Sew many yarns: A Cathedral, and hand stitching.

Earlier this week John was presenting a paper in Derby. I needed to visit my younger brother and so we combined the two as my brother lives about 25 miles from Derby. As it happens I also ended up having to do some work whilst I was there due to a colleague being ill.

The trip into Derby gave me the opportunity to visit the city itself. I've been before but years ago and couldn't remember anything about it. I took some time out to check out the shops and found some little items for stocking presents. I also found the cathedral. I didn't realise that Derby had a cathedral so I had to check out it's history when I got home. The church (known as All Saints Church) has been there for longer but was only created a cathedral in 1927. It boasts the Bess of Hardwick memorial and I also came across this plaque to Florence Nightingale. I didn't manage to get a photo of the Cathedral but you can see some images here

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I had only been teaching 'The development of nursing in the UK' on Monday and of course this includes information on Florence's role in setting up the first nurse training school. As it doesn't discuss her earlier life I hadn't realised that she was born into a Derbyshire family. It was such a coincidence to be talking about her in class one day and to see this a few days later.

I looked for a quilt shop in Derby but there wasn't one. I found a fabric shop but it sold fashion fabric so I came home empty handed. If I can find a quilt shop I always like to visit as often they have a slightly different range to those near my home. Not that I need to buy any fabric at present as I haven't been doing that much sewing recently and so my stash hasn't gone down much but you can't have too much fabric, can you?

I took my hand stitching with me and managed to get some time to work on it. I'm pleased with the progress I've made.

Just the writing and the one dog to finish. That's about an evenings worth of stitching (when watching TV) so this will be finished tonight. I can then start on the pieced blocks and make the quilt top. I also did some work on my cross stitch sampler but that grows much more slowly so whilst there is a noticeable difference in the area I'm working on its not enough to get excited about.

This afternoon we are heading out on an adventure. Not sure yet what we are going to do but I'll tell you about it later. I like sudden decisions to go and do something. Planned activities are great and you can enjoy looking forward to them but spontaneous outings always seem exciting and daring.

Tomorrow is day 2 of Halloween Haunts blog hop. The featured haunts tomorrow are;

I hope you are having a good weekend. I'm linking my post with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. Do pop over and take a look.

Lyndsey.