The Last Makes of Winter

Well, I’ve been back from my visit to see Mlle. Tialys the Elder in the U.K. for a week now but, as usual with me, it takes a while to get back into what passes for any sort of routine in my life.

I was very lucky with the weather and I know this because people were in shorts, t-shirts and other summer clothing and frolicking on Bournemouth’s sandy beach while the ice cream vans were doing a great trade.  England in February is not how I remember it but, being made soft by the warmer climes in S.W. France, I still had my coat on and, at times, a scarf despite it being the hottest February day ever (allegedly).  When I got back to Toulouse last week the temperature was 25 degrees C and that’s not right either although it has dropped to ‘normal for the time of year’ here now and I believe the British tabloids are predicting an ‘icy blast’ for the U.K. which remains to be seen but I think they are even more obsessed than usual with the weather in a bid to write about anything other than Brexit.

I did the usual things – fish & chips, Dorset cream teas, curry, Sunday brunch,  bizarrely flavoured hot cross buns from M & S  and even popped into a Japanese restaurant for our last evening there which happened to be the birthday of Mlle. Tialys the Younger – lover of all things Japanese.  I descended on the ubiquitous charity shops and had a lovely smoked haddock dish in a quayside pub (the smoked haddock here is over-dyed to the brightest orange you’ve ever seen and very expensive).  I also had the best facial treatment I’ve ever had, using the voucher Mlle T. the Elder gave to me for Christmas, in the spa section of the original Lush shop in Poole.  I was so relaxed I didn’t even feel the urge to shoot the seagulls keeping me awake at night until two days later.

We went to the Oceanarium right on the beach in Bournemouth which was good – especially their lovely sea turtle. ( NOTE;  Re-reading this I realise it makes it sound like a restaurant 😱)  We were lectured on the terrible problems of plastics in the ocean and the top ten single use plastic items found in the sea.  As is usual with most such places now we were forced to walk through the gift shop before we could exit which was ironic considering it was filled with a lot of plastic goods, including balloons which were in their top ten villains chart.  I feel a letter coming on.

I wore a dress I’d made but not blogged about.  It’s another Lady Skater dress – one of my go to patterns.  This was actually made for Mlle T. the Younger but due to the fabric being a very stable cotton jersey without a lot of widthways stretch, it didn’t fit her and I had to keep it instead.  Shame. I did have enough fabric left to make her a t-shirt though which she will probably get much more wear out of.  I don’t have as many winter dresses as summer dresses so it will come in useful.

Now where did I put the iron – that hem needs a press.

The two person coat making workshop my friend Sandra and I are doing on Wednesday afternoons has been held up by her missing a couple of weeks due to illness and by me going off to England.  However, I haven’t forgotten it and have done a few bits alone otherwise it won’t be ready for next Winter, let alone this one.

The sleeves are quite ‘snug’ but I’m not going to undo the top seam because the stitches just sink into that fabric and are hard to find, plus the fraying is horrendous if you fiddle about too much with it so I’ll just have to remember I can’t wear a thick jumper underneath which I don’t normally do with a coat anyway.  I wouldn’t mind but my arms are anything but thick so I would recommend sewing that top arm seam at 1cm rather than 1.5cm if you’re using this pattern.

You can see the swing shape in this back view.

‘Just’ got the facings to go on those fronts and then the collar to do and the exterior is finished.  Then comes the lining, which I’m scared of as it’s slippy and has to fit nicely inside and I’ve never lined a anything other than a skirt and a dress before.  It’s starting to look like I actually might successfully make a coat!

So, I have been reading all of your blogs but that’s an update of some of my goings on – should be able to get back to normal now I’ve written a post.

 

 

 

 

A Little Break and A Lot of Fabric

I’m sorry if I’ve fallen a bit behind with comments on your blogs for the past couple of weeks but I sort of went ‘off grid’ for a while which I am now paying for with mountains of emails to read through.

Guess where I’ve been?

Fish and chips on Brighton pier and a glass of Pimms – can it get more English than that?  I never eat the mushy peas though.

Mlle. Tialys the elder took the Friday off work and we spent a long weekend together.  In Brighton (see above), meeting up with an old friend (no photos of our Prosecco fuelled nostalgic ramblings) and a trip to Walthamstow Market which is right at the end of the Victoria line on the tube but Mlle. T. had heard rumours of good fabric to be had there so we made the pilgrimage.

I was slightly disappointed because although there were multitudinous fabric shops behind the market stalls, the vast majority of them carried sari fabric and the like which, though beautiful, isn’t what I usually buy to make my distinctly more conservative clothing.  However, Mlle. T. was looking for some sparkly stuff to make a ‘unicorn dress’ which she will be making to wear to a wedding where all the guests have been asked to wear costume.  Also, she needed some fabric that looks like chain mail to complete an outfit she is making to wear to this year’s Comic Con (a comic book convention where people wear costumes based on their favourite characters from comic books/fantasy/Dr. Who/manga/etc.  So, the sparkly, colourful fabrics were a treasure trove for her.

This is who she’s going as.  I’m hoping Security will let her in.

Haberdashery galore – all these beautiful fringes and trims were very cheap and I was dying to buy some but couldn’t bring a project to mind where I could use any – and I did try!!

Frankly, the rest of the stalls were mostly the usual market tat although the fruit and veg looked very good.

Despite these difficulties, we did manage to find a few bits and pieces.   I had to leave my fabric haul behind as I had travelled with cabin bag only and couldn’t fit it all in once I’d rampaged through Marks and Spencer’s lingerie department and stocked up on plain white t-shirts in Primani.  Mr. T. will, hopefully, remember to stuff his cabin bag with it all and bring it home with him tonight and then I’ll show you what I bought – none of it is sparkly, glittery or sequinned though as my days of dressing as a unicorn are now behind me.  I can’t walk in hooves any more.

Walthamstow Market is apparently the longest in Europe.   We took three hours to get down it and about 10 minutes to walk back.  We then collapsed into a café where we were the only English speakers so I really did feel like I was on holiday.

We could have gone into this traditional Pie and Mash shop to eat I suppose.  It has been granted Grade II listed status (see blue plaque to right of it) and dates from the 1920s with beautifully preserved decor inside.  Despite being a Londoner by birth and upbringing, I have never liked jellied eels or eels cooked in any other way or even the mention of eels and, even though I think the pies they serve now are made with minced beef, the aversion lingers and I’m not a big fan of mashed potatoes unless I make them myself and ensure that all trace of lumps are extinguished (school dinners anyone?) and I’m not sure about the green liquor either.  All in all, I was probably better of with a panini in the Polish café.

However, here is a photograph of the interior which, had I known was this beautiful, would at least have had a cup of tea in there or something.

On Monday Mlle. T. went back to work and I had a hygienist appointment (as such a profession doesn’t exist in France) and a bra fitting in M & S.  Nobody can say I don’t know how to enjoy myself.

Not only tempted by the bras and knickers, I bought myself some lunch in M & S to take back to the flat before setting off to my Mum’s to spend the night before returning, with her, to France.

This is a beetroot and feta wrap with a pea, edamame and avocado crush.

In case you were wondering.

Meanwhile, the garden furniture I’d ordered had arrived in France and Mr. T. sent me a photo of how it was being appreciated in my absence.

Mum’s visit is now over and I took her back to the airport yesterday afternoon so I’m catching up with ‘stuff’.  While she was here I abandoned the sewing and indulged my new crochet obsession – I have two blankets on the go at the moment but I’ll save that for the next post.

 

Like The Queen

Like the Queen, I had a big birthday in June and, also like the Queen, I managed to spread the celebrations throughout the whole of the month of June.  Unlike the Queen I at no point wore a tiara or lime green outfit and I didn’t turn 90 – but one day I just might.

Anyway, that’s my excuse for not blogging myself, not commenting on some of your blogs as much as I usually do and generally being out of cyber circulation.  In order to get myself back in the swing of things and start posting again on a vaguely regular basis, here is a brief whizz through some of the things I got up to.

I flew over to Bristol and met up with Mr. Tialys in the beautiful city of Bath , with its Roman baths and wonderful Georgian architecture, where we stayed for 3 days in a delightful ’boutique guest house’ called Dukes which is run by the most charming people and, if and when I am next in Bath, I will refuse to stay anywhere else.

A bouquet of flowers (from himself) and a bottle of something sparkly (from my friend) were waiting for us when we got into the room.

Here’s something I can cross off my bucket list.

The left hand pillow was not crumpled when we arrived but Mr. T. couldn’t resist flinging himself on to the bed when we arrived and I forgot to straighten it before the photo.  But you get the idea.

After a lovely weekend of eating good food, visiting the American Museum (mostly for the quilts but it was all interesting), admiring the city generally and avoiding the Euro 2016 matches being shown in almost every pub,  Mr. T returned to France to take over the dog wrangling from my friend who was house and dog sitting and I took the train up to London to spend some time with Mlle Tialys the elder who has just finished University and therefore not averse to hanging out with me for a bit.

We went to Camden Market and did five circuits of the street food market before we could decide what to eat but, on the actual day of my birthday we went to one of my favourite places (Brighton) and had fish and chips on Brighton Pier with a glass of sparkly.

I couldn’t eat it all 😦

…. and I certainly couldn’t go on the helter-skelter afterwards.

My daughter wore a dress she had made herself which had a foxy print and people kept complementing her on it so she was very pleased and encouraged to keep on with her sewing.

We went to Ditto Fabrics (as I always do when I go to Brighton) and I was very restrained and bought three pieces of fabric with a specific purpose in mind.  The purple jersey on the left (obviously Liberty but not priced as such), will be a sleeveless skater dress for my other daughter.  The middle navy and white cotton will be the backing for a quilt I’ll be making for Mr. Tialys and the one on the right will be a skirt.  Does anybody recognise it from the penultimate episode of the Great British Sewing Bee?  When I bought it the assistant told me it would be on the show that week but I thought she’d got it confused with the African Wax Fabric section in a previous week – not because it is wax fabric but because of the pattern – but then it appeared.

We went to see a girly film –  Me Before You – because we knew nobody else would ever want to watch it with us – and had a weep, along with the rest of the (almost uniquely female) audience.

I then went to see my Mum and had dinner with an old friend who I’m hoping I can persuade to come over to France for a visit now that her son is off to University.  I’m talking to you Alyson!!  We didn’t get anybody to take a photo – I refuse to take selfies – but here is one of us both in Brussels from back in the day when we both worked for an airline and got ‘staff travel’ so could zip off to European cities for a day trip at weekends for next to nothing.

We looked everywhere for that bloody Manneken Pis – expecting it to be much bigger (these were the days before Google!) – and were mightily unimpressed when we found it.  I have no idea why we are both wearing cords and something resembling a hacking jacket but it probably made sense at the time.

On the Saturday morning of my flight home, I had booked myself into a Tilly and the Buttons workshop on Freestyle Machine Embroidery.  I have messed about with it a bit myself but wanted to learn from scratch and pick up some tips and I do love a workshop.

 We were given a choice of two designs to work on – a pair of scissors or a cat – but I went off piste and did my own for which I had a good reason – to be revealed at a later date.  It was good fun and we had a lovely, enthusiastic teacher called Sophia Palmer of Jessalli.   I will definitely be playing around with this technique on some future projects but am also hoping it will be useful with my attempts at free motion quilting.

I flew back to France with a planeload of Welsh football supporters who were coming over for the Euro 2016 match against Russia – which was fun!

Then I had a birthday lunch with some friends here but the photos the waitress took of us are too terrible to be displayed in the public arena.  They were made worse by the fact that it was a hot, sunny day and we are all bathed in the blood-red light caused by the scarlet parasol shading the table so we look as if we are all having a hot flush at the same time – which could have happened actually but that’s beside the point.

The following Thursday I treated my friend and house-sitter to dinner at the amazingly beautiful l’Abbaye-Chateau de Camon and we were a little early so had our aperitif on the terrace in a bower of  lush greenery.

Then, my birthday present from Mr. Tialys finally arrived home with him from the U.K.

This is a sculpture by U.K. artist Christine Cummings which he had ordered back at the end of April in order for it to be ready for my birthday but, what with one thing and another, he didn’t actually receive it until a couple of weeks after my birthday so he wasn’t best pleased.  However, as I had used the fact as an excuse to keep on going with the celebrations until I had my present,  I wasn’t worried at all!   Isn’t he gorgeous?  If I could ever bring myself to buy a dog from a breeder  – this is the dog I would have.  As that isn’t going to happen, I will content myself with one that doesn’t dig up the garden, poop and bark at inappropriate moments as I already have three who fulfil that brief adequately enough.

My liking for these dogs goes back to when my daughters were tiny and I used to read this book to them.

Which I still have – obviously! Along with most of the other books we read together.  Some things you just can’t part with.

Anyway, I might not have had as much pomp and ceremony as June’s other birthday girl but I enjoyed myself and, according to my mother who knows about these things,  managed to spread it out even longer than I usually do.  I can’t think what she means.

 

 

Curry, Chips and Chocolate – Maybe Not All At Once

 

 

I am off  to the U.K. for a few days tomorrow to visit my family and to get my fix of all things quintessentially English.  My invitation to the wedding has still not arrived so I won’t have to buy a hat but these are some of the things I will be availing myself of –

A curry(!)

Fish and chips

The V & A Museum

John Lewis

Brighton Pier

A West End Show

I will be fat and fatigued by the time I arrive back in France but ask me if I care?

I hope everybody who finds their way to my blog now and then (and other people too, of course) has a lovely Easter break with lots of chocolate, friends and family and some more beautiful spring weather.

 

Feeling A Bit Homesick Today!

Sometimes the feeling comes upon me and I feel homesick for England.  Sometimes I cure it by watching something very British like Dr. Who, sometimes I eat a bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, mostly I phone my mum.  Today I made a treasury on Etsy.

Homesick