Craft, the seaside and the house renovation project….

Firstly, this blog at the moment seems like a monthly catch up of what I have been doing - and to some extent it is. My blog is a reminder to me about things that I have done and places I have been, and its lovely that so many people pop by to see what I have been up to. Over the last few months a lot of my time has been taken up with the house renovation project, which has meant that I have not had so much time for other things, but once we have moved (in a few months time) hopefully things will get back to a more even keel.

The playmat I have been making for my nephew and his partner for their new baby, became a rush job, as their little girl was born three weeks early!! I have seen lovely photos of the baby, and we will go and visit over the Easter holidays.

Once the centre blocks were made and a border added, I had to cut 80 smaller squares for the outside border! More about this quilt will be in another post and the grand ta-dah!

During the last month J and I also went to look after his mum for a while, whilst his sister and her husband were on holiday. They live close to the sea near Seaham on the NE coast of England, so each evening I was able to take Beanie for a walk along the beach. 

me and my dog!

Seaham, amongst other things, is famous for its glass making history. In 1853 the Cavendish Bottleworks and glass foundry was built on the cliffs at Seaham. It made all sorts of coloured glass for vases, homeware, medicine and poison bottles! as well as everyday drinks and milk bottles. At the end of each day any excess molten glass and any broken glass was thrown over the cliffs into the sea. 

The glass in the sea was then tumbled and smoothed by the waves, creating smooth frosted pebbles of glass which wash up on the coast. The Bottleworks closed in 1921 and was later demolished in the 1950's - so any glass found has quite a history.

It can get very addictive, walking along the beach looking at the sand and picking up small pieces of glass! Poor Beanie, I think he got a little bored as I wasn't really giving him much attention. Above is my little haul of glass pebbles and some interesting stones! below are the most interesting glass pebbles made from blue and green glass…...

……. especially the multi coloured piece with the different shades of green!

My niece bought her children around to see us while we were there. I made some cakes and had a little helper to decorate the cakes for us. Mmmmm, yummy!

The house project is going well! The windows and doors are on order, and now building work is moving from the new extension to the old part of the house. I'm trying to finalise our ideas on some of the interior fittings - so many decisions to make!!!!

Hope you had a lovely Easter break