Patchwork quilt 2016

Many years ago I decided to hand sew a patchwork quilt. As with other things it got put aside as life got in the way. My husband used to joke that we would be lucky if it got finished by the time we retired.....He wasn't far wrong! It was finally finished in 2016, after approximately 25 years! 

Modern material, penguins.

A button as a flower :) I soon realized that I was going to be unable to quilt something this size, so chose to sew pretty small buttons in the centre of each 'flower' to hold all the layers together. It worked really well I am pleased to say :)

Cats because I love cats :)

Lovely heart material, given to me by a friend.

Cats again :)

Poppies, my favourite flowers :)

Material from my daughters favourite dress when she was small :)

Needlework material from another friend.

I made this one very early on, the material was given to me by a lovely customer in the Library where I worked. She was so helpful, and gave me lots of advice. 

Modern colourful material - frogs :)

Cats :)

Autumn colours :)

Floral patches.

The reverse patch to the Autumn colours a bit further up :)

Flower pots

Solitary penguin surrounded by yellow

Yellow centre, surrounded by penguins, the opposite to the previous patch :)

Finally, what the quilt looks like on our bed. Every flower is different. I thoroughly enjoyed making this even though it did take a very long time to make. 

Chartwell - the home of Winston Churchill

Chartwell is near Westerham in Kent, it was home of Winston Churchill for forty years. We decided to visit the house last year, and travelled up in August, only to find that there were no tickets left to view the house. Instead we had a lovely time walking round the beautiful gardens. We did a return visit earlier this year and went round the house, so the photos below have been taken over two years.

Winston Churchill loved to sit here to look at the fish :)

Beautiful walkways, full of Summer flowers.

Gorgeous roses.

Winston Churchill's garden studio, where he liked to go and paint. Inside are lots of his art works.

Beautiful borders.

The plaque which shows the names of the people who bought the house and presented it to the National Trust in 1945.

The lovely weather vane.

The house as seen from the garden.

Steps leading to another part of the garden.

Gorgeous dahlias :) 

One of three pet graves, Rufus 1947, I am guessing Rufus was a dog.

Wonderful views over the Weald of Kent.

Inside the house, in February this year. I asked if I was OK to include some photos on my blog. The lovely man I spoke to said I was fine to share photos of room views but not individual items, which was fine with me. There are some beautiful items in the house, which need to be seen, so I would definitely recommend a visit  :)

The beautiful, comfortable sitting room.

The Library on the Ground Floor.

The typists office, next to the Library.

Upstairs, Lady Churchill's bedroom. 

Above and below is Churchill's Study, which leads on from Lady Churchill's bedroom. 

Churchill's bedroom is beyond the Study, I think there was some work being done so was unavailable for us to see.

Downstairs again, the beautiful Dining Room overlooking the garden.

The kitchen;

Also situated in the house are the Museum Room and the Uniform Room, both well worth seeing. There are many artifacts in the house, which are very interesting to see.

We spent quite a while looking round both the gardens and the house. I think it was worth visiting twice, the whole site is amazing, we all enjoyed our visits very much :)

Flashback 2010 - the gardens of Derek Jarman and Brian Yale, Dungeness, Kent.

Prospect Cottage Dungeness.

As the heading to this blog says, these photos were taken in 2010. Derek Jarman's garden is famous, but in 2010 most of the plants in the garden had more or less gone. I would have loved to have seen this garden in full bloom, but we were lucky enough to also have seen Brian Yale's garden just two doors away. 

Prospect Cottage, Dungeness, the home of Derek Jarman from 1986. 

The 'writing on the wall' of Prospect Cottage. The poem is from John Donne's 'The Sun Rising'

Some of the items that were still in the garden in 2010.

Derek Jarman lived here until his death in 1994, after his death the cottage was looked after by his partner Keith Collins until he too passed away in 2018. The Cottage and Garden were bought in 2020 by Art Fund, with Creative Folkestone being the custodians of the site, thereby saving this amazing place for the nation.

100 yards further on from Prospect Cottage is the garden of Brian Yale. An artist like Derek Jarman, he filled his garden with recycled junk. We spent ages looking at all the items here. For a long time I thought this was all Derek Jarman's garden.

The rope man

Clever use of bits of driftwood, a fish :)

The rocket.

A boat.

The Wishing Well

Yachts sailing, and a rope snake in the background. 

The outline of a boat filled with shoes and all sorts of items washed up on the beach.

Another view of the boat, Prospect Cottage can be seen in the background with its distinctive yellow windows.

Interesting stones set in the grass.

Best in class, Crufts 2007. It is amazing what can be made with driftwood and rusty nails :)

Owls within an Owl's head,

Sea glass 

Another owl

A dinosaur?

The Pilgrims....

...each with a face.

Not sure what this represented?

The lovely time piece. Each piece of slate had something written on it.

Back to the clock, I thought this was amazing, my favourite piece :)

Some of the slates with their messages.

Viagra needed!!

The Millennium Dome complete with the Millennium Bug 

More sea glass.

Messages in bottles, arranged in a heart shape.

Some of the seven deadly sins.

Clever!

The message on the slate above translates as 'Love Conquers All'

Rope sculptures.

 Brian Yale's cottage and Garden.

Walking round the two gardens was just amazing, but please bear in mind this was 2010, we have been down to this spot more recently and as far as I can recall most of the things in Brian Yale's garden have gone, which is a real shame. I am really pleased that we got to see this when we did :)