What a lovely Saturday!

My morning walk in the pouring rain at 08.10 this morning was so not the flavour for the rest of this lovely Saturday.  And, since it was such a lovely day I'm going to share a little of it with you.

After drying out and a quick change of clothes it was off into our local village for morning coffee (or hot chocolate if you're 9 years old) with my lovely son.  I wish I had a pic of him enjoying his hot chocolate which our lovely local coffee shop (Out of Habit, Hillsborough) make look very sophisticated for him and then (because we're regulars and he's a hit with the girls who work there) gets topped off with two large flump mallows!  It was a great wee half hour away from everything else to catch up on all his news from the start of the new term at school - mummy/son time, you know.

After that it was off to make good use of a voucher for an LQS in Belfast (Quilter's Quest) that I had been gifted by my great friend Judith.  It was great to have her come with me for advice and encouragement, and to make it even better when we got there the September sale was on, so I was able to make my voucher stretch this far ...

I wish my photo did justice to the reds, greens and oranges in the black fabric
 - I love this!

Amy Butler yumminess - and on sale!
(Again the colours are better in reality!)

And one fq just for fun!

I love these fabrics, and it was such a pleasure to have a gift voucher to spend - thank you so much Judith!

Then it was the inaugural meeting of Bee Blessed.  What a great response Judith and I had to the call for other stitchers to come and join us in our charity Bee, both from the online community and from folks locally.  This afternoon those of us who were able meet locally invaded Judith's family room, littered it with foot pedal cables and fabric trimmings,  and generally laughed and stitched our way through the afternoon adding to the stash of generously donated blocks from our blogging friends.  I should have taken some pics of everybody hard at work and maybe even of the coffee and biccies that were there to sustain us, but you'll have to keep an eye on Judith's blog for those pics.  Instead, I have this lovely shot of all the blocks so far -

More wonky stars than you can shake a stick at!

A sneaky pic of J taking an arty photo (for her blog no doubt)!

It was a smashing wee afternoon and I hope everyone else enjoyed it just as much as I did.

And, the nicest part of the afternoon was that we were joined at the Bee by Karen from Listen to the Birds Sing whom Judith and I have 'met' virtually, but not in person until today.  It was so terrific to meet Karen and to see some of the lovely projects she is working on.  To say that Karen's work is precise and beautiful is an understatement - she is one seriously talented lady.  Go check out her blog and you'll see what I mean - and if you happen to be one of her goodie swap partners, you really are in for a treat!  It was so nice to finally meet Karen and we hope to be seeing her again soon.  Here's a wee pic of the three of us together ...

L-R: Karen, Judith and me - smiles all round!

And can I just whisper that Karen very generously brought me this fab French General bag kit as a gift.  Isn't she a sweetie?

I really was overwhelmed by such kindness and thoughtfulness, and of course I'm very excited about making up this new bag!  Thank you so, so much Karen!

Now, wasn't that a good Saturday? - a wee bit of mummy/son time, great friends, great fabrics and a new friend and pressie to boot!  Ahhhhh (contented sigh).