Sewing and other randoms

I have spent most of the afternoon sewing. When I'm quilting one of the things I find most important is to iron often. I sew the squares into rows first and then the ironing begins. As I'm ready to sew rows together, I iron the seams of joining rows in opposite directions so there isn't too much bulk. After sewing the first two rows together I iron again, add another row, iron again and so it goes on until all the rows are joined.

I have now reached the stage where all the rows are joined and it's time to cut the borders to size. As I'm not always happy with squaring my quilts, I am busy reading my quilting go to book (Rotary Magic by Nancy Johnson-Srebro). I love the colour combination in this little quilt, it's so fresh and light. I'm so glad my SIL likes it too!

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While sewing this afternoon I had my iPod on shuffle for background music. This evening I was listening to Michael Buble - I do like his voice! I love mellow music - Jason Mraz, Joshua Radin and Jack Johnson to name a few. A couple of days ago I was looking for my Savage Garden CD and found a few other older CDs that I've added to my iPod as well. Now really showing my age, I added some John Denver, R.E.M, Wilson Phillips and Chris de Burgh. I can't listen to all of it but there are still some songs that I really like. What sort of music do you like listening to and are there any oldies that you still enjoy?

Sag Aloo with added onions and peppers (dinner last night)

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My healthy eating hasn't been going as well as I had hoped and I have decided to go back to doing the Weight Watchers plan. At least then I know I can still have a little of what I like so long as I count the points. I'm starting on the points tomorrow and because I've done WW before, I'm hoping it'll soon feel normal again. I've also realised I need to write out a menu plan for myself; not just what I'm going to have for dinner but what I'm going to have for lunch too. My breakfast is generally the same; Special K, fruit and light soya milk. If I have the menu written out I'm more likely to stick to it.

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After Jon woke me just before 5am this morning to say he was on his way to work I didn't go back to sleep until about 5.30 and then my alarm went off at 6! I should have just got up at 5 - now I'm feeling really tired and think I'm going to have an early night.

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More sewing tomorrow - hoping to get the quilt top finished and sandwiched together so I can start on the actual quilting. Have you got plans for tomorrow?

xx

This afternoon ...

After I'd finished unpacking the shopping today, I headed back into town and met Claire for lunch. She'd left her umbrella at Spoons over the weekend and got absolutely soaked walking in to work from Craig's this morning. I made a point of parking behind Spoons and went in to ask if her umbrella had been handed in - fortunately it had! We went to Neros for a panini and then into WH Smiths for some wrapping paper and padded envelopes. Once I got home it was time to start on sewing the quilt together. I love watching it growing row by row.

Not as impressed with the quilt, Bellatrix sat looking outside having wishful thinking

Then it was Mac's turn ;o)

For the most part Cloud stayed nice and warm in her basket or came and lay at my feet.

I had used my other camera today - just trying it out again - and when I downloaded the photos I found this one with Wallace in :o( He was such a big part of our lives and we do miss him. Such a sweet dog xx

Dorking

While in Dorking yesterday, I did manage to take a few photos. We park in a car park behind this church and then walk up past the church, through the little passage to the High Street. Looking back yesterday the sky was so blue! A lovely crisp clear day but sleet was predicted for later in the afternoon.

The walls of St Martins church and the steeple/clock tower are made of flint (or is it covered with flint?). There are a few flint covered buildings so I presume, not knowing much about the geography of the area, it must be or have been locally sourced.

Dorking High Street. The Quilt Room is further down on the right hand side. There are some different shops in Dorking and one of the ones I enjoyed looking in the last time I went was a cookery shop which seemed to stock everything you could possibly want.

Walking back to the car park we pass this street with nicely kept houses, which are just one road down from the High Street.

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Today I cut out the squares for the quilt and laid them out to get an idea of what the completed quilt would look like. I don't think the colours in the photo are quite right but it gives you the basic idea. Now I'm looking forward to sewing it all together! I always think cutting it out is the worst part and after that it comes together fairly quickly. I hope to have this finished by the end of the week.xx

Fun day :)

This morning before feeding the kittens I opened the door to let them go out for a little while (trying to get them used to the garden). Mac ventured out as far as the flower bed and had a sniff around. Bellatrix wasn't keen to go out and decided to stay in the kitchen.

It wasn't too long before Mac decided it was much warmer inside and headed back indoors.

I can't say I blame him, this was the ice on the table outside and the temperature on my computer was showing -3C.

Emily and I left home around 9am and headed out to The Quilt Room in Dorking. I have a quilt to make and needed to find some suitable material. What do you think of this little selection? The Quilt Room have moved premises and (I may be wrong) the new shop feels smaller than the previous one and the selection likewise, wasn't as good as the last time we went. However, that said, I think this quilt could be very cute when it's finished. Will keep you posted.

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Our next stop was St Marcus Fine Foods in Redhill which is a South African shop. We'd run out of curry powder and nearly out of peanut butter and, seeing as Redhill isn't that far from Dorking, I decided to kill two birds with one stone this morning. When we got there the first thing we noticed when we opened our doors was the smell of boerewors (which translated means farmer's sausage) cooking on the braai (barbecue). They were making and selling boerewors rolls but we didn't buy because we were getting boerewors for ourselves anyway and that's going to be dinner tonight. Needless to say we found a few other bits and pieces while we were there too ;o) -South African shops always bring back memories. (And I forgot to take photos!)

We got home just after 1pm and left again just before 2 to meet my friend Pam for a coffee at Neros. Pam had been at the same coffee morning as me on Thursday but we didn't get a chance to chat, so arranged to meet today as well :o). Emily came too and had a hot chocolate with cream and a chocolate cupcake. They looked yummy so I had to take a photo; mine didn't look as good. Now after that quick summary, time for me to go and start cooking said boerewors.

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Enjoy your evening/weekend

xx

PS I also ended up buying some more wool because I really enjoyed knitting the last little cardigan and can think of at least two more I could make.