enjoyments and anticipations

Hello! How’s your week been? Mine’s been full of rain, again, until the sun showed its face yesterday. My mood is always lighter when the sun is shining!

Thankfully, Instagram rolled back last week’s hideous changes to the display of posts. Judging by the number of negative comments in the App Store, the Meta company didn’t get the response it wanted. I so wish software developers would stop fiddling with their products.

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IN THE GARDEN

It’s tulip planting time. I have a bag of new bulbs plus a few I’m moving from last year’s location. Once I get them in the ground this week, that’s the end of my spring bulb planting.

At our local garden club this week, John Swainston presented a fascinating talk about organising a virtual rose show during covid restrictions. As a professional photographer, he is exacting about the lighting and angles of the photos to ensure judges were able to see the (virtual) roses at their best. So interesting!

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WHAT I’M MAKING

I miss my design wall. In my previous house, I had the end wall of my office/sewing area covered with flannelette to use as a design area for quilts in progress. It was big enough to arrange enough blocks to make a queen size quilt if necessary and I appreciated that I could easily move blocks around without disrupting anything else in the room.

Here, I’ve temporarily rigged up a cloth in front of a bookcase. It’s nowhere big enough but so far better than nothing. Maybe I should focus on making small quilts in future!

This is a block of one of my current projects, featuring some of my Liberty lawn fabrics. The pattern is Vintage Garden by Carolyn Adams. I’m hand piecing it and aim to make it five blocks by five blocks, plus a border. I like it so far.

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WHAT I’M READING

Next on my reading list is Patti Miller’s latest book, True Friends. It promises to be an intriguing story. Have you read it?

Exciting news! Jane Harper’s new novel, Exiles, will be published here on 20 September. It will be the last story featuring character Aaron Falk. Can. Not. Wait.

I’ve been immersed in digital magazines this week. The ability to take screen shots of pages that pique my interest is one of the best features of a tablet or phone. I have hundreds of screen shots – ideas for garden layouts, plants to research, quilt and knitting patterns, house features I like, books to read, ideas for writing – they form my own personal scrapbook of inspirations.

Scrolling through the pages is a soothing exercise because everything has been curated to my taste. I back up all my screen shots to Google photos so nothing ever gets lost. Technology can truly work to our advantage.

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Have a lovely week.

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This weekly newsletter is written by me, Erica Spinks, so I can share stories about books, gardens, quilts and other interests with you.

You can also find me on my website, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.