Home Again - Klosjes & Flowers

We're back in Jersey having had a lovely break visiting Mum in France. She lives in rural Brittany which is very quiet & relaxing with beautiful countryside as in Bon Repos above. This is where the Daoulas river joins the canal which runs from Nantes to Brest & in the background you can see the ruins of the abbey gradually being restored having been destroyed by fire centuries ago.

I managed to finish the Klosjes quilt just in time, Mum was thrilled & surprised with her gift.

I had taken it to work at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust before we left & made the most of our beautiful grounds & granite buildings around the Manor house to have a little photo shoot.

The white door at the top of the above picture is the entrance to my office.

As I had been spending most of my time focusing on finishing the Klosjes quilt, my hexi flowers had been neglected ........

.........but I managed to make a few whilst on holiday

5 more were added to the pile

and a few clamshells were stitched too!

More to be revealed at the end of the month!

Step into my garden ..........

........and sit down to do a little stitching

It's quite a small garden, approximately 5.5 metres square & surrounded by a high wall which creates a micro-climate allowing me to grow some topical plants in this temperate zone.

As you can see I collect plants, especially ones that flower

The California lilac (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus) is now in bloom & smells heavenly when you're sitting next to it, this variety is 'Skylark', a deeper blue & flowers a little later than other varieties.

3 days ago the jasmine was just in bud

.......and is now starting to bloom. This plant is just outside the lounge door & smells divine as it wafts into the living room in the evening.

This year my hardy orchid (Bletilla) has decided to flower again, it is a ground orchid which lives in my semi shady border & dies back in the winter, to re-emerge each spring.

Growing amongst the Cape leadwort (Plumbago auriculata) are the 3 new additions to my hexie flower garden. This plant produces the most beautiful sky blue flowers during the summer, here's a little sneak peek from last year as it is a little early yet.


Well I hope you've enjoyed the little tour of some of my plants, as others decide to come out of hiding, I'll introduce you to them one by one.Happy gardening & stitching of course!

Blooming Flowers

Isn't it wonderful that so many beautiful flowers are blooming all over blogland! Karen's participant list keeps growing week by week as more gardeners join in the challenge to make at least one hexie flower each Wednesday. Here are the latest additions to my garden for One Flower Wednesday.

I'm still having great fun fussy cutting these hexagons & am amazed at the pattern variations created from the one striped fabric........so far it seems like the possibilities are endless!

I've settled on this layout for the quilt that will eventually be created with these hexagons. They are appliqued to 8.5" white squares with smaller red hexie flowers as fill ins, which will also hopefully tie it altogether.

One Flower Wednesday & Can you resist a Bargain?

Well I certainly can't when it comes to fabric! So this is how I ended up with 3 metres of the above for just £10.00 last summer but when the package arrived I was a bit dissapointed to see they were metallic & shoved them in the cupboard thinking I'll make use of them some day.

Last week I came across this fabric again whilst looking for something else & saw it in a new light........wouldn't it be great for fussy cutting hexagons with all those different designs in the stripes?

I had been admiring all the beautiful hexi-flower gardens growing over the last few weeks & this was the perfect excuse to join in too! I believe the inspiration came from Karen who has encouraged stitchers to complete a flower each Wednesday & gradually watch their gardens grow, since then many more have joined in the fun.

I've been having great fun seeing how may different flower patterns I can create with this one striped fabric. I don't think I'll be setting these out in a Grandmother's Flower Garden layout though as it may be a bit too heavy on the eyes.......maybe applique them to a white background?


With all this hexi excitement, I haven't neglected my Klosjes as I'm still making up blocks of nine & managed a few more spools last week.
New total: 116 Klosjes (81 of which have been stitched into blocks of 9)