a surprise

Some weeks are quiet and uneventful, and thats always good...but this week I had some lovely surprises...a letter from a friend with this little lavender bag...beautiful...

and this rather larger surprise! The man of the house loves most things that have wheels, he had been eyeing up this little retro beauty on his way to work.  At the end of the week she came to live with us...on a squally day weatherwise we took her on her maiden voyage (well with us anyway!) to Fortrose, it is on the Southern Scenic route. The tide was out but we had a lovely time cosy inside. I did some stitching, man of the house did some reading and we drank lots of tea  (the best cups are brewed with the thermette!) and ate homebaked chocolate cake..and felt like we had been on a holiday when we had only spent an afternoon...beside the sea....

 Another surprise was some ripened hips on my rugosa roses which when picked looked cheery in the kitchen beneath a Rosehip water colour I completed before Christmas.

As I have not completed any handcraft projects this week, there a few WIP's though, I thought as I was going to use a sewing bag I had sewn up  before Christmas  I would show a pic of that, Its such a handy looking bag. A Rosalie Quinlan Design called Nellies Sewing Bag, it also has some rosy touches..

all sides are patchworked in the pattern, I did 2 patched sides and 2 where I loved the fabric too much to cut it up...

it has these very handy pockets on the inside.  I made one each for my girls for Christmas in fabrics I thought they would like and had fun putting some sewing notions into the pockets.
The completed project this week was a batch of apricot Jam, and the best bit, apart from the trip to get the fruit, was putting on the lids , a Christmas gift..and so cool..Kath Kidson jam covers, almost too pretty to use, but will make lovely gifts.

Life is full of wonderful surprises and sometimes the small ones are just as good for the soul as the big ones, I saw this little gem at the nursery last week and potted it up in a rusty urn where it can peek in the window at me its so pretty.

Viola Hederacea...the ticket says winter hardy, frost hardy(thats good) and evergreen.

as always it seems to be late when I finish writing a post  so a nice cup of tea and a good book are the order of the evening.