Home again!

Slowly slowly we're getting back into the swing of things at home. We had a lovely time away staying with family, despite the girls' various ailments which all seemed to come at once and in quick succession over the Christmas break. Jude's mum said that her four were always ill during the holidays when she went home to visit her mum too. Nice to be back though. I appreciate our space when I see it with fresh eyes again. We enjoyed the last of Jude's holiday by going to the Eden Project today, which was a wonderful way to while away a ropey old grey blanket of a day. There was a storyteller in the Mediterranean biome wearing the most marvellous patchwork coat, telling an old Cornish story of Jack and a Giant called Burdock, which the girls enjoyed. Somehow it always feels as though you've been away in another world when you return to the misty Cornish country roads after a visit to Eden.

The fantastic storyteller in his patchwork coat

A gorgeously scented shrub - the fragrance wraps around you in the cold air - winter flowering Jasmine I think, but not sure.

I think this is the stump of a tree fern - I love the intricate pattern 

The dancers in the Mediterranean biome

 

 

I'm busy working on some new baby projects: a multi-coloured crochet blanket out of my stash of recycled yarn, and a patchwork quilt out of a pair of funky curtains I found in a charity shop in town. So far I've made up two squares just to test materials, but I may have to actually buy some co-ordinating fabric for once rather than just use random scraps. I think if you're using a very boldly patterned or coloured fabric throughout a quilt, it only really works with a set number of plain colours, or at most one equally vivid partner. So that may have to go back on the shelf for a while. As you can see in the pic, I'm pretty rubbish at getting my seams to match up neatly; I don't know whether it's me or my machine who is at fault - as I know little more than how to thread the thing & press the pedal - but my perfectionist side has to just take a break when I do something like this. Same with crochet: to get it done at all I have to accept the wonkiness and just take note of things to be improved upon next time. I can't be doing with unravelling and re-doing every single mistake - except for the size of the red/pink square on the second strip below, which I have now extended slightly to balance the squares up a little. The orange square next to it is overlong but I can't face unravelling that much! Baby won't mind.

Somehow my belly snuck into both pics...

On the plus side with the creative stuff, my homemade gifts were well received (now those I DID re-work to get absolutely right!) Here's a photo of Aunty Boo in her new head wrap thingy on Christmas Day.

And our few sunny days in winter always warrant a trip to a beach:

One of our gifts this year from Jude's mum was National Trust membership for a year, which is thrilling... when anything re-opens that is. 

Here's a random photo of an enormous tree in the grounds of Stroud's Stratford Park - sadly I don't know what breed of tree it is (though I could probably look it up)

And just by way of scale, here's a pic of Jude and the girls beneath it - I couldn't persuade Jude to climb it, sadly.

Happy New Year to you all x