Under the Tuscan sun

The lovely Teresa of Oregon (give her a wave!) said I should put up some photos of my travels so I thought why not! I'll be able to look back and think about all the nice things I saw and did :-)

I took far too many photos (not nearly as many as my brother who was on several hundred on day 2) so I decided to make a couple of mosaics so you aren't here all day...


Some of the little features in European cities (think Florence, Rome, Paris, Barcelona...) are just beautiful! I just don't see this sort of thing back in England, look at the amazing door bells and post boxes!

And of course the buildings are just stunning too! The leaning tower of Pisa leans a lot more than I actually thought, I really am surprised it's still standing to be honest.


The range of colours of the builings, gold, pink, yellow, blues are really beauttiful.


If you've followed my blog for a while you'll know I love flowers! Tuscany hasn't disappointed me, even though it's so hot they still have an amazing variety of plants that obviously love the climate and look stunning!


A little more unusual but something I also really love is the grafitti - not like we end up with here in England with a load of rubbish "tags" and mess - these I like to call street art! They're done with stencils and I've seen loads when I've been to Europe (you can see my set here) There were a couple I didn't want to post because there was a bit of swearing involved & I didn't want to offend anyone :-)

See you soon!

x x x

Tulips

I almost always buy what my mum calls pinks at the supermarket but on this occasion I was inspired by Lucy at Attic 24 and went with pink tulips. They've just started to open out and they're so beautiful aren't they? A definite future purchase!





Onto more crafty stuff now, I finished my friends cushion I'd been making on and off for a few weeks and here it is!




Lovely flowery buttons :-)

Happy Valentines Day

I'm not sure why I've chosen to write about Valentines Day as I'm not really one for celebrating it (an agreement that my other half is probably quite pleased about) but these hearts had been lying around since our anniversary, so if you do celebrate today, this is for you :-)

I've been busy in the garden (technically balcony) again and can't believe how fast a year has gone. I learnt a lot last year about what-not-to-do when sewing seeds and I've cut back on how many I'm sewing because it's a real pain to be honest! I don't feel like sun flowers this year but I am looking forward to the nasturtiums coming back (the bees like them!)

This is the cushion I've been making for a friends 30th birthday in a few weeks and I'm really pleased, I just hope she likes it. J commented how much faster I am at making squares now which is a bloody good thing in my opinion as I've been doing it almost solidly for a year now!

After a busy day of pottering there is nothing better than a good cup of Yorkshire Tea, and what cup of tea would be complete without cake or a donut?

I'm getting really into a little crochet thing called Amigurumi and have been following a great little tutorial to make a cup of tea from Ana Paula's blog, check it out because there are some adorable tutorials and even I seem able to make them. Maybe I'll upload some photos next time if I ever finish Mr Brew.

Happy New Year

Well I had a feeling this might happen because my patients is about as long as a caterpillar (I even stopped writing this sentance to pick at my fingernails) and I loose interest in things very quickly - it is a wonder I am still making this blanket because it will be a year come March! So yes I did expect that blogging would fall by the wayside but I suppose this is better late than never.

I have moved flats and this is very exciting because I have the sun now all day long (when it's out) and things are warm! I've seen people move into my old flat (I didn't move far at all!) and I feel sorry for how cold they will be.

Enough about that, this is the blanket so far! I'm 10 rows in so thats just over half way, cannot-believe-it! It's definitlely going to fall into March though but I guess a year isn't bad by my standards.

These flowers are making me smile too, I got the vase / jug in TKMaxx today (another impulse buy) and I couldn't be more pleased with it!

This blue and white cushion is a new addition to the already full-of-cushions sofa but I think it's quite a nice one, unlike the ugly cushion below. People seem to like it! The colours are bad. They used to be in the blanket but I decided early on to omit them (apart from the odd middle here and there) and I'm so glad I did.