What a difference a couple of years makes! Lets start with a catch up.

Blows the cobwebs away, and dusts in the corner....

Ah, that's better!

Ive just found 2 blog posts in my drafts folder, that I meant to publish, but never got round to .

So I tidied them up and published them.
Why now?

Well, it's sort of about the 3rd blog post that was in my drafts folder; the one that was never meant to be published.
I went away to Rhodes in May, on a Health and Happiness Retreat  http://toofattorun.co.uk/tftr-retreat/ and one of the things they talked about was 'journaling ', which, to be honest, I don't really get.
I'm rubbish at lists, and not a creative writer, but decided maybe I'd be better just typing things up. And it sort of worked.
So I'm going to ramble away.

So I've published 2 posts, one from Early 2016 and the other probably from November.

I'm going to work out how to create different tabs or pages, because I have craft and sewing stuff, but also my fitness journey (horrid expression-may try to find an alternative), as well as random ramblings.

So a catch up on this year, starting with January

January
A retreat with Threadhouse where I took some workshops with Lynne Goldsworthy, Karen Lewis, and Jo Avery
Heres some of the things I started

 And this is my Retreat bag - a swap gift

This is something I made for a swap - really pleased with it. Such teeny tiny pieces!










And in return, I got this one

I also finished this mini quilt that I started over a year ago!

Oops! Where did the year go?

This post was written some time ago but only just published

Recently I went on a lovely sewing weekend organised by the ladies at Simply Solids. I went on a similar weekend last year and loved it.

When I got back, I thought "must blog about that" but somehow October started to disappear, and before I know it, I'll be off on my hollibobs.

And that's the reason for coming back here.

My very first blog post was pictures of my holiday at Cortijo Romero, in January, when we awoke one morning to snow. It was when I was looking for photos, that I came across that first post.
Obviously we hadn't expected to be sunbathing, average temperatures are around 15C, but although we were in a mountainous region, snow is rare lower down. It meant that a planned excursion was cancelled as the road was closed. In the UK we moan that 'they're never prepared for snow' imagine how that works in Spain!

Anyway, what have I been doing?
Well I went back to Cortijo Romero - this time on a tree planting week. It was November, the pool was cold, but some hardy souls braved it!


Many, many trees were planted, as part of a community initiative, with a wonderful group of people.


We were really lucky with the weather, warm enough for tee shirts most days.

And the view from my lounger on the final day was just great!


Lots of sewing

I made this bag for my sister - pattern is called Retreat bag

And this one I made for a swap

Some running, as a Christmas present to myself I joined a 5 weeks to 5 k group, and I've 'sort of' kept it up


Lots of driving round the country, and I bought a bike!

Where does the time go?

This post was written some time last year, but I only just found it!
***************************************************

I fully intended to blog more this year, but time has run away.

But what have I been doing?


I'm trying to lose weight, sticking to low carbs and lots of veg, and cutting out chocolate.

And I've signed up to do a 5 weeks to 5k programme. It's this one
http://toofattorun.co.uk/fiveweeksto5K/

Now let's be honest, I'm nearer to sixty than fifty, haven't exercised properly for years, and have a job that involves being in a car,, parked on motorways for many hours, and then sitting down, again for many hours.  I have a lot of weight to lose, but I'm getting there.

But what's the deal?

I get bored in the gym, the most I can manage is 10 minutes, and I get fed up. I've asked people, and suggestions about 'listen to music' don't work for me. The only thing more boring than being in the gym, is listening to music while doing it. I don't listen to music in the house, I'm not one of those people who have a radio on in the background, I find it irritating.  So being outside is better option,

So where am I up to.

I can't run, I get breathless quickly, but I've been getting out and doing fast walks, interspersed with jogging. (I suspect that my walking speed is faster than my jogging)
Today I managed 4 bursts of running, each over a minute, and consider that to be an achievement. And it was raining.
I can't do 5k in 40 minutes, at the moment I can't do 5k, but I will get there. I will.

Be careful what you save!

 A while ago, I found this quote from George Eliot, which I quite liked, so I saved it. I also saved a picture from a knitting pattern, round about the same time, as I thought they went together.

Well, I looked at the picture more closely, and now I'm not too sure what the reindeer are up to!

GEORGE ELIOT (1819-1880)

It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibres that knit us to the old.

Have you ever thought about Service Stations?

I spend  a lot of time in my car, or in hotels. Or on one spectacularly wet day, in Warwick Services, waiting for the rain to stop.

As I'm not a great telly watcher, I use the time in hotels to do some hand sewing, and usually take my big sewing bag with me with an assortment of projects as I never know a) what project I want to work on and b) how good the light is.

So often find myself with a few small projects on the go. A few weeks ago I was cutting out fabric for the Little Joys Quilt

And making yet another owl

And of course there are days like today, when I just randomly chuck things in a bag, with no idea what I'm going to do.

It's always a bit easier, when the hotel is part of a chain as you tend to know the facilities you'll get.

Motorway Services, on the other hand, are a bit 'hit and miss'. To lots of people they're an expensive place to stop, as they have a 'captive audience', but for those of us who spend many, many hours in our cars, they're a necessity. Most people can't (and shouldn't) drive 5 hours without stopping.

But driving home a week or so ago I noticed something odd...

On the M25, clockwise, the distance between some services is 40 miles. Now I never really noticed it, because it's generally at the beginning of my journey, but I had an idea that services where generally closer together.

And they are. I've no idea what it is that dictates how far apart they are, but a casual glance gave me the impression that 20-25 miles is about average. Obviously there are areas like Cumbria, where there aren't many, but they seem to appear quite often.

And then you get to a particular stretch of the M6. And this is probably a sign that I need a life!

From Stafford to Keele is 10 miles.

From Keele to Sandbach is 11 miles .....and

From Sandbach to Knutsford is 12 miles.

After that it changes again, but why are they so close together? Answers on a postcard please!

My first 'proper' quilt

Since getting back into sewing, I've made some small patchwork pieces, and have quilted some, but have shied away from anything big enough to require machine quilting using a walking foot or even worse, free motion!

But this year is the year of the quilt. I want to make something full size, I've absolutely no idea why.  Or in fact what I'm going to do with it when its finished, but hey ho!  And then I hit a snag, I had absolutely no idea where to start.

I've saved all sorts of ideas on Pinterest, but even if I found something I liked, I struggled to find fabric that worked. Partly due to limited time, but mainly due to limited ability with colours. I make cards,  have done a fair bit of embroidery, but I tend to stick with colours I'm confident with.  Fabric is fine when dressmaking, you find the fabric you like and make it into something, but getting lots of different fabrics to work together was something I lacked confidence in.

I tried with scraps from my stash, someone suggested a 'mood board' and I spent many hours laying different pieces out on hotel beds, all to no avail.

So I gave up and used the Daisy Chain quilt pattern from www.quiltroom.co.uk

Based on a jelly roll, sub cut into strips and measuring 44in square, it's a good start.  The picture below is a Moda charm pack and the jelly roll - which is from a collection called Lottie Da.

So the first thing I did was to try and work out how the colours went together. Now as its a jelly roll, in theory, its already been done for you, but in practice you don't want to end up with lots of orange in one part and not another. In fact, that's what I ended up with in some places, but better luck next time.

The first stage was to join all the strips together.  Not so easy when you suddenly realise you're sat at a slight angle to the sewing machine and your seams are going for a bit of a wander.

According to the instructions, the strips were then cut into strips.  At this point I started to get a bit confused, but plodded on, sure it would come right in the end.

And it did!

Then you joined them all back together again, but in a different order

It was at this point that I really started to notice some of my joins weren't perfect.

In fact the picture above should have been a perfect square! But you can plainly see that I had to do some tidying up.

Then came the fun bit.  Sat on the settee, with pins, joining all the squares into strips, then joining the strips together to make something that started to resemble a quilt.

Then I had to actually 'quilt' it.

Easier said than done, as I don't have a free motion foot for my machine, so I'm going to do it by hand.  I took it with me to a hotel in one week, but have hardly touched it since, so this is going to be a bit of an epic.

That said, its lovely to work with quality fabric, and there was something really relaxing about sitting in my hotel room sewing, with a cuppa next to me, while the world just passed by below.

The above was typed a month or so ago, and since then I've attempted some machine quilting too, although it did get unpicked a couple of times! But it's easier to cheat with wavy lines.

Next step, binding. Wish me luck!

A new month, a new start

New beginnings.  At the end of this month I will be 56. What's important about that? Not a lot, except that 8 weeks ago my son was 28, so I'm now twice his age (ish) which is quite scary. Lots of his friends now have children of their own, and this prompted a conversation about photos.

For my 50th Birthday, my family put together a photo album using the iMac. The words tell more of a story than the photos do!

You see, I HATED having my photo taken. Really, really. Now I've heard it said (by some ex friends) that refusing to have your photo taken is just attention seeking. But for me, I don't think it's that. As soon as I see someone with a camera, my first reaction is to get out of the way.

Someone once told me that you just have to learn to stop, smile, pose and move on. But I can't. And then someone asked me a couple of questions...

Why?  What started it?

and crucially

If anything happened to me, would my son have any recent photos? What will I do when he gets married, has children etc. when he graduates, he'll probably want a photo taken with his ever so proud Mum

In answer to the first, I've no idea. I've looked back on photos and you can tell I'm not happy; there's a sort of 'grin and bear it' look on my face.

Grinning and bearing it

As I've got older, I've shied away from the camera even more. Now I know that lots of people do the thing where they're behind the camera, but I'm not that interested in photographs. They're just a record of an event. But I've got worse since digital cameras, and posting photos on Social Media.

Of course, putting on weight hasn't helped, so I'm joining the two issues together. And tackling them together.

I took the plunge this morning, and weighed myself. I knew I'd put weight on, as nothing fits. But the reality is that I weigh the same now as before I started Weightwatchers 4 years ago. I am not sharing that number!

But I'm going to try and be more confident around cameras, and maybe, occasionally allow people to take photos. So to start off, here's a photo I took last week in a hotel, somewhere, and another taken a couple of years ago. The only recent photos in existence!