute enthusiasm Germans or at least Franfurters have for Brown Suits. Men are by far the worst offenders but the girls aren't left out by any means.
Brown suits are carefully matched with Brown toned Ties and Brown Shoes. Variations on the them include Beige and Yellow.
My question is WHY?
Brown Suit Exhibit A
Anyway back to the shopping story. I had quite an exciting find. I popped into the Oxfam store (looking for jumpers to shrink) and was amazed to find an extensive display of vintage embroidered linen. It was in all perfect condition and beautifully laundered and starched. A gorgeous hand embroidered tablecloth for the price of a sandwich!! I couln't decide between the pieces so ended up with most of them.
When I asked the lady at the counter about where they were from, she said that one of the lady's that sorts the linen puts aside some of the better pieces she comes across throughout the year. Then once a year she launders them all and puts them all out on display. And that one day was the day I was there! How lucky. She said that word had got out and when they opened that morning there was a queue at the door. i can only imagine what they had at the beginning of the day.
here are some pictures - not the best lighting i'm afraid.
But in the meantime here is my first attempt at knitting since I made a scarf when I was about 8.
I have been eyeing off the beautiful wools and books at John Lewis on my way through to the sewing section and last week I couldn't resist any more. How can you resist wool called "baby cashmerino"? Well I'm sure many could...but not me.
I was attracted to this Debbie Bliss book with its lovely pictures, chubby babies and the promise of simple beginner patterns.
But I am tending to agree with the comments at Craftapalooza about the Debbie Bliss patterns. I can't say with much authority as this is the first pattern I've followed but the instructions just did not seem to match up with the picture. They were clear enough (cast on, moss stitch a row and then moss stitch 5 more rows) but when followed i got the "front" of the cast on row at the back. Huh?! It didn't match the picture either. And Mum agreed and she's a knitting guru.
Oh well. I'm enjoying the knitting and finished the back over the weekend. Now for the challenge of buttonholes.
I drove down (across?) to Wales with Mum and Dad on Friday. The hottest day London has seen this century (or something like that – bloody hot anyway…and no aircon in the car). Needless to say tempers were slightly frayed after the 5 hour car trip (only took 3 to get back –bank holiday traffic for ya). But once we arrived at the Corner Cottage in a lovely corner of the Wye Valley we were soothed by the green country visas. We went for a walk starting in the field behind the cottage in the lovely evening light. Yay for long summer evenings!
We walked through a field of cows who barely registered our presence, an empty field except for the bobbing tails of dozens of rabbits that quickly disappeared down their burrows as we approached and a field of very friendly horses gently nudging us for snacks.
There was a big hoo-ha about “rambling” last year prompted by Madonna complaining about plebs traipsing across her paddocks. I think people are basically allowed to ramble in the countryside where ever they want to and the laws have recently been widened. In any case we didn’t see another person on our little stroll through fields and over stiles.
On Saturday we drove to the village of Hay-on-Wye. It is a small untouched village of streets winding around the castle and filled with bookstores – 39 of them. It was packed with people as the Hay book festival is on at the moment. Mum found a really old book on Leather making in the Bermondsey area of London. An odd purchase perhaps, but is related to her family history research – one of the family convicts was a leather maker from the area (before he found himself transported to the colonies for the term of his natural life!). Mum just asked at one of the stores on a whim if they had anything and the shop assistant had a bit of a think then went off and found a book about 40 years old on the exact topic!!
I’ll tell you about my exciting find tomorrow.
I finished this about midnight last night! As I'm into both quilting and month of softies at the moment I took the chance to combine the two.
This quilt is inspired by the beatiful Kath Kidston floral fabrics. The design represents flower beds with a colourful garden path in between.
For month of softies "May Flowers" theme. Here are more pictures of the detail.
For the design I used a simplified adaptation of this BeBeBold quilt. Its kind of a stretched version of the traditional fence post pattern.
The quilting is very simple - I was thinking of doing some hand quilting around edge of some of the flower and bubble shapes but I'm not sure if its a good idea to have both machine and hand quilting together. Any comments?
Things have been busy lately (or perhaps less quiet) with a little flurry of visitors. David arrived from Perth last week and has been staying on and off. He wins the perfect houseguest award by buying groceries, cooking divine dinners while actually staying with other people most of the time!
On Saturday K&P and I went out to Heathrow to pick up the folks. It was very exciting to see them again (it was only since Christmas for me, but a year and a half for K&P). They had a good flight (as good as 24 hours on a jet can be) and gave Malaysian Airways the thumbs up.
And I have been exhausted since as they have been in incredible form! My visions of relaxing on Sunday were dashed immediately – we were out the door by 10 and off to the Tate Modern (my favourite London gallery of the ones I’ve seen i.e. about three), lunch at a pub at Southbank with views of the city across the river and then some shopping at Covent Garden. Jetlag. What’s that?!!. Then this week they have been leaving the house with me in the morning and sightseeing all day. That pre trip fitness campaign was a little too effective I think. I’m getting a bit worried what energetic activities we’ll be doing for the upcoming long weekend in Wales.
The parcel from my secret buddy arrived yesterday. Some bright happy fabric and lovely embellishments to work with. Now I have to get to designing!
This is a bit of a belated update on last weekend. The batchelorette flat stood up to round one of the visitors well. Everyone arrived on Friday night and after several rounds of bedtime stories the kids finally went to sleep in their new sleeping bags. And after several rounds of vodkas the grown ups went to sleep on their air mattresses.
For the big excursion on Saturday, Georgia wanted to see where the queen lived and Sam wanted to make sure Big Ben was still in one piece after it was destroyed on a recent episode of Doctor Who.
After an exciting train and tube ride and TWO stops for drinks and snacks we made it to Buckingham Palace. Sam’s assessment: "Its boring! Can we go home now?". Me: "No!". We piled into a black London Taxi (good) swung by Big Ben (no comment), had pizza for lunch (consumed with gusto) and finally made it to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The flying car was a big hit and Sam only asked twice during the performance if we could go home now.
Happy Birthday Robbo!
The beginnings of my May flowers creation....
I spent a cosy evening in my kitchen studio last night finishing the top of the houses (miniature)quilt. It now has a colourful stripy border which makes it slightly bigger. It’s now about 60cm x 70 cm. I used the paper piecing method that Amy showed on her Quilt Monday this week. This was the first time I had used it and could probably refine the method a bit eg ripping off the backing before sewing the blocks together perhaps. I’m not sure if I will be in a huge hurry to do this style again as its quite fiddly – although I have to admit the results are good and can be used for some interesting patterns.
Now I need to get hold of some batting and choose a backing (am thinking the sky blue fabric) and then do the quilting. If anyone has any suggestions for quilting design please let me know – I’m a total novice in this area.
Sunday was a lovely day and Tim and I went on an excursion to South Kensington. We quickly bypassed the cultural and education museums and headed for the aesthetic delights of the Conran Shop. Sir Terrance is famous around these parts for his design and restaurant empire. The flagship store on Fulham Road is next to the restaurant Bibendum, housed in the old Michelin factory. The place is too fab to describe – the pictures speak for themselves!
After drooling over gorgeous furniture, cushions, throws and too many other things to mention we wandered up to Hyde Park in search of Diana’s memorial. We knew it was somewhere near the Serpentine, but being in the ground rather than above it made it a bit tricky to find. We walked along one side of the lake – no sign of memorial. We turned back and walked around the other way. I was getting more tired and more in need of the loo. Tim was getting more determined to find it. We walked right around the lake the other direction, finally finding it just past the point where we had turned back the first time. It was closed for renovations.
One of the many fab pieces of furniture in Conran.
Yesterday after work I decided to explore the huge Crystal Palace Park which is about 10 minutes walk from home. It will definitely be a good place to run in the evenings although it has a bit of a deserted air about it.
As I found out from Phil on the weekend it is named after the massive glass and steel structure that was reconstructed there in 1854 after the Industrial Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park. According to a reliable source (BBC website) 293,655 panes of glass were used in the building, 4,500 tons of iron, and 600,000 cubic ft of timber. It must have been an impressive sight to see.
Unfortunately it was destroyed by fire in 1936 and about all you can see at the site now are some rather forlorn, graffiti-ed Egyptian sphinxes. There is also a museum and Dinosaur park which I am yet to check out.
This is the main reason for my excitement about my new flat – the lovely view from the kitchen window.
Moving in on Friday and Saturday went smoothly – we picked up a rental car on Friday and packed it to the roof with my stuff. On Saturday we went out and had a spree at Argos with the car again groaning under the weight of everything from ironing board to the telly. Steve and I spent the afternoon in Flat Pack City as Kirst put it, constructing lamps and wardrobes. So after a weekend of work the sticks in the nest are pretty much in place.
Being an old house I’ve been discovering a few 'interesting' quirks such as my bedroom window having inbuilt ‘air-conditioning’ (no latch and a inch gap at the top!). And in the other bedroom theh windows have been painted closed! Hopefully I’ll be able to sort it out with the landlord this week as its still pretty chilly at night here.
In the meantime I’ll enjoy the views and the nice ambience. And layer up.
Steve and I are that childless couple that go to other people’s houses, stir up their children to distraction then leave as soon as they start to cry! I’m sure their parents love it!
We had a lovely lunch with J&J and the kids on Sunday sitting in the brand new conservatory. We played rasberries (Sam was the best at making disgusting noises by far), colouring in, and of course the all time favourite tick tock. I’m not sure who had more fun playing – the kids or us.
See some more pics from the weekend here.
I wasn’t intending to participate on the basis of not having done any training. But the rest of the crew weren’t having a bar of me skiving off to bed while they ran on the basis that I had organised the whole thing. Which I’m not sure is true but am easily convinced.
I ended up running the first 10k then having a nice (power) walk through Berlin with Smithy for the last half. It was a gorgeous sunny day so there could have been worse things. But just quietly I think there may have been better things (like a lie in and leisurely breakfast for example).
Everyone did really well and reached their goals – Sally 1:39 (wow), Krissy and Ole at 2:10 convincingly within their target time and Jo, Nat, Steve and I finishing before the road opened. Well my goal was to get out of it altogether, but never mind. The big bowl of pasta and red wine afterwards tasted divine.
I only found out the night before we were leaving that the Lisbon hotel I booked wasn’t actually in Lisbon but 30 minutes away by train. But it turned out to be a good mistake. The hotel website said it was “5 minutes walk from the town centre”. I had assumed Lisbon town centre – but the Cascais town centre – a gorgeous beachside town outside Lisbon was lovely. Our Farol Design Hotel was so nice we only managed to leave for a couple of sightseeing missions to Sintra and Lisbon and out for one dinner. The hotel restaurant is highly recommended. Chef Gerhard’s food was divine and waiter Paulo’s service super friendly. Not to mention the amazing ocean views.
We went to the World Heritage listed nearby town of Sintra, and visited the amazing Castelo dos Mouros (Moorish Castle) with walls reminiscent of the Great Wall of China and the even more amazing palace, Palácio da Pena. It was quite a wait to get into the Palace and I think that the outside was more spectacular than inside – the carving of the Monster with fish feet (mermaid legs?!) was something else.
Wandering around the town later we settled on a little café for lunch and found ourselves sitting opposite Kyan from Queer Eye (grooming). Jo and Steve had to forcibly restrain me from asking for an autograph but at least I did catch a smile when I got busted staring at one point. I can only gather that Queer Eye hasn’t taken off in Portugal yet. That, or the Portuguese are much more polite as no one else was taking any notice.
The next day we took the train into Lisbon. After losing ourselves in the windy cobblestone streets of the old town we climbed up to the impressive Castelo de Sao Jorge for amazing views over Lisbon. But we couldn’t stay away from Cascais for long and headed back for some more of Chef Gerhard’s seafood delicacies.
As predicted I couldn’t resist ordering a couple more greens from the very efficient and helpful Tabbycat. And of course in order to avoid the £2 postage charge I thought I’d better order a couple of other pieces as well. So I SAVED money really.
And look – aren’t they fab? The greens are perfect, the checks always useful and my favourite – the green spots is just gorgeous.
Am very glad I did go for the other greens – much better and I made most of the trees last night – just have a couple to go and then put it all together into one leafy suburb.
Smithy took me to the rugby on the weekend for the best of North and South Tsunami game. It was freezing cold but nice and sunny. And slaughtering the Norths, despite the support from guy in front of us yelling out "Come on the Norths!" every two minutes at the top of his lungs, was good. Actually don't tell Smithy but I got a bit bored in the second half when there was no tension about who would win. My favourite bit was Umunga's first try.
The last few days I've been running around the city, sweating like crazy and LOVING it!! After leaving Frankfurt in a flurry of the first snow arriving here to the hottest day of the summer (so far) at 37 degrees felt pretty warm.
My flight was fairly uneventful if tediously long. Packed flights meant close proximity to fellow flyers. Singapore to Brissie I was sat next to a friendly girl from South Africa now living in London. As we started the descent I noticed her filling out the immigration form and inadvertently (kind of) noticed she had written "film director" for occupation. Sounded pretty cool. But that turned out to be her husband's because when she did her's next of course I was having a not so inadvertent sticky. She filled hers in with "model" as the occupation. That was just over the top. Nauseatingly cool. And did you know they don't even put spew bags behind the seats any more? When she had told me earlier they were "freelancers" I was imagining something as glamorous as English teaching to a bunch of bankers. I was sooooooo wrong.
Anyways when Suze met me at the airport with a beautiful bunch of flowers and whisked me straight up the coast to "The Resort" (aka Mum and Dad's) I felt like a superstar myself. Well a sleep deprived jetlagged superstar sans the big sunnies and Louis Vuitton luggage. Such a good feeling to be home for a few weeks of sun surf and being spoilt. And there's nothing like a juicy Bowen mango on a hot day.
Some recent random piccies…..
