Woollen woods

Hello, how are you? It's a long bank holiday weekend here in the UK so there's the added bonus of an extra day off - yay! I've just been sat outside with my first cup of tea of the day, enjoying the warm sunshine. It's one of my favourite things to do in the spring and summer, soaking up the quiet and the birdsong in those moments before the hustle and bustle of the day begins.

Well, I was planning to give you a different post today as there's still lots to tell you about from my two weeks off. However, I was watching the local news last night and there was a report about the Woollen Woods exhibition at Rufford Old Hall which we went to see last Sunday. So, I'm going to show you photos from that instead.

The exhibition is in support of the Campaign for Wool and the woods have been decorated with felted, knitted and crocheted fairies, flora and fauna. The owl above was my favourite and I also love the hedgehog you'll see below - after seeing the news report, it turns out they were made by the same lady. It was a wonderful time to be in the woods anyway as they were full of bluebells and spring flowers.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as we did. If you'd like to see it yourself, the exhibition is on until 30 August and will be added to over the months. However, even if you're not planning to be in Lancashire, there are other Woollen Woods exhibitions taking place around the country - Cumbria, Nottinghamshire, Devon, Isle of Arran and County Antrim, Northern Ireland - the website has links to the locations and there are links to some free patterns for the Rufford event here. I'll show you more photos of Rufford Old Hall and the gardens another time.

It's been a crafty weekend here in the Home Jules household. I've been madly stitching to complete my April journal quilt in time to show it at my quilt group on Wednesday. We're also having a charity night and I'm demonstrating my mug hugs again - four times! - so I need to make up some samples.

Later, we're going out to a restaurant as it's Chickpea's birthday tomorrow! Speaking of whom, she's just appeared so it's time to put on the kettle and make another brew. Have a lovely day wherever you are. xx

Easter weekend

Well, the Easter weekend is almost over and I thought I'd share a few of the photos I've taken over the last couple of days, mostly of nature.

Where else to start but with eggs? Since Chickpea was small, I've hidden eggs around the house for her to find on Easter morning. Sometimes there was a treasure hunt with clues and sometimes just eggs to find. When I mentioned that there wouldn't be an egg hunt this year, her face fell. Well, what else could I do but hide some eggs and see her smile?

An egg of a different kind was uncovered while I was clearing winter debris in the back garden. This duck egg was nestled in a corner underneath a conifer hedge. Sadly, I think it had been abandoned.

And I think this one in the front garden has met a similar fate. The ducks have tried to rear young under this bush before but always end up abandoning them - I think it's just too noisy there and too handy for the local cats.

This white beauty more likely belongs to one of the Mute swans who have taken up temporary residence on the lake. At one point there were nine but one of the males is very territorial and has chased several away. He's pretty impressive to watch as he puffs himself up, hoists his wings in the air and stalks menacingly towards his rivals. They'll all be on their way soon though as they don't hang around for the summer.

This mallard will be hanging around though. It tickles me how they feed by sticking their bums in the air!

I don't know if ducks eat snails but I've been finding a lot of empty shells lately. The shells are actually quite beautiful when their occupants are not wreaking havoc on my plants.

It's the weather which is wreaking havoc at the moment but I did spot this cherry blossom defying the cold and bursting into flower.

And look at the splash of colour from this Lesser Celandine on a grassy bank nearby.

We had a couple of strolls over the weekend to enjoy the sunshine. Other activities included spring cleaning and car washing, crochet and quilting. We also went to the cinema to see 'The Host' which both of us enjoyed.

And today I went into Manchester to meet a couple of friends for lunch at Rosso. You can tell somewhere is a bit posh when they have mini-towels in the loos to dry your hands. I had the very reasonably priced 2-course lunch menu: grilled peppered mackerel, followed by pork cutlet stuffed with spinach and dolcelatte and wrapped in pancetta. Both were very tasty.

This was followed by a visit to the (slightly disappointing) William Blake 'Burning Bright' exhibition at the John Rylands Library.  Anyone else remember studying his 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' for English Lit A-Level?

And so the long weekend draws to a close and it's back to work tomorrow. Next time I hope to show you  the crochet or quilting or maybe even both! x

Day in the city

On a warm and sunny September Saturday, I headed into Manchester to meet up with Bernie and Rachel. As I made my way across the city, I came across these Morris Dancers in St Ann's Square. There must have been some kind of morris dancing event that day as I'd already passed one group and another was waiting to perform.

The costumes of this group were particularly colourful - great hats! I stood and watched for a few minutes, enjoying the music and dancing. Further on in the square were second-hand stalls with some selling upcycled furniture. I love how, in the city, there are unexpected delights as you stumble across street performers, small markets and other events. Not that I'm a city girl but I do like to visit.

We were in the city to see the Faces and Voices exhibition at the John Rylands Library, which is part of the University of Manchester. The Library was founded in 1898 by Enriqueta Rylands in memory of her husband, and houses the University's special collections. It took 10 years to build and cost over £500,000. Mrs Rylands involved herself in all aspects of the building work whilst gathering amazing collections of early printed books and manuscripts. I'm full of admiration for this woman and what she achieved at a time when women weren't even allowed the vote.

From the outside, with its gothic architecture, the Library looks more like a cathedral. And that impression carries on inside with vaulted ceilings and corridors. This view is over the main staircase.

There are also stained glass windows like this one, the Theology window.

What most visitors come to see though is the Historic Reading Room. This photo doesn't really convey just how beautiful and impressive it is.

How about this one? Inside each of the alcoves are separate reading areas lined with leather-bound books. Can you imagine a lovelier place to study? The light glows off the wood and it has that wonderful old book smell.

Back downstairs we marvelled at the exhibition of papyrus fragments and tomb portraits, all dating from before 642AD. It was hard to believe we were looking at something so old.

On our way out we noticed this automaton by Keith Newstead. Put in your donation and away it goes. The Victorian lady lifts a cup of tea to her lips and places it back down. She repeats this a couple of times and then...

We all jumped and laughed in surprise! As a way to encourage donations it's very clever because, of course, we fed in coins over and over so we could watch the dragon again.

But our day wasn't ended there. The Opera House theatre was celebrating its centenary and was having an open day. There were backstage tours, performances, drama workshops and face painting. I couldn't resist trying on one of the costumes in the dressing rooms.

It was pretty heavy with the boning in the corset but had a fantastic full skirt just right for twirling. So I did! Along with doing various dramatic poses!

Finally, it was off to browse the shops and have a coffee before saying our goodbyes. The three of us really enjoyed our day out. Hope you did too.

My quilt show entries

In Welcome to the Show! I teased you with mentions of the quilts I'd entered into our exhibition. Well, I'm embarrassed to admit there weren't many. I think I've said before that my quilting has been neglected lately so I only had three small items to submit.

The first was part of the button-up group challenge. Did you guess which was mine? It's in the middle row on the far left. 

We were all given two pieces of fabric - mine were the coral (behind the fan) and the dragonfly batik. Every block had to contain at least one of these fabrics, plus any others of our choosing from a limited colour palette. We were also given an A3 pattern of the layout. Other than these restrictions, we were free to use whatever themes, designs or techniques we wished. As you can see, my blocks include a mixture of foundation-piecing and machine applique.

This is my favourite block. I'm pretty sure the pattern was from Quilters Newsletter Magazine.

My next entry was again a group challenge: the teabag quilts. These were so-named because we were all given a teabag to dye a plain piece of calico. The challenge also specified the dimensions and that the only other colour must be red.

I'd been looking for an opportunity to have a go at the folded flowers in Kumiko Sudo's book, Fabled Flowers. Although I worked on some other ideas, this was the one I kept coming back to.

The flower pattern I used is Clematis and I also used the Akebia Sashiko design in the same book.

 

My final entry was this one, 'Drunk on Batik', inspired by 'Oilslick' by Susan Iacuone in the book Quiltskills. I have to confess here that the quilt was actually made several years ago but had never been exhibited. It could really do with more quilting which I intend to do in that mystical and probably imaginary period called 'some day'.

And that's it. Three years since the last exhibition and that's all I could muster. Note to self: must try much harder for next time. In fact, since then, I've started working on Chickpea's quilt and am determined to complete it. If I aim to sew at least one length of thread a few times a week, it might just be finished for Christmas. Doesn't sound so daunting when you say it like that.