Hidcote and Kiftsgate

Sometime ago, my daughter, Anne, decided she wanted to look at flowering trees. Eventually we settled on Hidcote and Kiftsgate in the Cotswolds and met up in Hidcote Carpark this morning - on a glorious English spring day. With everyone else thinking the same. Fortunately we had agreed on a 1030 meet. By midday there was an unhappy queue down the access road waiting for some car to leave so that they could get in. We had a picnic lunch then went down the road to Kiftsgate which is built on top of the Cotswold escarpment so the views are terrific.

 What you see in the background is the Vale =Severn Valley or the Vale of Evesham depending on who you are. Since I am local, it is the Vale.

Lots of trilliums, including these lovely red ones. And Magnolia campbellii just going over with later magnolias in full flower. And all the time the sun blazed from a cloudless sky.

This clutch bag was made yesterday for the National Exhibition. The outer material is silk donsu in a pattern of triangles. The clutch strap is made from the lining material and it has a divider inside. BUT - - it will not be sent to the Exhibition because it is full of flaws. They mostly stem from trying to use this pattern. The zip is eight inches long and the bag must not have any dimension greater than 8 inches and it was impossible to sew a decent seam round the ends of the zip and maintain a dimension of 8 inches or less. I do not like is the use of the lining for the strap. It should have been done in the exterior material.  The pattern came from Threads November 2013 issue and there is nothing wrong with it. It is my fault completely for trying to get it into 8 inches. My local shop had six inch zips as well eight but six is too small. A seven inch would have been best.  I would certainly use the pattern again but not with a dimensional limit!! The Threads pattern did suffer from one defect. It did not list all the items you need any where in the instructions. However I did manage the swivel clip fixings without any trouble.