saving bees

When I say save bees I mean literally.

This poor little guy was caught out in the rain.

So I scooped him up on this sedum plant*

and brought him indoors to fluffen up.

I love bees and have dedicated my garden to bee friendly flowers,

so we have plenty of bees that need rescuing,

especially when they get trapped in our house.

To speed up the recuperation 

I administered a little honey,

I'm never sure if this is the correct thing to be doing,

but it is local honey!

Am I alone in my efforts?

* if you only have room for one bee plant

grow a sedum!

ps. just rescued a big bumble bee from my pond..phew.

Ha-B-y Weekend!

still life

Life has been anything but still this year.

Soon after the builders departed we made a swift exit to the West Country.

Now that we are home things have returned to normal,

 weather included.

I always come home with found treasure,

beachcomb fodder.

I often get attached to some sort of flotsam,

I cannot walk a beach with my head up.

I swear if I lived closer to the sea I would have a house made of driftwood

 or one of those grotesque shell grottos at the bottom of the garden.

Its now the time of year to collect seed, plant bulbs and make...
 raspberry vodka of course!

The latter is an experiment

a bit like sloe gin but with raspberries and vodka,

using what I have in an effort to keep things thrifty

and I have ALOT of raspberries.

To 300ml of vodka I squeezed in 220g of raspberries

and 100ishg of sugar.

The recipe says to shake for a week and then leave for 10 weeks

strain out the fruit (and errr eat them??)

and then...

leave for a year....

really?

As with most of my 'wing it' ideas

I shall let you know how this goes.

It looks very pretty anyways,

but not sure I can wait a year!

*Saunton Sands beach.

shoofly quilt reveal

Amidst the chaos of the dust and the workmen

I have managed somehow to finish my shoofly...

..on time as well.

This quilt was always destined for my friend Karen.

Whose 40th birthday was on Sunday.

Anyone who knows her will know that she is crazy about butterflies,

hence forth I give you

'Madame Butterfly'

The fabrics are a mix of old and new,

with a splash of butterfly.

My first choice of backing and quilting did not go so well.

The decision to unpick was made

and a manic dash into town thankfully produced the new backing

 and some matching bonus binding

all in one package.

(regards TKMaxx and Kirstie Allsopp bedding)

I fell back on some fmq 

as my straight lines were causing me a headache.

Loopy quilting is so much fun..and I only caught the backing in once!

So there we are one very special kingsize quilt,

with an added subliminal message quilted in.

All wrapped up and ready to go!

ps. she loved it.

pps. the workmen have finished, just the decorating to do now!

coming soon...

the shoofly quilt reveal!

wordless wednesday

sunday sewing

Madame Shoofly!