Happy Bastille Day!

A national holiday here in France, today went something like this:

• omelettes (courtesy of the mister)
• swim in the pool
• Tour de France and sewing
• lunch
• swim in the pool
• DVD
• Tour de France and sewing
• dinner
• rush out and take photos of sewing in the dying light

In other words, a fantastic day.

The sewing started with this:

I meant to start on the baby quilt, but quickly realised I had no solid white on the shelves. I know, day one stuff.  So instead I thought I'd try one of these journal covers, a tutorial (from Roslyn at Bloom) on the Moda Bake Shop site. 

The linen was bought locally in Provence, the basket weave is from Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley line. The little orange tree shape, punched from felt, was found in a craft shop in Marseille. 

 

I adjusted Roslyn's tutorial as I went given my notebook was quite a bit smaller.

I really enjoyed stepping away from the machine and hand stitching in some details. The mister outlined the many strategic and tactical considerations for cycle teams on the Tour, but, well, I was a little distracted by all the lean lycra-ed bottoms.  

And before I knew it, the little sucker was done. 

Thanks France for another wonderful day!