University of the Third Age, Or U3A

Last month i joined the U3A. Its a self help organisation for people no longer in full time employment, providing education, creative and leisure opportunities in a friendly environment.

 I chose the photography group as i am very interested in taking good pictures for my blog. We meet once a month in a local village hall and usually  around 15 keen members attend.
Each month we are given a theme and told to take no more than three photos. The theme this month is winter.

Here are some winter photos

 Hide and seek in the wood.

 A hard frost

 All frozen over. 

Very early snowdrops

Skeletal trees

 Me with my twin sister in the woods. I am on the left.

I am really enjoying the photography group and looking forward to my next meeting at the beginning of February where i can show my three winter photos. 

My First attempt at American Patchwork.

Last September i joined a patchwork group. I wasn't sure if I'd like it or not so decided to give it a go. Well! i am know addicted to patchwork and just love my weekly classes.

I chose to make three samples of patchwork from The New Sampler Quilt book by Diana Leone, I've  made two and nearly finished the third one. The designs are all individual and stitched by hand.

 No 1 quilt. This was my first attempt and took me three months to complete.

 

 No 2 quilt. With a lot more confidence i managed to finish this one in 1 month. The old clothes horse was a rummage find last Saturday. I paid just 30p. What a bargain. I used some old gypsy pegs to peg it on the horse.

 I was'nt sure what to use them for, but think they good as table centres. The red one looked good on my white table.

 The green one goes well on my old pine table. I used some Laura Ashley fabric for the backing.

 My third piece of patchwork is not finished yet, but hopefully it will be done for my monthly project i am doing on my blog.

 All i need now is another table to put it on.

My next project is to make a friendship quilt, so watch this space..............

Creative lunch at Linda's

Julie, Joan and Cherry all from my contemporary craft group came for lunch yesterday. The lunch consisted of pumpkin soup, bread and a Victoria sponge filled with plum jam all made by me.( I haven't heard of any food poisoning yet) Everyone said they enjoyed their lunch.

The topic during our lunch was Valentines Day. At our last monthly meeting Julie set us a task to design and make a Valentine card then send it through the post. She gave each of us a plain postcard and said to use our creative side. Thinking outside the box....
Julie showed us some cards and designs she was making just to give us some ideas.

Cherry, Julie and Joan enjoying a laugh surrounded by Julie's work..

Joan giving a demonstration on how to make designs without cotton.

Joan showing us how to sew newspaper hearts onto card using cotton.

All three girls are very individual talented artists. I love working with them and feel they bring out my creative side.

I will be posting my valentine cards as soon as they are finished.

Many thanks for your company yesterday girls and the lovely gifts you left me............xx

A Good Winters Read

Hi everyone hope you are all well and getting back to normal reality after the excitement of Christmas and the New Year holidays.

I don't know about you, but i find the winter months of January and February cold and wet so spend more time snuggled up indoors. My favourite pass time is sitting in my cosy lounge reading a Lesley Pearse novel. She is one of the UKs best loved novelists and has sold over 2 million copies.

Out of the twenty books Lesley has written i have read eighteen of them. So if you would like a good read with gripping story lines  that keep you hooked from beginning to end then Lesley's books are for you. Find out more about Lesley's books on her official website. At www.lesleypearse.com 

Here are some of the books i have read..........