City and Guilds Term 1

I thought you might be interested in seeing some of the techniques we've been trying in the City and Guilds course. Term 1 ran from September to December and we focussed on pieced blocks.

These first two blocks were my own designs, one machine pieced and one hand pieced.

Curved machine piecing.

Seminole strip piecing.

I experimented with inserting lace and ric-rac into seminole piecing.

Spider web block - strip pieced.

This was supposed to be a pineapple log cabin block but I misread the instructions and ended up with something completely different.

Courthouse steps

Wonky log cabin

Diamond log cabin

Curved log cabin

Twisted log cabin

Foundation piecing. We had to design our own block for this.

Another foundation pieced block that I designed.

Distorted blocks.

Mariner's compass.

Ruby

Whilst we were away Ruby stayed with some neighbours who have a border collie, Poppy. Over the Easter weekend some of their family came to stay, bringing their labrador Megan. Here are some photographs of Ruby's holiday.

The Viking Fontane

To round off my trip report I thought I'd show you a few photographs of the boat.

This is the bar in the Viking Lounge, which served up several tasty cocktails for us.

The Viking Lounge

Our cabin

The sun deck, with some actual sun!

The reception area with stairs and corridor leading to the cabins.

The dining room.

Final Day

 After a really decent hotel breakfast we set off for a walk around Berlin as our flight was not until the early evening. We headed first to Check Point Charlie. This was a real Mickey Mouse affair; the soldiers are in fact German actors and you can pay to have your photograph taken with them. There was another German actor, clad in American uniform, calling out "Come and have your photo took, then put your picture on Face Book" which made us laugh. We went into the museum there, but didn't stay long as it was dreadfully crowded and really poorly organised.

The Brandenburg Gate

We loved this bicycle. It's difficult to see from the photograph, but there are seats for six people, each of whom has a set of pedals to help propel it along.

This bus tour is clearly a European franchise as we have exactly the same decorated bus doing tours in Bath.

Christopher outside the Reichstag building.

Me outside the Reichstag building. One of the very few photographs taken of me during our holiday, but I'm at a decent distance so you can't really see me that well!

 Most of the shops were closed, as it was Easter Monday, so we weren't able to spend many of our remaining Euros. But this wonderful chocolate shop was open and heaving with shoppers and sightseers. It was beautifully decorated for Easter and had some amazing chocolate sculptures in the windows. This one is of the Reichstag building.

The Kaiser Wilhelm church

The Brandenburg gate

Not too sure what this was, a monogram of some sort with chocolate balls circling round it.

A huge chocolate Easter egg. No, the chap beside it isn't made of chocolate!

We bought some chocolate for the neighbours who were looking after Ruby for us and for our sons. For some reason which I'll never be able to fathom we didn't buy any for ourselves.

After this we returned to our hotel for a cup of tea before being taken to the airport and getting our flight home. The flight was a little delayed, so we booked into a hotel near Heathrow airport and set off for home early next morning.

Days 9 and 10

Saturday, our last full day on board the Viking Fontane. We went for a tour of the Wurlitz gardens, but it was so jolly cold I didn't want to take my gloves off to take any photographs! We rested in the afternoon and in the evening attended the Captains Cocktail party and dinner, which was very festive. We shared a table at dinner with six of the friends we had made during the week. I told you it had been cold didn't I? Well, you can just make out the snow falling outside the window!

After breakfast on Sunday morning, we saw our suitcases being taken out to the coach and then followed them. We were taken to the palace of Sanssouci, built by Frederick the Great near Potsdam. 

This is Frederick the Great's tombstone in the grounds of the Palace. He finally ended up here after having been moved about a great deal and reburied in several places. Apparently, he introduced potatoes to Prussia, and had a great fondness for them, hence the offerings on the tombstone.

Alongside his grave are the graves of his dogs, all bitches, apparently the only females allowed in the palace.

After leaving Sanssouci, we drove to Potsdam and saw the building where the Potsdam Conference took place in 1945 between the victorious Allied leaders Harry S Truman, Winston Churchill, and his successor Clement Attlee, and Joseph Stalin and where the future of postwar Europe was decided.

After having lunch in Potsdam, we were driven to Berlin and apparently had a short tour around the city before going to our hotel. Unfortunately, I saw very little of the drive as I fell asleep!

We stayed in the Hilton hotel in Berlin, and were offered a walking tour of the city in the early evening. We didn't take up the offer as I climbed straight into bed because I was so cold and then fell asleep again. I think the extremely busy holiday had finally caught up with me. We had a room service supper that evening.