Back to basics... again!

Here at textile towers the mood is relaxed now that the party frock has been done, the dressing gown delivered and presents and cards ready to be written/ wrapped. So, I decided, rather late in the day, to have a go at the Chirstmas challenge at my local quilting group.

The brief was to make an item using at least three fabrics that were striped. Earlier in the year, we had a very interesting talk on the subject of incorporating striped fabrics into our work, but as I am not an accomplished patchworker, and don't consider using striped fabric anyway, I didn't pay much attention.

Of late, I have found that my lack of expertise in the patchwork department is something I would like to address, so nothing daunted and with very little time, I decided to have a go. A friend recommended a super book which could have been designed for reluctant patchworkers like me, called Thinking Outside the Block written by Sandi Cummings. I have been trying to find time to make a start  for a while, and now seemed to be as good a time as any,.

So here are the first few blocks.

 Yes, I used three different striped fabrics, but I'm not sure about the result. Next up is to make some of the blocks using thin strips, appliqued spirals and the like and no doubt, there will be a finished quilt in the fullness of time! Sadly not in time for the challenge, but we enjoyed our meeting today and Margaret won the prize.

A rare group photo requested by Chris who sadly is leaving us and moving to pastures new. Although I am also planning to move away, I know I will miss the friendships I have made among these kind and generous people.

Still for now, it's back to the wrapping paper!

Sewing frenzy

I am in the middle of a sewing frenzy and loving my new sewing machine. Having made the school trousers for the GDD  I was commissioned to make a party dress! My DD and her family have been invited to a Christmas party at Braham park and so a new party dress is compulsory!

Not a very good photo, but she was pleased with the result and once she gets some sparkly shoes and has her hair done, I'm sure she'll look lovely.

Now all I have to do is finish the surpise gilet for the DH, the dressing gown for madame and a post card for a friend who's moving! So this weekend will be a busy one, and next week there's a lot on so it will be good to get down to Cornwall for Christmas and get some time to relax.

It's a good job the weather is so awful so we can't get out into the garden and I don't need to feel guilty about it. I hope all the poor souls who were without power yesterday will soon be reconnected.

Back to the grindstone!

Free machine quilting workshop

I attended a workshop today run by Hazel Williams which was all about free machine quilting. Now I have been a keen free machine embroiderer for ages and so I had assumed that I should be able to master free machine quilting without any trouble. Sadly, my attempts to date had convinced me that is not the case. Although, embroidery using the machine is useful in that you know what your machine is capable of, free machine quilting is an entirely different technique.

We started the day talking about threads. Hazel uses thin cotton bobbin thread and favours Egyptian cotton quilting thread in the needle. The King Tut Threads are very smooth, and there is a world of difference between these and many other brands. The thread I was using was not a cheap brand, but it certainly didn't produce the same results. Hazel also uses a smaller needle that I would have chosen,  a Schmetz 75(11) quilting needle rather than the 90(14) I would normally use. Once again, I didn't experience any problems.

Hazel had us drawing the designs on paper and then she demonstrated how she sewed them before we went back to our machines and had a go ourselves. We were all a bit worried about "drawing" but as the day wore on everyone got more and more confident and the patterns got more and more complicated.

So the secret is to relax, remember to breathe, don't press down too hard on the fabric and stop frequently to check where you need to go next. Oh, and don't run the machine too fast. This is all very well on small samples, and the real test will come when I try it on a bigger piece. I will give it a go though!

Here's a taster

and  this link will take you to all my little samples. As you will see the stitch length is not at all even, and unfortunately I wasn't able to get the tension right on my machine. That will teach me to fiddle about with the bobbin tension screw! Lesson, if you're going to fiddle with that, always have a spare bobbin case set up to the manufacturers spec and make sure you keep it safe!

Or you could do what I did and buy a new machine! My new Bernina 380 arrives tomorrow and my dear old 135 will be going to a new home!

Perhaps I may turn out to be a quilter after all!

Never say never

Just when you think, "I can't do this" and you're about to give up, suddenly you find that after a bit of practice, you actually can do it after all. Gives you a nice warm glow!

The Bernina BSR attachment came "free" with my Artista 640, and I tried to use it a couple of times, but without success. Now that I'm doing "ART" and free machine quilting is de rigeur, I decided that I really must give it another try at least to be able to judge if it makes any difference.

So after a couple of very frustrating afternoons, I have begun to get to grips with it. Not to say that it is without problems, but I have started to get used to the way it works.

The key is to remember that the machine doesn't start to stitch until you move the fabric and the key is to move the fabric gently and evenly so that the machine runs at an even speed.  If you stop, it stops and if the fabric doesn't move,  after a minute or so, it will switch itself off.  However, if you stop and move the fabric accidentally before it's switched off, it will start up and that's the bit that has taken me a while to master. If this happens, the stitches can go anywhere and they're difficult to unpick.

A while ago, I was lucky enough to be given an experimental pack of thread and fabric by my friend Sandra, with instructions to "play". So I did and because my pack contained shades of blue, green and purple, I chose a sea theme. This was the inspiration,  a lovely estuary on the Isle of Harris. The photo really doesn't do credit to the fantastic range of colours in the sea.

Sandra posted some images of the results from other members of the NW weekend group here  and here's a photo of my effort to date. I used the BSR for the limited amount of machine quilting, but I'm quite pleased with it. All that it needs now is some sort of binding to finish it off and I'll need to give that some thought.

Unfortunately these photos are somewhat out of focus so the detail of the quilting is a bit indistinct, but you can get the idea! Better photos when the piece is finished.

And some hand stitching including couching my handspun silk throwsters waste for the breaking waves.

My bag is finished and ready to us. It's in a different league because it's not exactly "ART", but enjoyable to make!

 So after I've taken my new bag off to the shop and had my lunch, I'm going on to try making some more samples using my BSR attachment and really get to grips with it this time. In the meantime, I feel someone is sneaking up on me....

..
BOO!

*!!!!*******!!!!

The expletives have been deleted! Well almost!

I went to my local sewing club on Tuesday and as I hadn't been for a while, it was good to catch up with some old friends. The demo was yet another quilted bag. but strangely I found myself truly interested in doing something simple that  I could then show off! 

So I bought some fabric, not that I actually needed to, but most of my fabric is packed away ready for the MOVE and I just couldn't be bothered to drag it all out. I cut out the pieces and the wadding and thought, I'll have a go at free machine quilting. As the bag does not need to be shown to anyone it won't matter if I go a bit wrong.

Out comes the machine and the perspex table but where is the free hand lever? Searched all the places I could think of but no joy. "What's it look like?" says the DH joining in. Well it's a lever. Realisation dawns that I'm going to have to go through all the boxes and the cupboard to find where exactly I've put it. Ah, here's the box with all the sewing bits and pieces and it would be logical to suppose that it's in there. No, I remembered that actually it didn't fit, and eventually I found it in with my weaving bits and pieces, but only after I had unpacked nearly all the boxes. Well they won't take long to pack again says the dear DH.

So I'm set up and ready, but then I remembered that there had been some very interesting posts on the CQ message board about the Bernina BSR system and that not many people liked it. In fact I had tried to use it a couple of times, but it's not easy and my attachment has been sitting in it's tin and of course is now packed away safely for the MOVE. Why not use it so you can then say with conviction that it's rubbish I thought? Now where did I put it? Not with the sewing stuff, obviously that would have been just too easy, and at last I found it in the box with the dyeing stuff!


There are videos on You Tube showing how the BSR system works so I decided it would help to watch a few. In fact, I just got angry with these people who just sit there and do lovely even stitches,  when my stitches are all over the place. GRRRR***** and worse!

By now the day has advanced  and my temper has become somewhat frayed. My quilt sandwhich is still in it's pristine unquilted state and the light is going!

But, after some practice here is the work in progress.

Moving the fabric smoothly is quite difficult, even with the "Supreme Slider" in place and it will take practice. It's balancing the fabric while keeping an even pressure when moving that is so tricky. but as always, practice is the key.

I've rather overdone the quilting on this piece

so I've been a bit more minimalist on the second.

So the quilting will be finished today and I hope the bag will be completed by tomorrow. The next task is to get some samples done for our next CQ regional meeting. We're using crayons, Inktense sticks, oil sticks and the like to make marks on the fabric that will then be used for our first group challenge.

Pictures to follow. It's more fun than packing!

 

Happy Halloween

This is the first year we haven't stocked up with Halloween goodies for the trick or treat brigade and oh dear I can hear ominous noises coming from the lane! We'll have to pretend to be out!

Still Isobel and I did make some Halloween buns, but unfortunately she took them home with her!

It's amazing what you can get nowadays!

Catching up

So we are a bit down in the dumps because we have put the house back on the market and the sold sign has been removed. On the plus side we are still attracting viewings from people who don't have to sell. We have fingers and toes crossed that one of them will want to buy and will not muck us about like the last lot.

It amazes me how people say things like "It's my dream home and we will definitley buy it" when they then disappear into the mist and don't actually appear to be doing anything about it. GRRRRRR!

We have had a couple of trips to Cornwall just because we want to be there rather than here and we've had some lovely days out.

Here is St Ives bathed in sunshine! We were feeling rather aggrieved because you now have to pay to park at the park and ride at Lelant and even worse, there were three empty parking spaces in the Island car park! So our trip cost us a bit more than we had expected especially after the crab sandwiches in the Sloop Inn.

We could not resist another trip to Cape Cornwall and this time, the van had Roskilly's Frozen Gooseberry Yoghurt ice cream! And we saw this

My DH just happened to have the camera in his hand, but unfortunately only one of them stayed in shot. It may not look much, but we get very excited every time we see them. For those who may not know, this is a Chough!

Anyway, decluttering and packing continues and I have been digging out the UFOs. Here is the Halloween quilt I started making last year. The panel was so lovely, I couldn't resist and I thought I'd have a go a flying geese. Not too bad really, but I don't think it would win any prizes in a competition.

The DH is doing a grand job of holding it up , hence the legs peeping out at the bottom. There was some fabric left over, so I also made a cushion which turned out quite nicely. Perhaps I could get into this patchwork thing after all!

However, I have now reverted to "ART" and am currently working on using Inktense sticks to colour fabric so that we've got something to show off at our next CQ group meeting next month.

But before that, I must go downstairs and finish cleaning the oven!

Too good to be true

Yes, we've started packing too soon. Our buyers have hit a small snag so we are having to wait a while. They say they intend to go ahead, but who knows. Indeed, who knows what will happen next.

Two of our most influential popular men have died in the same week. Yes I know that Steve Jobs changed our lives with technology, but for me, the loss of Bert Jansch means so much more. I first saw him perform live in a folk club in Soho called Les Cousins in 1966. My friend and I had just started at London University and decided to visit this club which was quite an adventure for two Cornish girls! Of course, at the time, I didn't know who he was and it was only some time later that I found out. My brother bought me his LP for my Christmas present and I played it on my Dansette Junior record player over and over again, driving the rest of my family almost to the point of suicide after listening to " the needle of death" time after time!

Over the years I've attended various concerts seeing Pentangle and Bert himself and also collected several records which I still play. Of course, "Anji" is my favourite and what a privilege it was to see him perform this live on a number of occasions. It sounds as if more than one person is playing, but it's just him. So close your eyes and imagine yourself in a smoke filled room, (yes I know noone smokes nowadays) a glass of beer in hand and a great atmosphere and listen to this.

So more than forty years on, I'm still that teenager at heart. RIP Bert!

It's official

Now there's a sight for sore eyes!

Just when you think, well it might happen one day, the phone rings and OMG it's actually going to happen. Then you look out of the window and suddenly the SOLD STC sign appears as if by magic!

There's so much to do even before we start tackling the clutter and we are still not certain that we will be able to move as quickly as we'd like to, but barring accidents, off we go!

So we're off to sunny Cornwall later in the week to have another look at the property we're hoping to buy and wish DH's Mum a happy 96th birthday! Not a lot of quilting or anything else is going to get done for a while!

Great Northern Quilt Show

After all the excitement of the Festival of Quilts, and trying to get on with things, with not much success, suddenly it was time for the Great Northern Quilt Show. My friend Sandra had entered three of her quilts in the competition and we decided to go to see how she got on.

And this is the result. A second prize! This lovely miniature quilt is double sided and is really beautifully made. Well done Sandra! Her other quilts did not win, but looked very good.

Sorry that the photos are a bit skew whiff, but it was difficult to get close to them due to the layout.

One of the highlights for me was the exhibition of work by Frieda Oxenham. which was very colourful and just beautiful. Two in particular caught my eye. This one is called Log Cabin Ladies

and includes lots of small photographs of ladies with as a surprise one token gentleman!

This gave me an idea for a present for my big sister who  has a special birthday coming up in January. I have some photos of some of the ladies in our family so I thought it would be just the way to show them off. So I bought a pack of batik strips and am going to make a start as soon as possible. But........ oh dear, the estate agent has just phoned and it seems that someone wants to buy our house and GULP has the money ready! Just the thought of what's lurking in our attic is bringing me out in a cold sweat! Quilts may have to be put on the back burner for now.

Watch this space.

What I got at Festival of Quilts

was a nasty stonking cold! It started on the train on the way home on Saturday, and even today I am still full of it. Still, coughing and sneezing like mad, but planning my next project, which I can do sitting down!

There were so many wonderful things to see at FOQ and so many others have written about it on their blogs that it's difficult to find anything original to say. So apologies if I'm going over old ground!
I spent quite a lot of time browsing the competition quilts in the Contemporary and Art categories so that I could try and fathom out what the difference is between the two. In the end I came to the conclusion that there really isn't any discernible difference at all. There were also quilts in the Pictorial category that I thought could have been entered in either of the other two categories. The traditional quilt that won first prize, was just that, a beautifully made traditional quilt and there were others in that class that were totally traditional. However there were also quilts in that class, that I thought could easily have been entered in the Contemporary class. But hey, what do I know about it given my lack of experience!

I'm not sure about taking photos of other people's work, but there are a few that I did want to capture. It's difficult to pick a favourite so I won't, but there were a few that I thought had the "wow factor".

This quilt by Rosalind Gregory was called Becky's Dresses and was a collection of hand smocked dresses appliqued onto the back ground by hand.  Apparently these were actual dresses made from various Liberty Lawns which had been worn by the makers daughter as a child. The photo really doesn't do it justice, but it was truly delightful and attracted a large crowd.

This quilt was made by Julie Makinder and again the photo really doesn't do it justice. It incorporates hand dyed, hand printed fabrics and incorporates photos inspired by the colours of the Cornish landscape.

Another quilt inspired by Cornwall by Carolyn Saxby from St Ives. I was so pleased to finally get to meet Carolyn who has such a wonderful blog and which is such an inspiration.

This quilt was made by Alicia Merritt and the colours were truly vibrant and the quilting was just wonderful.

If I must choose a favourite, then I think it would be this beautiful quilt by Sheena Norquay. I just couldn't tear myself away from it and while I had my nose pressed up close to see the free machine quilting, I got into conversation with a young woman who was equally enthralled. She thought that this type of quilting needed a special expensive machine and that it could not be done on an ordinary domestic machine. I soon put her right and I hope she was inspired enough to go home, drop her feed dogs and have a play! Exactly what I should be doing!

As for my project, ah well, I was tempted by some beautiful hand dyed silk yarn on Oliver Twists stall and it is just right for weaving a silk scarf. So that's what I'm doing next!

Not long now!

It's been a strange week and it's only Tuesday!  There has been a lot going on. They came to start on resurfacing our driveway yesterday so the car has had to spend the night outside parked in the lane. They're coming today to put down the new surface. As we can't drive on it for at least twenty four hours, the car is outside again. While they're laying the surface, we will be trapped as our only way out is the driveway! So as I have a lot to do, I'll be able to get on won't I?

I can hear the drilling from the men from the Water Company who are digging up the road round the corner and our water is about to be turned off for the day!

How will all the machinery  fit in our narrow little lane? I forsee many arguments developing between our drive way people and the water company as they try to work round each other in such a small area! Or, will anyone turn up at all?

In the meantime, I have lots of sewing to get on with and I have to give some thought to my sketchbook. My sketchbook from The Sketchbook Project arrived last week. This project is a worldwide project described as a concert tour, but with sketchbooks. When you sign up, you choose a theme and your sketchbook arrives with a bar code which is used to identify you. The sketchbooks are sent back to Brooklyn where they are digitised and can be viewed online. I chose "prehistoric" as my theme and I am hoping to get going with it when I get back from Festival of Quilts.

Sadly though, the actual sketchbook is pretty naff. It is quite small and the paper is very thin so that it probably won't take much in the way of paint etc. The cover is plain brown card, which although it can be embellished,  is pretty flimsy, so options appear to be limited. So the plan is to replace the cover and the paper with more interesting and useable materials. Rather like the old broom that lasts forever having only had the handle and the bristles replaced at different times. However  I must ensure that the barcode is left visible and intact.

Not a lot to see at this stage! Fortunately I will be meeting up with friends at Festival of Quilts who are also taking part in this project and so I hope that there will be plenty of ideas and inspirations floating around! There are also going to be a lot of suppliers at the NEC so I will be able to find lots of lovely paper etc to make the sketchbook how I want it. I feel a mixed media surge coming over me!

Next up FOQ. Will I survive it?

More days out!

The tension is mounting as we have had five viewers since putting the house on the market three weeks ago, but as yet no buyer! So as the DH had to go to Beverley on Thursday, I decided that rather than sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring, I'd go on the Bernina Club outing to the Abakhan Mill at Mostyn in north Wales.

So a leisurely drive along the M62 in a very large coach in some rather nasty heavy rain, with a stop on the way for a coffee and we arrived just in time for lunch. There is a very large selection of fabric, yarn and craft items and so there was plenty to entertain us.

As I obviously don't have anywhere near enough fabric in my stash, I bought more! It is strange to be buying fabric by weight, but the staff were very helpful and I managed to get some bargains, although I had to look carefully as what was on offer was a bit of a mixed bag, most of it seconds and some of it badly marked or damaged. Here's what I chose!

The colours are a bit deeper than they appear here, but they all blend together well. All I need is a bright colour to use as a highlighter and I'll be all set. My plan is to make a quilt using the cutting double technique. Take two square pieces of fabric the same size and put one on top of the other, right sides up. Then make two cuts across the width of the square. Now you have six pieces of fabric so you mix and match them before sewing back together.  You can make things more exciting by inserting thin strips of fabric as you go. There's a really good book that explains this technique called Thinking Outside the Block by Sandi Cummings. For those of us who are just stepping into the murky waters of contemporary quilting and who haven't yet decided whether to become a "textile artist", it's a good book to start with!

But no time for that today because we went to Tockwith Show where my lovely granddaughter was entered in the young person's sheep handling class! Thunder, lightening and really heavy rain, but she did us proud and won second place! Her lamb, Roy, didn't seem to be all that excited, but she was so proud of her rosette, and there was prize money too! Here they are in their pomp!

 It was lovely to see them winning a prize and although Isobel looks a bit uncertain, she was very proud of herself and of Roy! As to Roy's future apparently, his rear end isn't wide enough so it's doubtful that he will make it as a breeding tup! Oh dear! What will Isobel do if Roy ends up as lamb chops?

So after all the excitement of the competition, we explored the show and it was only when there was a torrential downpour that we voted with our feet and came home.

Such a pity that it rained as it spoiled so much for people who had been planning, practising and working hard to get ready for the show.



Next up, a visit to the Leeds flower show to help out on the Alwoodley Quilters stand. Will this mad social whorl ever end!

Art in Action

We decided to extend our trip to Oxfordshire and visit the Ashmolean Museum to see an exhibition of "Treasures from the royal Capital of Macedon" entitled from Heracles to Alexander the Great. We were not disappointed! However, the down side was that no photography was permitted and there were a large number of security staff lurking ready to swoop at the sight of a camera. So I bought the catalogue instead and all the photos I would have wanted to take are fortunately included. Can't show those on the blog either, but here's a photo of the front cover by way of compensation.

I will use some of theses photos as the basis for the work to be included in my Sketch Book 2012 project for which I have chosen the theme "Prehistoric". My aim is to try to capture the distinction between primitive and prehistoric. The people that made the beautiful items in this exhibition were certainly prehistoric, but definitely not primitive.

And so off to Art in Action on Thursday with camera, water bottle, notebook and umbrellas! It was as wonderful as always and as usual there was simply not enough time in the day to get around everything we wanted to see. I had a great time in the printing marquee and here is my very first etching!

It's a dry point etching scratched onto perspex with an old dart. The printer, a lovely lady called Barbara Jackson inked up the plate and then put it through an enormous press and hey presto!
Here is my selection for the winner of the best of the best competition. It is a tapestry woven by a peruvian weaver who uses Alpaca yarn rather than wool or linen.

Full of colour and texture and a snip at £5,000! We decided to save the money and didn't buy it. In fact there were a number of items we didn't buy saving us over £10,000 on the day!

On Friday morning I spent some time in the Textile marquee as it was quieter and it was possible to get close to the stands. I signed up for a workshop with Dionne Swift and met some very interesting people. Somehow I think it's time for the organisers to invite some fresh blood into the textile marquee. It seems that there is a core of people who are there every year and so there's not always much new stuff to see.

However, there is a lot to see and do generally and lots of lovely food and drink. This year we went for the Heavenly Haloumi burger from the Veggie table. Yum!

So back to Leeds on Friday afternoon and a lovely sunny weekend relaxing in the garden.

Hand Quilting Experiments

some leaf like shapes

So I have been a busy girl what with whizzing up and down the country for various cultural and artistic ventures! The visit to Art in Action was brilliant but details will have to wait for the next post.

My travels have involved a lot of sitting on trains and in cars and to while away the time, and in the car try to take my mind off the chaos on the roads, I have been hand stitching. This follows on from my CQ summer school workshop with Helen Parrott.

using variegated silk thread

I have used some of the hand dyed cotton kindly donated by my dear friend Sandra and various threads just to see what happens. Strangely, although it's only rows of running stitch, quite a lot happens very quickly. Sadly though, not all of it is as intended e.g, this sample using silk thread doesn't look right. I think the thicker thread tends to dominate taking the eye away from the "ripples", and the ripples are what it's all about!

sand ripple sample using cotton thread

 So here is the first of probably many similar samples inspired by ripples in the sand after the tide has gone out. Using longer stitches meant that there is also rippling inside the stitching and I'm not sure this is how I want it to look.

So I will block it and see if that makes it more acceptable.

 running stitch using cotton machine thread

In the meantime, I'm putting the stitching to one side while I play with the toys  I bought
at Art in Action. Namely the fabric crayons, the Inktense blocks, Sue Rangley's book, Embroidered Originals and a lovely new journal sketchbook!

So, blogging may have to wait a bit!

The benefit of reading the small print

 So the DH, seen here doing his bit in Trafalgar Square, having received his senior railcard decided we needed to have a day out in London. The plan was to have a nice lunch and spend some time at the Cartoon Museum to see Steve Bell's cartoons and then to perhaps go to the British Museum for a bit of culture before having a nice meal and catching the train home.

But of course, being us, we failed to read the small print and discovered when we arrived at the CM and tried to open the door that it was closed on Mondays!

So we decided to walk down to the Embankment and go to the Watercolour Exhibition at Tate Britain instead. Strangely there were a lot of people around and not all of them English.  London it seems is a popular tourist destination!!!
Walking through Russell Square we helped two very nice young men find their way using our ancient and very tatty AtoZ. We were also accosted by two rather insistent people of uncertain nationality who spoke no English who wanted to change a £20 note for four £5 notes. They ended up almost destroying the DH's peace of mind by grabbing his wallet and checking that, no as we said, we couldn't help before trudging off muttering in some unknown tongue!

 So onwards and Southwards we went, passing some lovely buildings and pausing briefly to look at some of the sights.

This statue is on Whitehall just opposite the Household Cavalry and I don't remember seeing it before. It is extremely moving and although the photo only shows one side of it, I didn't feel like standing in the middle of the road to get photos of the other sides!

And just across the road were two members of the Household Cavalry on duty,  resolutely silent and still despite the throngs of tourists and this one.......


.....is a young woman! Who'd have thought it! I'm not sure how aware most other people were  as most of them were surrounding her male colleague. I didn't know that women were allowed to join, but I'm glad to see that they can and do!

I didn't take any photos of the peace camp in Parliament Square, just because it was difficult to find a spot to get them in where I wasn't likely to get run over, so here's Big Ben instead. They are obviously very well organised and dedicated, but I'm not sure how much notice the tourists were taking.  Good on them and I hope a good few of our politicians learn something about morality and justice from them!






And so to the Tate where after the exhibition we rested in the cafe for tea and cake. No images from the exhibition I'm afraid, but it is well worth a visit. The DH and I fell completely in love with Turner, and although there were other gems, his sketches small paintings had the most impact.

Then outside to get caught in a heavy shower, but fortunately we were able to shelter under this lovely plane tree. I had forgotten how lovely these trees are and there are so many of them!


Despite the rain I managed to get some photos of leaves and bark and the seeds which have a lovely texture.

Very ominous clouds over the London Eye, and very choppy conditions on the river. So we didn't go for a trip on the Duck, but we did see one driving along the Embankment with a lot of very wet people on board. Next time perhaps!
 

A "Duck" on the Thames! Just what you want on a wet day like today!!!