Rainbow gratitude...

Would you like a peek inside yesterday's vintage fabric boxes? This one houses white(ish) stuff that I'm prepared to use (i.e. not my lace collection).

Following that we get onto (roughly) the colours of the rainbow:There's nothing to say about what's inside - you can see it yourself! So I'm just going to list a few things I'm grateful for:

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - the film, shared with a temporarily out-of-action 14 year old.Doctors who phone in their lunch-hour to confirm that a swollen knee and pins-and-needles in the foot is OK.Paracetamol.

Ibuprofen.

Ice-blocks.Hoovered floors and cleaned bathrooms - my mental energy is returning!Toasted sandwiches for two at lunch.Simon Schama's History of Britian on DVDs - Son 2 (yes, the young scatty one, not the older intellectual) captivated by seeing how his own heritage fits in to what he's learning at school in France. He can't WAIT for the Hundred Years War!

A new dishwasher - this one actually cleans things and genuinely uses the amount of energy it promises!A digital piano - Ben's big splash-out in the sales, to replace the falling-apart-and-Son-2-and-the-piano-teacher-refuse-to-play-it-any more old one.So I think that list took me from current medical issues to the slightly bigger picture! That was the aim of the exercise, I suppose... Thanks for joining me on it - feel free to comment on the pictures or the text!

Every work of craft tells a story...

And perhaps a quilt, more than any other. In the 1980s a young mother lived with her family on the beautiful French island of Réunion.

Life was busy, looking after her daughter,

and her son.

The tropical nature of the island

influenced her choice of colourful clothes and fabrics.

But she was culturally French as well, and the most traditional fabrics of France,were available to her, on her tropical island on the other side of the world.

Along with some more modern fabrics printed in French too!The patterns and colours of her ancestral Africa
appealed to herand looked great on her,but she also had some fabricsjust like the ones I wore, or craved, in England, at that time.Throughout the 80s she saved the family's old clothes and furnishing fabrics,And in the '90s, when her family was growing up and life was a bit less hectic,she started putting everything together into a quilt.She didn't buy any fabric,having so much in her stash after years of saving,and the happy memories triggered while cutting and stitchingwere as satisfying as the crafting itself.When her handsome young son had finished his education on the island,he left for France, where he did well at university, met and maried a beautiful French woman, and was given the quilt by his proud mother.I met him, his wife, and their little daughter, on Sunday, at the local school Vide Grenier.
The sight of these two charming people, folding up the quilt in the strong French sunlight, will stay with me as I begin the enjoyable task of mending it and learning still more about the woman who made it.

11 euros well spent...

11 euros of our hard-earned cash went to people in need across France and the world, today. In other words, I popped into a charity shop...

Amusingly this plate, which the man in the shop carefully wrapped in newspapers, is plastic! So instead of hanging it lovingly on the wall, I can use it for meals in the garden. One of those coming up soon...
With the garden party in mind, I decided to seek out some cheap, flowery-themed plates and serving bowls, so that our good Denbyware doesn't end up broken, but that we have something more appropriate than mis-matched and scratched plastic picnic plates. This is a pretty little design and I know I'll find loads more to match/mismatch it. 2 euros for two plates and four bowls - useful for crudites, olives etc.For years we've been using proper (hygenic) cloths in the kitchen, rather than kitchen roll, and we've had cloth napkins for a year now, all in the name of not wasting paper. Inspired by Sarah of The Blueberry Patch, I decided it was time to go for a few cloth handkerchiefs too... And there were other fabrics in my favourite colour too!This charity shop is up near the aerospatial industries, meaning that a lot of English speakers live around there. One of them donated their Agatha Christie collection! It was meant to be 50 cents for each book, but I'm sure I got charged less for a bulk buy... And last but not least, a little granny apron! Not as lovely as the one currently winging its way to Olga, but not bad for the price...

11 euros well spent, I am sure.

Do click on the invitation at the left of my blog - everyone welcome!

Flowers, strawberries and... vinegar?

Hello again! Thanks for all your lovely comments. I had a productive day yesterday, posting off my Sweet Tweet Swap parcel to Ele in the USA, and the Auld Alliance Giveaway to Olga in Poland. I learned a lot too - Olga is originally from Belarus - I told you she is well travelled.

For those who aren't sure how to pick up my award, I know the feeling! I finally discovered that you just right click on the picture, click 'save as' and use it exactly as you would a photo in your post or on your side bar. But it took me a while to work that out... My lessons were all cancelled yesterday, as my private pupils were in school (usually, Wednesday is a sports and outside activities day for children in French primary schools). Son 1 had the afternoon off as usual, being in secondary school, but he was my only company all day... I got sewing, taking my small sewing basket to his piano lesson with me. When I glimpsed it inside our modern(ish) car I realised how vintage everything in it is!

My mother and I both collected, and used, vintage sewing items through the 1980s. We had a natural division of the spoils - she prefers more elegant, 'Edwardian Lady' type pieces, while I have always loved the 1930s 'Milly Molly Mandy' flowers... I'll try to get some photos of her vintage sewing things when I'm in Edinburgh next month.My little sewing project for the day was fabric flowers. So many of you have been asking 'what are you going to do with all those buttons?' that I thought I'd better get started! I quite like these, although if any of you has a pattern for something more realistic I'd be interested to try it. I think I'll use them at my 40th birthday Garden Party (more on that soon...)Whilst both boys were enjoying the pool in the sunny early evening, I got round to cleaning out the fire. It's our only real source of heat throughout the winter, and we lit it several times in April to dry out soggy cyclists and wet clothes when we had a spell of bad weather. Therefore, I'm always reluctant to put it into summer mode too quickly - but now is the time!French fires have a wonderful glass door which allows you to keep the fire burning all night without risk. By the end of the winter the glass looks like this:But I have a secret weapon:

Spot the gingham, Sarah!

Once everything was clean, I stacked up some pretty logs (including ones from our poor fallen tree) and some pine cones, and shut the glass doors until autumn.

Before I got vinegary, I finally baked the wonderful shortbread recipe that Sumea's friend Betty gave her. I totally recommend it, as do the rest of the family!We ate it with strawberries, peaches and cream or ice cream of choice...It being strawberry season, Ben got making jam again...Sticky kitchen season starts again - it's another long weekend here for us, and we'll be cherry picking tomorrow!