My Kinda Sewing

So what present can you get for a boy who has every electronic game imaginable?

Of course! You sew him something....unique!

The zebra is a super soft minky fabric. The collar and cuffs are quilted velveteen.

Very Stylish!

Jalie Sweetheart Top

Isn't this fabric fun?

This is a complete winner! The first attempt took an afternoon which included washing and drying the fabric, tracing the pattern, threading all the machines with matching thread, and everything else. It looks great, fits great, and was easy to sew. It couldn't have gone better.

Blackberries, Bad News and a new toy arrrives

Blackberry Picking
This time of year the weeds that are blackberry canes give forth their bounty...reluctantly to be sure. This area is near our former dump with is now 8 soccer pitches. They are surrounded with walls of blackberry canes loaded with fruit. Over two days we picked more than 5 lbs for desserts. MMMM Blackberries and cream! What could be better. We all have a number of wounds from the battle but it makes the fruit all the more sweeter.

Janome 1000CP coverstitch machine
I have been thinking about one of these for a while. Knits are part of my style and I want them to look good. Serging is a big step in the right direction but doesn't get me all the way there. The sewing for the trip to the UK made up my mind.

So here we are. I had to let it sit in my sewing atelier in it's box and then on the cutting table with its cover on like introducing a new fish to a fish tank. Everyone had time to see there was a new face. Her it is in position beside its co-workers.





Bad News
My best friend and companion Hazna, the lovely Bernese Mountain Dog, has been diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease. His Kidneys are failing. We are doing everything we can within reason but he refuses to eat which is....well it is bad. He is only 6 and we had been looking forward to several more years enjoying his companionship. We are all very sad and working hard to keep him as comfortable and happy as we know how for the short while he has left.

Leeds, Avebury, London

Leeds:
In a word...avoid!

The Armory was terrific!All of us enjoyed it immensely. If you ever have the chance go. It would only be better if it wasn't in Leeds. There was even a very interesting display of stuff from the WETA Workshop that did the costumes and weapons for Narnia, Lord of the rings and Hellboy, to name a few.





















From Leeds we had a very long drive through the rain to Avebury. In Avebury is a very large stone circle that dates to 2600 BC. It is much larger in size than Stonehenge. It is possible that the stones were once the same size as those at Stonehenge but they were systematically broken down by the villagers to destroy their evil (spooky noise here).
the museum there is full of information about the area. It gives you a much better idea of all the activity and construction happening in the area at about the time the stone circle was constructed. At Stonehenge the focus is almost entirely on that stone circle alone. I was somehow offended and amused to see a number of individuals dressed up in their various ideas of Druid robes of worship. Unfortunately for them Druids didn't exist until long after those circles and the other mounds were built.

The Henge shop is very charming. It is full of crystals and spellbooks and other hocus pocus. Interestingly is is built over a ley line. Of course there were the necessary copper divining rods in the shop. If they were iron rather than copper I would think they had buried a big electromagnet in the floor. Del and I have relations who were water diviners. I am a bit sensitive to these things even without a tool so I thought that, given they were getting it from both sides, one of the lads might be too. Son #1 was unaffected. Son #2 had the wands really twist in his hand each time he intersected the line. Ley lines are easier than water but I'd like to think he would have made a fair living at divining water for folks.


Stonehenge was still awe inspiring. Sometimes it seems that the stones are so large and obviously heavy that they should bend the landscape around them. I love going to these sorts of things better than anything else. I am so curious as to what they were really for.

It was a fast, fairly easy drive into London marred only by the necessity of paying the congestion fee. London is a different place from 20 years ago. Then it was choking in diesel and car fumes. Now it is lovely. There are more buses and taxies than you can imagine. There is never a problem getting anywhere. Even when they closed three lines on August 2 & 3 we still got everywhere we wanted to go.

Madam Tussaud is an expensive fraction of what it was the last time I was there. They have removed over 2/3 of the models and turned it all into England's version of Disney land; long lines, photo ops and little of the fascinating content that was once there.













Tower of London. Always a good trip. The tour with the Yeoman Warder is very entertaining and gives you many of the gruesome details. Unlike some of the other places we have gone like Chitzen Itza where there is no sense of anything the Tower has that chilly greasy feel of lingering energy. I didn't find Stirling Castle to be like that at all. Interestingly Stirling castle was home to scotish Kings until James V of Scotland who was James I of England (Elizabeth I's heir). The white tower was home to English Kings. Of the two we unanimously agreed that Stirling was far nicer. No wonder Henry VIII moved into Hampton Court Palace.

The London Eye was wicked. It was so cool to look at the whole city from above. There is so much of the fabulous architecture that we have never had the opportunity to appreciate before.

Afternoon in the park

Yorkshire

After Great Ayton we went to Whitby right on the coast. Unfortunately it was very foggy which did not do the town justice. It was charming none the less. Whitby is famous for its Jet. This is fossilized monkey tree wood that is very black. It is often beautifully carved.

From here we drove at high speed past everyone else (hey it gets boring driving behind the slowpokes!) over the Yorkshire moors to Thorton-le-Dale. This town won most charming English town. You can see why. It has cute thatched roofs, a little beck and beautiful gardens. Unfortunately it is also a very crowded English town with a large percentage of screaming children so we moved on to the Eden Camp.

Eden Camp is a former WWII prisoner of war camp that is now a museum and memorial. It chronicles all aspects of life during the war. It is excellent! They have gathered an awesome amount of information. Most of it shows a very personal side to everything from the soldiers to the women that worked on the farms to fill in for the men. The lads were as fascinated by the peoples' stories as they were with all the weapons and equipment.

After Eden Camp we finished up in York. This is a very picturesque town, particularly in the center or Old Town. It has lots of classic Tudor style buildings that hand over the road.

Son#1 wanted a haircut....not colour!!

We went to York Minster. WHOA! It took 250 years to build it and it is beautiful. I think awe inspiring describes it very well. We elected to climb the tower. Talk about a tight fit. We went round and round and round and up and up and more up. Eventually we got to the top. What a view. There were many spots where one could imagine pouring boiling oil on and throwing various objects at the enemy. It is as beautiful on the outside as inside.

In the afternoon we went to the Royal Railway Museum. This was very good. I was disappointed that the Flying Scotsman was being refurbished. It was entirely in pieces in the workshop. The rest of the museum is huge with a turntable, a Japanese bullet train, some royal trains and a storage room full of a ton of cool railway stuff. It was really neat.