Sunday, 31 July 2016

Clangers

 
 I love the rural, the SWI, formerly known as the SWRI .... And in the name change there lies a big long tale which I won't go into now. It's always the rural to me 😊.
There are always lots of competitions throughout the year and I always try to pitch in with some sewing efforts if I can. They usually have a theme and this years one was "look to the future" we really scratched our heads about this but came up with a retro space agey theme. Evelyn made a fabulous Clangers set. 
Here is my effort a space age retro sew together bag!






 

Sunday, 17 July 2016

Amsterdam

AhhHhhh Amsterdam, sigh, it seems so long ago yet it was less than a week ago!
We seemed to spend a lot of time doing this .....

But oh my goodness Amsterdam really does know how to do beer!
My husband and I couldn't get a whole fortnight off together because he is using up most of his holidays trekking across Iceland, as you do ... So I took a fortnight off and we had a long weekend in the middle. We needed to keep costs down as he is spending a small fortune on the Iceland trip! So we decided on a long weekend in Amsterdam.
I wasn't to bothered about anything other than getting to this shop!

I spent a small fortune in there, but that's for another blog post 😊
Whoops there's another beer, where did that come from?
On a more serious note, it was very poignant to see the auschwitz memorial, especially with the rise of anti semitism in these uncertain times.
We went to the Dutch resistance museum which was an amazing and sobering visit. There was one tale of a woman who was jailed for not handing over money to the Germans, she was given the task of darning the soldiers socks, she darned the tops shut. That takes some amount of courage and sheer thrawness to do that.
Amsterdam was busy and beautiful, I wouldn't say it's my favourite European city but I felt very comfortable here.
Another favourite visit was the Van Loon museum, it was a restored merchants house, it had a beautiful garden and coach house.
I spotted this shoe shop display, I do love a good display.
Tatty bye for now Amsterdam I hope to come back and visit soon!