This is just a very quick note. We got back late last night from a week's holiday at the Edinburgh Festival - more about that later this week. This morning I've done four lots of washing, which will hopefully dry as it's warm and sunny today; I've picked and frozen a big basketful of runner beans; picked the last of the French beans for supper tonight; picked a big basket of tomatoes, though I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet. I've pulled all the onions and laid them all out to dry off and dug up the last of the potatoes, which are also drying off in the sun before I put them into a sack.

So, now I'm having a few minutes well deserved rest and reading through all the blogs that have piled up since we went away. I'm enjoying reading what you've all written, but just haven't the time to comment on them all, so I hope you'll forgive me.

I'll try and get down to writing about our Edinburgh Adventure soon.

A busy August

I was determined to spend August catching up with things that needed finishing. So I pressed on with the second quilt for our spare bedroom, to match the one I finished a few months ago. I've quilted it differently, but apart from that they're very similar. I've just noticed from the photograph that I've put it on the bed upside down so that the baskets look as if they're tipping things out. I'll have to change that in the morning.

The other thing I've been beavering away at is block number 5 for the BOM I'm doing, Down in the Garden. It's the central block and has taken about six weeks to embroider. Because there's been so much to do I haven't started the August block yet, and the September block will be along soon.

There's not going to be much time during the rest of the month to get anything else done, as we go to spend a week at the Edinburgh Festival at the weekend. I've prepped a few things to take with me, but I doubt I shall get much done as we intend to see as many shows as we can whilst we're there.

Quilt for SIL

This lap quilt was made for my sister-in-law, who celebrated her birthday last week. I've used Kathy's Blocks from Gwen Marstons book Liberated Quilting II, and used the offcuts to make the borders at either end. I've quilted it with a loopy up and down meander in the blocks and figures of eight in the sashings. I bought fabric for the sashing and a flannel for the backing, but the rest was from my stash.

Euro Bee

I've just finished this little basket applique block for the August recipient in our Euro Bee. It was fun to go out into the garden and draw some pansies (I do hope they look a little like pansies!)

It's my month in September, so I need to get some ideas together for a block. I think I'll go for a patchwork block, as we've done quite a bit of applique and some paper piecing. Any suggestions for a good block to send out to people I don't know, which will work really well together once I get them back?

A new toy

It was my birthday at the weekend, and so I treated myself to a new toy, an iPod Touch. I was planning to get an iPod Shuffle, so that I could upload music and talking books to play when I'm working on the sewing machine. But I was seduced by all the extra things on the Touch, and splurged. It's going to be great fun!

We managed to see Number Two Son a few days before my birthday, and he gave me a lovely book called Stitchopedia, which has instructions and projects for all different types of hand embroidery. The first thing I'm going to try is a sheep in stumpwork. DH gave me a beautiful necklace made of squares of coloured glass which he bought at the Royal Academy of Art. It's gorgeous. And then we collected Number One Son on Sunday and brought him back home with us for a few days. He gave me a CD, the Beatles' Abbey Road, which was the first thing to get loaded on my iPod Touch.

Yesterday I rested whilst DH and Number One Son went to Bristol for some computer/mobile phone type shopping. Today we're going into Wells for a wander, then NOS and I are going to play on my sewing machine as he's really keen to see how the embroidery module and the BSR work.