Wednesday 21 October 2015

Autumn Fun with Pumpkins and Leaves

 Hello! We are really getting into Autumn and getting excited for Halloween now. We visited Sunnyfields Farm on our way home one day, they had lots of great pumpkins as well as some friendly goats, geese and a bouncy castle too. (I took these pictures on my phone as no camera with me).


 I love seeing all these fancy squashes. We picked a few up. I think hubby intended to cook them up but they sort of have been stolen away for something else...more later...




We spent a chilly day at Hythe and the girls burnt off some energy feeding the birds and running up and down the walkway on the waterside. They had so much fun waiting for the gulls to line up on the railings then race at them so they all flew off!



 There were some great autumnal colours at Exbury Gardens...





... we found some treasures too including this sweet little black acorn...


...and this funky acorn which has a knopper gall, caused by the knopper wasp....


 And these super shiny conkers!


 We had a wander in a new place for us, Cadnam. We found this piggy out and about eating acorns.

And had a little play at the White Hart pub before going for a trail through the woods.



We met some lovely ladies out on their horses and they very kindly offered for Big Sparkle to have a sit on Magic.



Then we found lots of lovely leaves so most of the time out was spent throwing these about.









 Today we did a little Halloween picture. Little Sparkle was fascinated by the pictures on her Spooky cookies packet so I cut them out for her to stick down. Later Big Sparkle filled in the gaps with some great Halloween characters.



And the pumpkins and squashes got stolen to use with our collected leaves for an Autumn display!


Hope you have been having lots of fun too, see you soon

Love Amber x x x

Sunday 4 October 2015

A new beach for us, a baby blanket and a royal quilt in the making.


 Hello! I hope you are well. I have been in my craft room making a few baby blankets and working on Big Sparkles royal quilt too. Suddenly lots of friends are expecting babies, so I have a few to make!

Its a disappearing nine patch design with super cute strawberries, cupcakes and multicoloured sheep.



We took a nice little stroll around the woods at the Marchwood walk.






We had a nice walk at Lepe. Little Sparkle found some late daisy flowers.



Last weekend we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do so we went on a magical mystery tour and ended up at Milton on Sea. It was a lovely warm day and the view was beautiful.



There were a few families relaxing and seemed to be a pool that was cut off by a spit which the children were enjoying swimming and body boarding in.




Finding treasure.

As the beach had a steep shelf of pebbles that lead down onto the sand, the girls soon found a new game of climbing up, then sliding down again.




It was a lovely day and the girls cant wait to go back again.

This quilt has been a long time coming. These little flags I made way back in 2012 when it was the Queens Jubilee. So its about time they got sewn up into a quilt!



I thought it only fitting that a royal quilt needed a crown. I am not into paper piecing yet so I went with applique for this block.


I used the same iron on Bondaweb to do the cypher which I really wanted as Big Sparkle shares her initials with the Queen.


It's coming along nicely with some other blocks of half square triangles and nine patches.

There is also a strawberries and cream patch and a block with a pocket from a pair of my old fashion jeans. It needs a border before I quilt and bind it but the top patchwork is finally done!


This is my picture of the lunar eclipse. Its not very good but honestly I couldn't stay awake until 3.30am when it would have looked better.

In the garden my crab apples have turned a gorgeous bright red on the side that has been in the sun but where they have been shaded they are still yellow so they look like rosy apple sweets.



And Big Sparkle found a 'really fast slug!' oh no wait its a caterpillar. It's actually an Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar.


I will leave you with this pretty sunset and hope you enjoyed my blog.

See you soon,

Amber x x x