A Visit to the Gorgeous Leeds Central Library

When I visited Leeds this spring, a friend recommended lots of interesting places to visit - including Leeds Central Library (on the right, below) which houses lots of books (of course!) and the Leeds Tapestry.

The Tapestry is great, a really charming stitched celebration of the city... but the library itself: wow! What a fabulous building. All libraries are magical places (a whole building full of books? that you can borrow for free? you don't get much more magical than that) but this one is particularly special.

There are decorative details everywhere you look. Carved stonework, fabulous archways...

 

... beautiful stained glass...

 

...and so very many gorgeous tiles.

 

 

They even have a copy of one of my books in their Art Library, which clearly seals their status as an excellent library. I couldn't resist taking a photo! Having spent my childhood and teen years borrowing endless books from my local libraries, finding my own books on library shelves gives me chills - it's just so thrilling.

In the same building as the library, you'll also find Leeds Art Gallery (sadly closed for repairs during my visit) and the Tiled Hall Cafe. This is - as you might guess from the name - a cafe in a tiled hall! It was originally the reading room when the library was built in the late 1800s but fell out of use and has only recently been restored to its former glory.

 

Aren't those blue/green tiles wonderful?

What a place to sit and have a cuppa and a slice of cake! And if that's not enough loveliness for you,  it's just a ten minute walk from the splendour of the Victorian County Arcade which I blogged about a few weeks ago.

Leeds, you are awesome.

P.S. Interested in visiting Leeds? You might also enjoy my post about Leeds waterside and the Royal Armouries Museum.

A Day in the Life

At the end of May I took part in #igdayinthelife - an Instagram challenge to post a photo each hour throughout the day. I've seen other people take part in challenges like this and really enjoyed the peek into their lives, so I thought I'd give it a go. It was really rather fun. In case you missed it, here's what I got up to...

I took my first photo at 9:15 am, so I stuck with quarter past the hour for all my photos throughout the day. I wasn't off to the best start as I forgot to set my alarm the night before and overslept! Oops.

I started the day with a cup of tea and a good book - I'm trying to read more at the moment, and this is proving to be a really nice way to wake up. In between other books, I'm slowly re-reading all the Discworld books and was part-way through Lords and Ladies (one of my faves as a teen) back in May.

10:15 - Time for breakfast! I try to avoid turning on my phone or laptop before breakfast, but I made an exception to take part in this challenge.

11:15 - I walked into town to run some boring but important errands. It was a very grey day and my route into town is not at all exciting, but there were still lots of pops of happy springtime colour to enjoy along the way.

12:15 - Grocery shopping! I did not actually buy lemons or oranges :)

By 13:15 I was back at home and working on some felt poppies. I used to sell lots of felt poppies (as brooches and headbands and bracelets) in my shops, and am now working on giving this retired design a new life as a sewing pattern. It's been a while since I stitched one of these, it's funny what details you forget and what's still automatic after having done it so very many times.

14:15 - Time for lunch, and the rookie mistake of letting my food go cold while I Instagrammed it! Lunch was eaten one-handed while reading.

By 15:15 lunch was eaten, the washing up was done and I was making a start on some more felt flowers - more old designs that will be getting a second life as sewing patterns.

16:15 Sewing + tea + Flash Gordon on the telly = a great combo for a chilly Bank Holiday afternoon.

My lovely red desk is a 1950s kitchen table, my dad grew up eating his breakfast at it each morning and now I use it every day in my office.

At 17:15 I was still making flowers... and taking lots of notes along the way so I could write a detailed tutorial later. There was a lot of stopping and starting and pausing to think "how do I describe this??"

18:15 - Time to take a break from working on the tutorials to drink tea and eat hot cross buns. Yum!

By 19:15 I'd decamped to the sofa to spend some quality time with this fella. He pays a lot of attention if I'm knitting (the twitchy yarn is just too much for him to resist) but totally ignores my sewing, so we can sit happily together for hours as I work and he snoozes.

20:15 - Making a start on dinner! Simple pasta, not fancy (I never cook anything particularly fancy) but nice and tasty.

At 21:15 I was watching the Sewing Bee. This year's competition was so much fun, and it was so exciting to see my old UK Etsy chum Charlotte taking part. Monday nights just won't be the same now it's finished!

Then my final photo was at 22:15 - I was watching Gotham (sooo goooood) and wondering what to take a photo of for my final pic of the day when this fella showed up!

It was an interesting challenge taking those hourly photos and I'm really glad to have this little diary of everyday moments that I'd never usually bother recording. I'm not going to start Instagramming my breakfast each day or anything like that, but I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for the next #igdayinthelife challenge and taking part if I can.

P.S. You can follow me on Instagram here - I mostly post pics of my crafty projects and my adventures exploring the UK on Nice Days Out.

UPDATE: My primrose and poppy designs are now available as sewing patterns! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns

Take to the Sea: a New Project in Progress!

UPDATE: this pattern and a matching felt project are now available in my Patreon pattern library!

Subscribe to get instant access to a growing library of PDF embroidery patterns and craft tutorials, and updates when I add something new!

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I have so many things in my "work in progress" pile, but what did I do this weekend? Yup, you guessed it: I started something new.

It's a gift for a friend who loves (or, should I say loved) the now-shuttered website The Toast. I wanted to stitch her a little something with one of the Toastie mottoes - Take To The Sea - and after an evening's doodling I eventually settled on a design with lots of waves and a little boat (with a T for The Toast, of course!).

I wasn't 100% sure how I was going to stitch the waves, so yesterday I made a start on embroidering the lettering and thought "well, I'll just see how this goes!"

The words and the boat are stitched with a very dark blue embroidery thread (floss) and backstitch. I'm a bit annoyed by that wonky T in the top line, but I am also trying to be a bit less of a beat-myself-up-about-tiny-mistakes perfectionist with my crafting so let's just ignore that and move on...

I tried out a couple of different options for the waves and decided to go with the most labour-intensive: filling in all the white space with backstitch in shades of blue.

This is gonna take a looooong time and use a lot of thread, but I'm really pleased with how it's looking so far. The text seems to be standing out nicely from the surrounding colour and I love the texture of the waves.

I'm not sure what colour(s) I'm going to use for the boat yet - maybe just white? We shall see. I've got a lot more waves to stitch before I have to make a decision about that anyway.

It's going to take me many, many evenings to finish this piece. Luckily the process is a very relaxing one! I'll be blogging about my progress and posting lots of pics over on my Instagram.

Explore Art Deco London this Weekend!

 
This Saturday, 9th July, Kate (of Made by Mrs M) and I will be exploring some of London's Art Deco Tube stations... and we'd love it if you joined us!

We'll be taking photos and/or sketching at each stop - it should be lots of fun! I'm really looking forward to visiting some new places, seeing some interesting architecture, having a good natter, and flexing my creative muscles.

You'll find all the details over on Kate's (excellent) blog.

(This is the Art Deco London Map that we'll be using as our guide - thanks to Kate for the photo!). 

P.S. Meanwhile, my sample sale continues! Head over to lauralupinsells to see the pieces that are still available. Prices start from just £1 + postage.