A new year

 

Starting today, I am joining my friend Tessa on the E100 bible reading course which she is doing with her parish.  Its a journey through the essential 100 passages in the bible which we will read, pray about and hopefully apply to our lives during the next few months. Tessa is doing this daily, but I'm probably only going to manage 4 or 5 times a week.  If you'd like to know more about this course, please follow the link and click here.

Today starts with
Father God, please open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your law.  (Psalm 119:18) 
and we begin by reading Genesis in a new and prayerful way.

 

The end of the year saw me busy finishing off some long time UFOs and after two days sitting at my sewing machine I'm very pleased to have these two quilts and cushion cover out of my creative space! 

 

 

 

My lovely friend Jan sent me this beautiful postcard just before Christmas.  Thank you Jan for being such a great friend and putting a smile on my face just when I needed it!!

A Happy New Year to all my blogging friends.

God bless you,
Ros x

Happy Christmas

 

Today a saviour has been born to us;

He is Christ the Lord.

O sing a new song to the Lord,

sing to the Lord all the earth.

O sing to the Lord, bless his name.

Proclaim His help day by day,

tell among the nations His glory

and his wonders among all the peoples.

Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad,

let the sea and all within it thunder praise,

let the land and all it bears rejoice,

all the tress of the wood shout for joy

at the presence of the Lord for He comes,

He comes to rule the earth.

With justice He will rule the world,

He will judge the peoples with His truth.

Psalm 95

O Holy Night

 

Wishing you a very happy and holy Christmas.

May the peace, love and joy of the first 

Christmas be yours today and always.

Ros x

Today, the Word who sits on the throne of glory with 

the Father became flesh, born of the Holy Virgin,

giving the universe the grace and hope of adoption

into the fullness of becoming children of God.

St Ephraem

Preparing for the Nativity of the Lord!

God saw the world falling to ruin because of fear and immediately invited it by grace, 

preserved it by love and embraced it with compassion.

St Peter Chrysologus

Hope you are enjoying your Christmas preparations!

7 Billion . . .

. . . People in the world!


I'm number 2,925,247,365.


What number are you?  Click here if you would like to find out!!

The Desperate Housewives Quilt Block

Welcome dear quilters visiting from Want It, Need It, Quilt It!  Here is the block I have designed for you this week.  I hope you enjoy making and experimenting with it.  Here goes!

You will need to cut:

4 x 3" squares (orange or colour 1)
4 x 3" squares (green or colour 2)

1 x strip 2 1/2" x 14" (purple or colour 3)
1 x 2 1/2" square (orange or colour 1)

Chain piece together the 3" orange and green squares using a 1/4" seam allowance. 
You will need to sew around all four sides.

With a pen, mark a diagonal line from corner to corner, 

two on the orange side and two on the green side.

 

With a small sharp pair of scissors cut through one layer only along the pen line.

Open out and press well.

Repeat with each square.

 

Trim each new square to 3 1/2"

 

Cut the purple strip (colour 3) into 3 1/2" lengths 

and lay the block out like this.  

Sew together the  strips with 1/4" seam allowance.

 

Trim the block to 8 1/2".

 

Experiment with different sashings.  

A dark sashing like this will give the blocks the appearance of floating.

 

You can repeat the above technique with your finished block 

to get an on-point setting (cut an 8 1/2" square from the black spot). 

 

For a very different look this block uses a white print for the background.  

The central hexagon is made with two 2 1/2" squares sewn as above, 

opened out and trimmed to 2 1/2".

This last block started with two 3" squares (pink and purple) using above technique and repeated again each time a new colour is added.  

3 5/8" green square
4 1/4 " orange square
5 1/4" purple square
1 1/2" white outer border. 
Trim to 8 1/2".

I shall look forward to seeing your blocks on the flickr page!


Good luck!
Ros x

The Glory of Autumn!

For a short slide show of the glorious autumn colours at Stourhead you may like to click here.  Just love that west country accent!

Ros x

Thank you Jane!

This lovely jelly roll arrived in the post from Jane at Want It, Need It, Quilt It! after I won the September Giveaway.  Thank you so much Jane for your kindness - you certainly made my day special!

You may know Jane from the Inchy Hexagon Swap, the Desperate Housewives Quilt Block, or from the Want It Need It Quilt It! Store. 

I just happen to know that Jane has another Giveaway for the month of October.  But you'll have to work for it:

" If you were to inherit an ice-cream factory, what new flavours would you introduce? "

Autumn Colours

After a long spell of glorious weather, today it changed to a rather windy and overcast day so I took my camera around the National Trust gardens at Clivedon. Its only 20 minutes drive away, on top of the Chiltern Hills overlooking the River Thames near Marlow. The autumn colours were truly amazing. To view the pictures in a larger format just click in the box and choose full screen (slideshow) option.

Building the 2012 Olympic Games in London

With less than a year to go before London hosts the next Olympic games I thought you might like to see a short slideshow of the progress.

Click here to view Slideshow

What do you think?  Do you like it?