Norwich

I recently enjoyed a mini break in Norwich

Staying at the lovely Sprowston Manor hotel, very close to a Park and Ride, the only way to go - park, take the bus, spend the day in the city and get the bus back. No driving round searching for a parking space and no outrageous parking fees.

The hotel was lovely with a wonderful spa which we used the evening we arrived and the following 2 mornings, swimming, sauna and jacuzzi.

We were lucky with the weather, we were able to explore the city on Saturday in fine, dry weather.

There was a display of Rolls Royce and Bentleys outside the Cathedral

The Cathedral is very nice inside

 The font was originally used in the manufacture of chocolate in Norwich.

When the factory closed it was refashioned and presented to the Cathedral for use as a font.

We meandered round the great outdoor market, The Lanes, a Castle, and did a bit of shopping

Jarrolds, a chic independant department store, with a wonderful food store and deli and wine bar.

~Keep warm and well ~
Polly x

A Good Read

The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier
Diane Berg, a young psychiatrist starts her first job at a secure asylum for the criminally insane. She is made to feel very unwelcome by the current director of the institute, Dr Xavier, and his grim assistant Lisa Ferney. Diane soon suspects there is something going on between them. Meanwhile, at a nearby hydroelectric power plant accessible only by cable car, maintenance workers make a gruesome discovery. A decapitated horse hangs suspended from the edge of the frozen cliff.
Commandant Servaz, a Toulouse city cop, can't believe he has been assigned to the death of an animal. But there is something disturbing about this crime that he cannot ignore, DNA from one of the most notorious inmates of the asylum is found on the corpse... and a few days later the first murder takes place.
In this snowbound valley, deep in the Pyrenees, a dark story of madness and revenge is unfolding. It will take all of Servaz's skill to solve it.

This is a very clever story with edge-of-the-seat suspense and atmospheric writing, you can feel the dark chilling landscape wrapping itself around you.

~Happy Reading ~

Polly x

Hibernating and More Quilts

I have neglected my blog of late. I lost interest, preferring to spend time on other activities. Throughout January, February and March I did my usual hibernating and making quilts for Project Linus. Another 12 rolled off the sewing machine production line. All the material was gifted to me. They are all lap quilts approx 36" x 36" for children in hospital. The patterns are pretty and the fleece backing is cosy, providing warmth and comfort, and the children get to keep them.

 Top right and bottom right are the same material, but TR is triangles and BR is half square triangles.

All have the pale blue fleece backing.

After completing this Star Wars quilt above I noticed a small tear in one of the plain orange squares.
I had used all the material so I used the signature label, which I usually put in a corner, to cover it.

Last year I used oddments of fleece for the backing of one of the quilts, I didn't want to waste them and thought they would look nice in a sort of fan of rainbow colours, see here. Well it was very difficult and I said I would never attempt anything like it again. Then I was given these 4 rectangle pieces of fleece above right. The colours matched this material perfectly, they were just begging to be used.  They were much easier to work with though as they followed the lines of the squares.

Courtesy of BeFunky.com

These patterns of rabbits are quite pretty but I think the colours are a bit drab. 

This hasn't photographed very well, they are pretty shades of blue and yellow. I'm not happy with the border though, I haven't matched the patterns very well. I didn't really notice it until I hung it up. I'm debating whether to unpick the border and re-do it!

And finally this one, using strips of all the odd pieces of material left over.
It's time consuming but very satisfying.
I don't use wadding with my quilts, but I have to when I do these because all those seams make it bulky.

Here in the UK we've been enjoying gorgeous warm weather,
I hope it continues into a hot summer like last year.

~Keep warm and well ~
Polly x

Happy Easter

Flowers And Chocolates

A winning combination


I hope you have a happy/sunny/fun/peaceful Easter 

~Polly x ~

A Good Read

The English Assassin by Daniel Silva is a taut, fast-paced thriller confidently rooted in fact - Switzerland's shameful WWII record of profiteering and collaboration with Nazi Germany. During the 2nd World War vast numbers of the world’s great painting masterpieces were stolen by the Nazis and given to the bankers of Zurich for safe keeping. Many of these paintings were owned by the then persecuted Jews. Under Swiss law if an item was unclaimed after 5 years that item then became the property of the person who was currently in possession of it, making it impossible for the rightful owners to prove provenance.

When art restorer and occasional Israeli agent Gabriel Allon is sent to Zurich to restore the painting of a reclusive millionaire banker, he arrives to find his would-be employer murdered and a secret collection of priceless, illicitly gained Impressionist masterpieces is missing. Gabriel's handler steps out of the shadows to admit the truth - the collector had been silenced, and Gabriel is put back in the high-stakes spy game, tasked with recovering the paintings and returning them to their rightful owners. But the Swiss Bankers are not about to give billions of dollars in artwork away and are quite prepared to kill to keep possession of the masterpieces.

Tense, expertly crafted, and with a few twists and turns, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also found the exploration of the secretive world of Swiss banking and the secretive culture of Switzerland fascinating.

~Happy Reading ~

Polly x

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day 

to all the wonderful, loving, caring Mums
My daughter and I celebrated Mother's Day yesterday, and I'm glad we did because today's weather is overcast and chilly. Yesterday was beautiful, sunny and warm. 
My daughter treated me to a day in Canterbury

 browsing, shopping

soaking up the atmosphere

and a scrumptious cream tea at a lovely hotel restaurant

and of course no day out would be complete without a visit to one of my favourite shops!

And today I received this beautiful flower basket from my darling grandson.

~Keep warm and well ~

Polly x

A Concert and a Bit of Art

Today's concert at the Cathedral was Music from St Cedd's School, an independent day school for boys and girls from pre-school to year 6.  With an extensive programme of string orchestra, guitar ensemble, piano solo, violin solo, a singing group, clarinet ensemble, guitar ensemble, recorders, a beautiful solo singer, flute choir, oboe solo and the senior chamber choir it was a truly delightful concert. We are so lucky having these free concerts. 

Last Saturday I went to an art workshop organised by the art club I attend in the village. 

It was with some trepidation that I put my name down because it was for oils,
and I have never painted with oils before.

I enjoyed it, it was a good experience and I will do more at our club meetings.

Everyone enjoyed the day, and produced some excellent work.

This was mine from early on

And the finished project, which I was quite pleased with. I added the bow later.

I might do it again to see if I can improve on it (the whole painting, not just the bow!).

The following 3 were my favourites

~Keep warm and well ~

Polly x

Lunchtime Concert

Today's concert in the Cathedral were a brilliant duo, Maya Traikova on piano and Krassimira Jeliazkova-Jones on violin. Their programme was varied and included work from Pancho Vladigerov from their native Bulagaria and our home grown Elgar. 

Afterwards my friend M and I went to a lovely deli and tea room.

It's very pretty

~Keep warm and well ~

Polly x

The Dolls House Main Bedroom

I'm glad that's finished, well 90% finished, I need to add a few more embellishments, and I need to put a picture on the far wall between the doors, and a full length mirror on the wall at the side of the window. 

It started well

The wallpaper is a sample from a DIY store and the flooring is varnished spatulas again.

I decided to put fake doors in (miniaturists are allowed artistic licence! :-)  because

the lady of this house would definitely have a walk in wardrobe and an en-suite,

especially as her teenage daughter has an en-suite!

Don't look too closely at the bottom left of the fake door, I miscalculated and had to add a piece of wood.

It's nicely painted over now and hidden by the bed anyway!

I knew the furniture I wanted, I bought the bed at a local dolls house shop and ordered the dressing table, chest of drawers and bedside cabinets online. I planned to spray paint the bed to match the cream furniture, however, it wasn't all cream, the chest of drawers was white! Change of plan, I spray painted everything to match the white chest of drawers.

So down to the shed, because the weather was too bad to do it outside, furniture in a cardboard

box and spray away. It only took a few coats to get a good cover.

The bed was mahogany to start with, I used paint stripper to take off most of the colour.

It worked quite well. I thought it would be nice to put some decoration on it.

This cheap frame from Hobbycraft was just right for cutting out some of the swirls.

I tried a few designs

and looking at the photos here I wish I had gone with this one above

but I decided on this one. I glued them in place and spray painted it.

Now this is where it got very tricky. I wanted to decorate this little bed with some gold leaf............. 

dear reader, if you ever hear me mention gold leaf again, take me by the hand

and gently remind me how bad this was.

If you've done gold leafing before you know how fine it is. Oh boy did I get into a mess.

Just a gentle sigh from me scattered bits of gold leaf all over the place. 

I don't know if I bought inferior leaves, I just couldn't get it to cover nice and smoothly.

This is not pretty, but by this time I didn't want to start all over again either

sanding and painting or buying another bed.

THEN.....!!!

As if that wasn't enough punishment I decided to have a go with two ceiling roses!!

This one for the music room turned out quite well. 

The one for the bedroom, well it's a disaaaaster dahling. 

But the chandelier is very pretty and you can see more of that than the rose. 

So onto the curtains. I should have gone with straight forward pencil pleats, but no I thought 

Roman blinds would look nice which they do but what a fiddly job.

I went to a textiles exhibition last year. The ones I liked were out of my price range, but I did find this little package of material for only £5, just enough to make bed linen and curtains with, and I'm going to use that small piece of burgundy velvet to cover a bolster.

I'm currently hibernating making lap quilts.

~Keep warm and well ~

Polly x