Quick Question

Our lovely neighbours, Maryse and John-Pierre, are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this coming October. I thought I would make a small quilt wall hanging with the letters J M P in the centre (JMP). Anyone any design ideas? Nothing too big and nothing too complicated. Plain, simple and quick is the order of the day. Suggestions on a post card please :-) Craft show due to take place at the end of June/beginning of July. says she muttering "plenty of time, plenty of time".

Yahoo to you !

You may be wondering why all those ghastly "Join Yahoo Groups" boxes are there in my Links section. I'm moderator of a large group of over 300 people called Dreaming of SW France. This was one of the first Expat Listserve groups for those people (comme moi) who love France. It was set up by the lovely Jules Thomas and her brother Pete. Sadly neither of them are with us any more so I took over and run it with the help of my mate Allison and, from time to time, Jules's husband, Gordon. There was a split off some time ago by a certain whiskered gentleman (?) called Ian who lives in the Lot et Garonne with his wife, the lovely Christine. La Vie en France was created in 2003 and Ian, being the kind person that he is, asked Allison and I this year if we would join his moderating team of himself, Megs and Mike. The two groups now run happily together, although La Vie en France gets more traffic, so to speak. Expat Crafters - this is my baby! Megs and I got fed up with being "shouted at" by the men on La Vie en France when we wanted to discuss my quilts, her knitting fetish, her wool fetish and other craft related stuff. So we decided to create Expat Crafters for expatriate's the world over who love crafts of all sorts. The group was started in January and we now have a membership of 25 (ish). The first 10 or so members are Dreamers/LVeF members and it does sound a bit cliquey at times as we have known each other for a long time. There you have it - the story of the Yahoo Groups boxes! Ankle is getting better, the quilt is coming along nicely, although I'm going to have to make another trip to the fabric warehouse at Javerlhac as I have run out of pale blue material (what a shame :) ) and the weather is very conducive to quilting - its been raining solidly for 2 days. Oh and I received a mail this morning from Serena Smith asking if she could link to my Blog. That's nice. Look to the right and you will see the link to her blog. TTFN

Invitation

I'm sitting here nursing a badly sprained ankle which is strapped up in an Air Cast and I'm going to be like this for the next 3 weeks so now is my chance to get caught up on the 3rd quilt (see photo of rough plan). A great friend of ours who lives in the main village turned up this afternoon. He is a wood turner and stores the finished articles in our barn. His wife is into quilting too (it was her that really got me going and gave me the design for Alex's quilt). Anyway, he took one look at the design for quilt number 3 and the wall hanging quilt and has asked me to exhibit at the local art show in a few month's time. I'm chuffed to bits so only hope that I can get quilt number 3 finished in time. Now that the clocks have gone forward and the evenings are lighter, I'll be busy out in the garden once my ankle is better. However, 3 weeks of quilting should see it 3/4 of the way there I hope. The French quilts which I have seen are more artistic and exact than mine. I don't care if the seams don't line up and if there is a design fault (which there is on the wall hanging). I only hope that they don't take one look and turn their backs LOL. With any luck I'll be able to persuade Rex to show his walking sticks and Alexandra her cards. The Worthy's are turning into real craft folk! More as and when.

Intro

Well, here we are being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century and my first ever blog! My name is Clare, I am married to hubby, Rex, and have an 11 year old daughter, Alexandra. We left the UK in 1998 and moved to the Dordogne. Why the Dordogne? Well, it wasn't intentional and in fact the Dordogne was the last departement on our list of where to live in France! It was the house that did it. 5 bedrooms, lovely farmhouse kitchen, 3 hectares, swimming pool and lots of potential. Considering we lived in a 2 up, 2 down terraced cottage in the UK, this place still seems huge! I started quilting/patchworking this time last year. I was rummaging through Alex's old clothes deciding on what to throw, what to give away and what to turn into dusters when I came up with the idea of making a quilt for her out of them. It took me a long long time, but I'm glad I did it and she loves it!

I have just finished my second project, a blue jean wall hanging for our bedroom, and have started on the third one (matching quilt for our bed).

That's all for now.