Phew

Remember my post here about my wonderful RuleSteady?

My Fibro is getting worse and I am not sure if I could cut fabric without it anymore. It is a very expensive bit of kit, particularly by the time it is shipped over to England from Australia.

I dropped it. It broke. I was devastated.

 Then a couple of weeks later someone on Facebook had broken a ruler and people suggested she could fix it with a product called Plastic Surgery. It is relatively easy to buy over there. I found it from an American seller on Amazon UK. It took longer than normal to arrive, over 3 weeks. I read the instructions and it sounded a little like Superglue as it sets in seconds.

I unscrewed the wooden handle and this is when I saw it was broken on both sides.... I had nothing to lose at this point.

And it has worked. I waited 24 hours before I tried it out and it is fine. I am so happy.

Last Friday we went to lunch at the Bell at Skenfrith. I had been told it was pretty round there. It was magical. We have so many magical places round here, I love it. I took my camera but the batteries were flat but DH had his phone. Heaven save me from iPhones. I have no idea why, but on every photo it took eleven shots in rapid sucession.
I shall share what I managed to take.

A pretty little house, possibly the vicarage. The church is right behind it and the castle to the right.

 People were shorter then....

 The river Monnow runs right beside the castle. A swan was nesting on the island.

I imagine when it is warm, the temptation to get into the river is irresistable.

 I couldn't work out if the wooden structure on the church was a dove cote or not.

 The doors are scaled down. I suspect the church gets flooded and those sandbags are evidence.

Such a pretty place. I would love to live there but the flood risk would worry me.

I am always learning.

But let me start with a progress report. It might not look like much but there are hours and hours of work in there.

It helps when I take photos even if I cannot see it all in one shot. I can compare last weeks photos with the new ones and I can see some progress.

 Cat hairs and fluff.

George just has to lie on this quilt whilst I am working on it and even when I am not if I don't shut the door. Can you see the cat hair and fluff he brings with him. I know I shall not be able to stop him, he isn't a dog. Training cats is possible but only to a point. So my new quilting tool is this clothes brush. At least I can stop stitching cat hairs into the quilt....

I had been worrying about why when I gave the tutorial on doing the tricky gridwork why the little elipses didn't stand as proud as they do on the quilt. I thought it might be because the fabric is slightly heavier. Then I had a light bulb moment in the middle of the night. It didn't stand proud of the background because I had drawn the grid with the weave of the fabric. Twist it round to the bias where the fabric has a little stretch and it works so much better.

Spring is here. The flowers are starting to come into bloom and the birds start singing at about 4.30am. I loved the colours of the birds when I lived in Australia but the song of British birds takes some beating.

And I have had a delivery. These will be the basis of my next quilt. The plan is to make one in these fabrics and an identical pattern in something completely different.