Thank you France Post

For getting Nato's gift to her safe and sound.

As well as sending the magazine she'd won, I also whipped up a quick bag to put it in.

The fabric is from Heather Bailey's Pop Garden line. I was keen on using red that morning, I think it was because of that habanero chilli I ate the night before.

I used the Simple Bag pattern in Joelle Hoverson's book Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts.

You can see several of the projects on the back here - Nato's bag is bottom middle.

Looking at Nato's site I could see she also likes beading, so I sent her some things from my stash to experiment with. There is some chalchedony (tubes), amazonite (ovals), aquamarine (rondelle/button shape), smoky quartz and the briolettes are a synthetic quartz in a deep forest/sea green.

Have fun Nato!

The one where nothing works out as planned.

Once upon a time, on a website far, far away (called design*sponge), a listless house-princess saw a bewitching image:

Said image came from Tali's website Growing Up Creative and it gave the aimless princess an idea for her own drab cottage walls.

She sang for her woodland friends to come help her but only a small disgruntled deer appeared. We're all going to Cinderella's wine and toga party, he said with a sneer, you'll have to decorate the shack yourself. So whistling a happy song, she rolled up her raggedy sleeves and set to it.

She'd saved many, many toilet rolls (those dwarves poo a lot), which she pressed, cut and then painted. Dark aqua on the outside, light on the inside - except for a few she painted red.

She found her enchanted glue gun and stuck them all together until she had her own paisley pattern. Or maybe it was a goldfish. Or the number 9.

Anyhoo, it didn't really matter what it was - the princess knew it wasn't right. There were too many holes allowing too much of her drab wall paint to show through.

Another idea dawned and she quickly went to work painting a cheap canvas (which she'd picked up from the 2 gold coin shop) with a paint knife, to create some texture. Once it was dry, she grabbed a pencil and used the toilet roll pattern as a big stencil, then painted in all the smaller shapes. To finish it off she plucked a twig from a mystical weeping willow* and used it to dot white paint around each of the shapes.

The princess wiped her hands on her grimy apron and proudly hung the painting on her wall.  A loud hiccup interrupted her admiration. That stupid pitcha dunnt look anyfing like Tali's, the returned deer slurred beneath his halo of wine fumes, before collapsing in a heap on the floor.

The princess smoothed the deer's furry brow before wrapping him in aluminum foil and popping him in her big wood-fired stove.

That night the princess set the table beneath her new picture and enjoyed her favourite meal: venison with red wine jus. Superbe!

Another thing that didn't turn out as planned. I used these pillow cases:

To make some stripy blocks (yes, I know I'm supposed to be basting the colour graduation quilt, but I got distracted):

Which were supposed to end up in a symmetrical, geometric design. Somehow I ended up with this retro thing. I'm not sure I like it yet, but I think with some hand quilting in the white squares, it might turn out okay?

A question from a machine quilter - what thread does one use to hand quilt?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

* Okay, it was really a wooden BBQ skewer.

The Versatile, Whinging Blogger

I'm interrupting your usual weekend peace and quiet to fulfill my obligations as a 'Versatile Blogger Award' recipient.

Ta da:

I received this award from the lovely Aidan at Conjugating Irregular Verbs, who made me blush with her kind comments. I love Aidan's blog. She is very funny despite being American and is endearingly honest, which makes her blog such a fun read. This is my favourite post ever of hers.*

In celebration of Aidan's honesty, I am going to be brutally truthful in the listing of my seven facts, as per the Award's requirements. Please look away now if you have a fine or gentle constitution.

1. I hate these bloody award things. Blog awards, Change-Your-Facebook-Status-to-Say-This, forward this email to 30 people or a rogue owl will eat your young chain emails - I hate 'em all. But I do love Aidan, so I'm chugging a nice warm cup of quit-your-bellyaching and continuing on.

2. Living in France can be very, very difficult at times (as a for'ner). It's not like visiting, which is much more pleasant. I don't talk about it much because I'm trying to be a cup-half-full kinda person, and also because I doubt people want to hear me whinging about how hard it is to be living in the south of France. Kind of like when movie stars start complaining about how hard it is to be rich and famous and skinny.

But there have been more than a few occasions when I've wanted to do a Cartman:

3. I love to sleep in, and I'm a total cow in the morning until I have my coffee.

4. I have a real problem with people who don't wash their hands after they go to the toilet.

5. Even though it weirds the mister out, I like it when Frenchmen kiss each other hello. I think it's touching and love the way it flies in the face of traditional Western 'what is manly' philosophy.

6. A couple of years ago I wrote a complete romance novel. An editor asked to see the full manuscript, but it wasn't published. (No, it didn't contain any kissing Frenchmen. It wasn't one of those novels.)

7. I haven't got a seventh fact. Because of 1. above, and because I'm all out of things I think you'd find interesting.

I apologise now, I'm not going to pass this on to 15 other bloggers. But I don't think this will harm the spread of the award, which surely must be giving cholera a run for its money in the proliferation stakes.

Sorry about my whinging, although I'm feeling cathartically mellow now. I might go eat some goat's cheese and sniff my lavender pillow.

While I'm blogging, here were two pictures I missed in my Cassis post:

Loved the view at the end of this street. 

Fancy fan mosaic floors in the St Michel church. 

Hope you've all had a fabulous weekend and managed to fit in something just for you!


* I almost had a moment like Aidan's. The first time I filled the car on my own was after meeting the mister on a long bike ride - he was riding home and I brought the kids back in the car. We stopped at an isolated rural service station, not a house in sight. It was closed but you could still use the pumps with a credit card.

Now, I knew our car took diesel. This point had been made to me many times, as the wife of a conscientious mister. The little sticker above the tank says diesel. Could I find a handle labelled diesel? No, I could not. I found, plomb and sans plomb, which I knew were leaded and unleaded petrol, but no diesel. There was one labelled gazoil. What is this gazoil?  Looked up dictionary, no gazoil. Went to call the mister, then remembered he was on the bike. Plus using cell phones at a gas station is a no-no. By elimination I was pretty sure gazoil was diesel, but that little niggly doubt had me worried.

Then a fellow drove in on his motorbike. A huge, black leather-wearing motorbike rider.  As a woman alone at a deserted service station with her three small children I immediately assumed him to be a rapist, which greatly helped my level of anxiety. After a few deep breaths I decided to just go over (not getting too close) and ask if gazoil was diesel. I was just about to do this when the bike rider stuck the pump in his petrol tank, leaned back against his bike and lit a cigarette.

This greatly crystallised my thought process. I quickly filled up with gazoil and got the flock out of there. When I got home I googled gazoil and found out that it was indeed diesel, which I'd already guessed seeing as we'd made it home without a single engine wheeze. I also checked a French news website to see if any explosions at rural petrol stations had been reported, but it seems the leather-clad smoking rapist got away safe and sound.

Wow, is this the longest footnote ever?

Rognes

It doesn't get any fresher than this.

The mister and I went for a wander around the nearby town of Rognes this morning, and I've already downloaded the photos, which is amazing. You're obviously all having a positive effect on me!

Rognes is pronounced Ron-ya, so whenever we drive by I'm left singing Help me Rognes, help help me Rognes for the rest of the day. It's a real problem.

The old man in the doorway of this shop was wearing a beret. Squeeeee! He was so cute.

Opposite the fruit and veg we sat in the sun and had our café au lait. With baby socks on the side.

After our coffee we walked up to an old church, passing this fruiting vine with stunning flowers. Any idea what it is?

The church wasn't open, so I skulked around the outside and took a few shots.

And that was all we had time for, sadly.

On the home front, I have been back to IKEA and bought them out of picture frames.

The dining room finally has some colour on the walls:

And the kitchen has a huge wall perfect for displaying the kids' artwork:

Those white rectangles on the coloured paper are polystyrene trays that you sometimes get your fruit and veg (or meat) on. These were in really good condition (they held corn cobs) so I'm going to get the kids to sew some patterns on them with plastic sewing needles (the non-sharp kind) and coloured yarn.

And another video clip - this time chosen because of the set decoration. Plenty of craft and decorating ideas in this one with a whimsical, dreamy feel. The gilded teacups are my favourite.



I can't believe it's Friday again already. Have a great weekend everyone!

Cassis

A few weekends ago, before it turned cold, we took a friend visiting from Australia down to Cassis.

Cassis is a seaside town near Marseille and a truly gorgeous place, as I hope my photos manage to convey.

Parking is never easy in these small towns that have become big tourist draws, but I don't really mind (unless it's raining) as it gives me the chance to wander through the streets and get a better feel for the place.

I loved the wall textures out the front of this house.

Getting closer to the water now.

Cassis harbour. What it's all about.

I thought these flower balls on the lampposts were so pretty I had to take two photos. At least I changed the perspective!

After we had a little look around, we settled down here for lunch. I had a fabulous smoked salmon and cream sauce pasta, washed down with plenty of rosé. Thankfully the kids couldn't finish their pizzas (although I had to arm wrestle the mister to get a piece).

After lunch we all had an ice cream/gelato. My gelato was lavender flavoured - delicate, sweet, aromatic, yum.

Cones in hand (dripping on wrists, smeared on faces) we wandered past more boats to the beach.

Not bad, huh?

Too cold for white pointers though.

The sand still wasn't Australia-worthy, but was much less gravelly than La Ciotat.

The kids had a ball burning off all the sugar in their ice creams.

Once energy stores were depleted the men folk took the kids back up the hill to the car while I detoured by the local church. St Michel's Church was built in the 1800s.

The walls behind the altar were painted with soothing-coloured murals.

Not so soothing for poor Joanie (St Joan of Arc).

And here's St Michel (the Archangel Michael) kicking butt and taking names. The dragon is Satan and he is undergoing some extreme root canal therapy at the hands of God's top general.

A close up of St Michael. On his chest he wears the latin words Quis ut Deus which translates to Who is like God? Hint: don't say 'me' unless you want a new throat entrance, as St Michael symbolises humility before God.

This was the view towards the back of the church.

How about that organ! The most beautiful blue.

As I left I noticed these flower boxes in the church square.

Well fed and tired, we drove back home, only stopping once to take some final pics of this fabulous view on the outskirts of the town.

À bientôt, Cassis!