Greetings from bonnie Scotland

Well we have arrived safely at our destination and kept ourselves busy over the past few days. Thus far we have gotten over our jet lag, found out about trains and buses to various locations, visited Stirling Castle, Dunblane Cathedral, Callander (and the world famous Hamish), done some shopping, watched my nephews playing soccer, and visited family. We have to keep re-arranging our schedule because of the stormy weather. The local streams and rivers are steadily rising. All going well we will be heading off to Glasgow tomorrow.
The Chelsea Flower Show starts tomorrow but the closest we will get to that is watching it on the telly :) The news media is all geared up for the iminent arrival of President Obama.

PIF gift from ........

My PIF gift from Cheryl has arrived. A hand made bag and a sparkly long scarf. I love them both.

I might take the bag with me to Scotland. It's just the right size for my wallet and camera. Hop on over to Cheryl's blog to see what else she has been doing. http://stitchingcubbyhole.blogspot.com/

Hand sewing

I'm teaching one of my friends how to hand sew/quilt. The purpose behind this ....... to repair some quilt tops her grandmother made. They were damaged in a fire a couple of years ago. They have all cleaned up quite well (mostly smoke damage and stains) and now the seam repair work is in process.
This is the one we are currently working on. It will eventually be turned into a summer weight quilt since a lot of the fabrics are quite fragile. Once my friend feels comfortable with the hand sewing, (she's doing quite well) we are planning on having an old fashioned sewing bee :)

The fabrics are lovely BUT they vary from very thin to heavyweight which definitely has caused some issues. The seams are all nicely hand sewn BUT a variety of thread was used (including embroidery floss). We may have to replace some of the seams sewn with floss but that can wait till the others are sewn back together.
I'll share photographs of the other quilts and blocks when I get back from my vacation.

It's hot .......

..... and we have Lilies blooming and 13 year Cicadas emerging. I'm off to Scotland next week and will be back sometime in June.

The Lilies bloomed this morning. I love the color.

The Cicada nymphs are taking over one of our large trees. Once they molt they will turn black with bright red eyes. I'll have to ask hubbie to watch our peach tree and red bud tree since they still have fairly slender branches.

The Peonies are still looking good.

Since I am going out of town I might not be participating in Bloggers Quilt Festival this coming week. I'll have to think about that. It starts on Friday. Thanks to Amy for hosting this again, it's always wonderful. The link is in my side bar.