McPizza

On a recent night out Miss14 discovered this delectable delight - McPizza. Normally I would nick a couple of fries off her plate, but this concoction really put me off. Doesn't it look awful???

More Old Houses...

One of my favourite pasttimes is touring old houses. This one is Uppark near Petersfield in West Sussex. The first pic shows the front gate....
...then the side entrance, or probably the back door to us.
Uppark was practically burned down about 20 years ago and thankfully a lot of the artworks and furniture were rescued. It has been restored by the National Trust at great cost, but it looks fabulous and most people would not be able to tell the new from the original. Unfortunately we were unable to take photos inside the house.

They have a beautiful Georgian Dollshouse, a miniature of the house, which I could have sat and looked at for hours.

Oldies are goodies

I didn't want to turn this into a travel blog, but since doing my art course I see things differently. We are taught about the importance of pattern and repetition and I wonder if this is what architects were thinking in the 14th Century or whether it just had to be bigger than anyone else's palace. This is a courtyard in Hampton Court Palace taken when the sun peeped out for a brief moment in July!
The clock has some amazing gold work on it and the colours are still quite intense.
We were lucky to see some of the costumes used in the recent film, The Other Boleyn Girl, which I just happened to watch on the plane on the way to the UK. These would have been worn by Scarlett Johannssen....
....and the hunky Eric Bana. Eric's can be seen on the left.

Christmas Decorations

First, some fabrics with a Christmas theme. These are Japanese ones which I had in my stash.They are then cut into 2 inch squares and folded in various ways using Origami techniques

And Voila! A pretty bauble hanging from my bamboo plant outside. I did this class in a local patchwork shop one afternoon recently. Other participants were Chinese and made cute little mandarins which they were hoping to give as gifts for Chinese New Year.

Quilting Challenge

Every year the Quilt Groups in Singapore have a challenge.

This year the task is to use at least a Fat Quarter of this fabric in something. It's a design by Iota called Every Iota by Robert Kaufman. Of the two colourways to choose from, there was only one left when I decided to take up the challange. Probably just as well, as I would not have been able to decide between them. Yuck. Of course there were none of the co-ordinating fabrics available, which would have made it easier. The challenge for me has been whether to make the fabric a feature or try and lose it somewhere. Fortunately Miss14 loves it. Teenagers seem to have a completely different view of the world of colour sometimes.

Bernice Bernina has decided to spit the dummy however, so the next challenge will be whether she's able to be fixed in a timely manner. I wonder why I think my machine is a woman? Surely I should rename it Bernie, as only a bloke would do this to you!

Oh I love Ikea!

Voila! A gorgeous piece of artwork for the wall. Now have to find my handyman to put it up!

None of the four thumbs were harmed in this production

Miss14 had her eye on a lovely piece of Amy Butler fabric, which was hiding in my stash

We moved into a new house a few months ago and need to do some serious re-decorating. The house is only 5 years old, but the climate helps everything deteriorate rapidly.