Starry, Starry Night

Hello. This week I've finally managed to complete the 12 quilt blocks for L's Graduation Quilt. Tuesday found me playing around, arranging them on the bed as I tried to decide on some sort of order. I've since started joining them together with some of the elephant material. 

A couple of the squares have added embroidery:

It shouldn't take too long to finish the top, then I just have to decide whether I want to hand or machine quilt it. Actually, I may go with a combination: hand quilting around the stars and then quilting in the ditch up and down the dividing strips.

There have been a few other happies this week too:

Purple Lurky Soup! Basically, any veg found lurking in the bottom of the fridge that needed using up. In this case, it included a chunk of red cabbage - hence the interesting colour! R wasn't impressed, even though it tasted much better than it looks!

A new piece of artwork in a local shopping centre. Since someone mentioned 'couples padlocks' on bridges (sorry, I can't remember who blogged about them), I've been seeing them everywhere. Our little bridge near the library had a few and then there was this masterpiece:

A quick trip to Oxford to take L a dress which she needed and had forgotten.

 The Radcliffe Camera:

The Bridge of Sighs - named because of its supposed similarity to the famous one in Venice:

Part of Gloucester Green market - I bought a few cheap embroidery threads and L bought a book on Oxford buildings and gardens:

Lunch at our favourite Chang Mai Kitchen - veggie spring rolls:

Thai red curry and green papaya salad:

A walk around the covered market. I adore this cake shop - the decorators sit in the window working and I could watch them for hours:

This one of an old couple was my favourite - I love the blue icing and the ginger cat. Note the socks with sandles!

Another of my favourite stalls - the cheese shop. I'm addicted to their Oxford Blue:

To work off lunch, we climbed Carfax Tower. The view is amazing, although the climb up an open wrought iron spiral staircase had me quaking a bit. I'm not mad about heights - I'm OK, provided I look out and not down, so the staircase where I had to watch where I put my feet was rather a challenge!

Another cute discovery on the way back to the park and ride bus stop. It's tucked away down a little side street and I must have walked by it many times without noticing it:

My spoils of the day - a fat quarter from the cutesy shop, my threads from the market and my cheese and some passion fruit from the covered market. I saw a recipe for lemon and passion fruit pavlova on the Comic Relief Great British Bake Off. I bought some passion fruit on Monday to make it later in the week but E discovered them so, needless to say, I had to buy some more!

That's all for this week. If you fancy having a peek at what's made some other people smile, pop over to Planet Penny and join in the fun.
Toodle Pip for now. x