BQL Bag Challenge - May bag - done

The May bag is finished - just a few hours short of the deadline - slightly different to the original design due to a zip deficit in the household - and the only one I could find that was the correct length was white, it's a great bag non the less and will join my mom's January bag no doubt.

BQL Bag Challenge - May bag in progress

May Bag in progress - a loopy quilting design was suggested - I tried it but I kept going though the design -and the quilting looked lumpy - so out it came and I did these wavy lines - missing the balls - connecting the blue background fabric. I've sort of fallen out of love with this bag - it's not me - so I think it'll get given to my mom when she visits - it's a great shopping bag and I put in a inside pocket and key clip.

The last Q card

The last Q card arrived today from Amy - A Quaint Little Quail - very sweet. I had planned on doing the whole alphabet - though after just 3 letters can't face the other 21 - sad eh? I may pick a random letter in the future but the whole alphabet, nahh.

Wordless Wednesday

Mother of Zorro

We were invited to a 'Superhero' 4th birthday bash - my littles knowing no super heroes decided to go as a 'Princess ballerina' and 'in my shiny shirt'. The Princess ballerina costume was done - just a face mask to make. 'Shiny shirt' became the basis of the Zorro costume - I spent most of the morning and some of the afternoon making a Zorro cape to my exact specifications. It turned out great - I can unpick the Z in the future should we wish it to become a 'Dracula' or 'Red Ridding Hood' cape - I made it big enough on the closure to fit a waist - though a little long at the moment - it will make a good skirt or apron for future fancy dress... T2 was just so thrilled to wear his shiny shirt, with or without the cape.
The party was at a kids arts workshop, they made masks, ate a party tea, then had capes space dyed for them which are drying at the moment.......

Incoming mail - Q is for...

AITM - Q for quince arrived today from Caroline

The Zoo

On Tuesday we went to the Zoo (another day of pre-school holiday) - yes we have everything here in Istanbul, though the zoo is a long trek out of the city on the Asian side. It's not the 'European' style zoo with lots of foliage for the animals to hide behind - it's the stark, iron bar type zoo - where you are less than a meter away from the animals and you can feed them! yes - can you imagine trying to feed a gorilla in the Brooklyn Zoo?

These guys have got it figured - there are iron tubes and they tell you to put the food in the top - the monkeys not the zoo keepers - and then they catch it..... now for 2 nearly 4 year olds this was stunning - trying to get a meaningful picture was hard, a lot of the glass was really grubby, but you could see the monkey hands down the feeding tubes.

This was the first time I've seen White Peacocks (they were a separate bread not albino) - this zoo started off as a bird place - so they have LOTS of birds - and then became a more encompassing zoo - they've made some good changes since my last visit a year ago - the lions have more space - the tigers have a new enclosure, I think the leopards have gone, but you can get SO close - it's worth the steep incline, random footpath widths and heights and strange smells.

The zebra is a bit off, the thing kept coming too close to get a good picture - he loved his carrots - though was the most confident Zebra about. We didn't see the Elephant or the Giraffe - they had one of each in my fuzzy memory, then again the entry fee has remained static for the last 3 years, perhaps this is why! - note to self - don't go on a day where it goes over 35 degrees - not nice, though there is a great kebab place near by, I need to figure out the recipe for eggplant with yogurt, not what I was expecting but so yummy......

BQL Bag Challenge - May bag

Work in progress. I started the May bag for the BQL Challenge yesterday morning, after faffing about over which fabrics to use for the past week, I discovered 2 lots of 2 identical FQ's of Japanese fabric from many moons ago when I subscribed to a 'club'. I have washed some of them, others are unwashed, all of them are 'too precious' to cut - alas the pile isn't going down and these auditioned very well - 4 FQ's gone for the outer, then a couple more for the lining. The pattern in a 3D bow tie, the first time I've done this, not something I would choose to do, a bit of a challenge really!
It's taking forever to pin, but it's good wholesome piecing at it's best. All the pinning has made it quite portable, I sat out in the garden, the littles played in the paddling pool. Baby did her 'cap-a-till-a' according to T1 (Caterpillar) impression, she's desperate to get onto her knees to start crawling. But it was perfect for sitting and pinning.

FAT birthday

FAT were celebrating their 3rd birthday - they had a make a ribbon challenge. This hasn't got the definition I had hoped for, the beads kind of fade, whilst they took too long to sew on. It was a quick challenge - just over 48 hours, and of course I didn't start till about 4 hours before the challenge ended, so no real time to play with the design. The challenge winner was a cute ribbon and the obvous winner. I'm sure this will find a home - or I'll work on it some more and turn it into something else.

Incoming mail

These AITM cards arrived last week -

C for classic cup - from Sharon

I sent C for cat out - this one is one of my favourites, and is a drawing by T1, they both adore cats, but she does great cat drawings. I traced the design on the back of the white fabric, then used no 8 Perle in the bobbin to make the line, it's such a clean card. The edging has a piece of black cotton knitting yarn caught in the satin stitch to make a hard line that frames the picture.

Q is for Quietude - from Kate, Q for quilt block from Beth

I send my Q is for Queen in return

Wordless Wednesday

Incoming Mail - twins postcards

This trade via FF has the theme twins they arrived a while back - I had all the pieces cut out for my card - but have only just mailed them....... of course the hands are T1 and T2


Linda's hand tinted photo on fabric of her Grandfather and his sister -Wendy's twin Gins and KR's peas in a pod.

19 Mayis - part 2

Today is another national holiday -this time I snuk to the Gym for a hour this morning - it was great - the Turkish lady who is usually in the room at the same time as me was on holiday - perhaps doing sport somewhere else. I had my class in peace - for the first 38 minutes until my phone rang - one little boy wanting to go to the beach.

It was a glorious day - but no knowing if the beach would be too windy I was a little sceptical. We packed of to the beach with sandwiches, cherries and water - the littles brought a selection of scoops, spades and containers. Our regular beach wasn't open - even though they said this would be the first day of the season. So we went to Dalia Beach - which at this time of year is lovely - not too many folks - just a couple of dogs on the grassy plateau above the beach. We parked by the jetty and stayed for over a couple of hours. The littles consumed their lunch - waded in the sea, made all types of delicious foods from sand and didn't complain once.

19 Mayis

Tomorrow is another national holiday -this time Youth and Sports Day (Gençlik ve Spor Bayramı), I took this whilst driving though Maslak - the financial/business area. Turks are very fond of flags - they have some HUGE ones - these come out for all the holidays. Quite a spectacle coming from the UK where flags are not really flown.

Cherry Season

Cherry Season is upon us - we had the first Napolean Cherries from the market this week at a whopping 10YTL a Kilo - they were divine, I don't normally buy the first fruit of the season, but couldn't resist. I try and buy local, or Turkish grown, Mashalla the fruit man at the market did a good sales pitch and I got half a kilo.
There seem to be endless varieties of cherry here in Turkey.

These are Kiraz - they are very pale in colour, looking unripe, the flesh is yellowish, but are sweet as can be - the littles went to the next door neighbour's house to pick them with Baba - more cherries to come over the summer....

14 Days

14 days since the last posting - lots has happened to keep me away, the most stunning was a black tie dinner at the Ciragan Palace. It's a stunning Ottoman building - unfortunately cameras were deemed inappropriate.

The most visual thing that I could take photos of was finally going to DH's office and seeing the view. He is on the 3rd floor of a waterfront yali http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yal%C4%B1 - the view is naturally stunning. He'll miss the view but not the commute when the office moves (again) this time closer to home, but no view. Istanbul at it's finest!

Incoming mail - C is for...

C is for candle

C is for Circle

My C is for Cat went out to them in return

BQL Bag Challenge - done

The rules of the bag challenge state that to get the next pattern the current month's bag must be completed and a picture posted before the end of that month http://bqlbagblog.blogspot.com

- I made it with a day to spare. It's generous in size, which with 3 littles is very useful. May's bag has 3D bow ties - something that hasn't piqued my interest in the past - but I will have a go now.