I heart air conditioning

We had a mini heatwave over the weekend which hopefully is now over. It went up to 31 degrees yesterday.  We were away at a lace weekend (DH kindly agreed to drive me as it was difficult to reach by public transport) and I was quite worried because last year the same event was held in non-airconditioned classrooms which were like ovens, and every night was an ordeal in the sauna-like bedrooms with windows that only opened a couple of inches.  This year it had moved to a new venue which to my delight was almost fully air conditioned.  So while DH was out in the heat yesterday looking around the area, I was happily making lace in a lovely cool classroom and even putting a cardigan on occasionally.  Margaret Wall came along to sell her bobbins at the event and I bought this lovely bobbin handpainted with lace.

I was trying another piece of Floral Bucks lace, this one out of Alex Stillwell's book.  It's much simpler than the edging I have on my other pillow, but still had some puzzles to solve.  I'm fairly pleased with how I got on, achieving a full repeat over the weekend and picking up lots of tips.

On the way up, we stopped into the Ferrers Centre  in Leicestershire which had been recommended by a colleague.  It's a converted Georgian stableyard with several artisan studios and a nice tearoom.  It was rather hard to find, being pretty much in the middle of nowhere and quite poorly signposted, but we got there in the end.  I was pleased to find a little quilt shop in a corner unit, Country Cottage Crafts.  I'm still looking for a border fabric for my 30s Sampler Quilt but the shop assistant just looked blank when I asked about 30s-style fabrics.  I did find this, which has geometric shapes that are reminiscent of 30s.  It looks alright with the quilt top, not sure I love it.  I'm going to give it a few days and see if it grows on me.

I was out last Sunday on a coach trip with my gardening club to visit the Rose Festival at  Peter Beales Garden Centre  and the Water Gardens at Gooderstone (both in Norfolk).  Peter Beales are multi-Chelsea Flower Show award winners and the show gardens were stunning - albeit rather cluttered up with marquees and people for the craft show cum festival going on. I'd like to go back again another time when it's not so crowded.  They were offering 15% off for the festival so I came away with a lovely flowering carpet style red rose which I now need to find somewhere to plant in the garden. Apparently they grow 1100 varieties of roses and there is lots of companion planting as well.

The Gooderstone Water Gardens were quite charming, very naturalistic, with little formal planting.  Various canals and ponds were excavated many years ago and then planted all around, and there's also a nature trail through the adjoining Fens.  These two swans were resting right next to the garden path and weren't the least bit bothered by the visitors.

The best bit though was a kingfisher hide on the edge of a big pond.  When we were Cumbria, DH glimpsed a kingfisher briefly near our cottage, and I looked fruitlessly the rest of the week to see one.  After only a few minutes in this hide, a PAIR of kingfishers flew up and landed on a branch not too far away, and one obligingly hung around to have his photo taken by everyone in the hide. Beautiful birds.

Our strawberry patch has started producing this years crop and we managed to save some from the slugs and woodlice.  We never get more than a few handfuls but they crop most of the summer.

I've had very little time lately due to an exam in my Japanese class and all the time away from home, but I did modify the punchcard for my self-designed machine knit cushion and did a tension sample which was obviously off because this is the end result which came out half a repeat too long.  It's the right width though, so I'm going to sew across to secure the stitches and cut off the excess, then turn under the edge.  I'm fairly pleased with it.  The cushion I bought at B&M has four buttons so I may cut them off and resew them through the knitting, otherwise there would be odd dimples.