We made it to Lincolnshire! I drove up, which was an achievement in itself as I haven't driven for more than 5 years and never in this country.  We've been here for nearly a week now and I've been making steady progress on the 'cushions' idea.  So far I've made:

• 13 corduroy cushion covers (12.5 x 12.5cm)
• 20 barley filled inner cushions
• 20 muslin squares shortly to be filled with lavender
• 5 flowery sachets with pink ribbon for hanging in wardrobe (11x11cm)
• 50 squares of calico fabric awaiting printing and to be made into more hanging sachets.

Having bought a load of lavender just before coming up here, my sister informed me that her friend has a garden full of the stuff, and that we can help ourselves to as much as we wanted!  So we did.  Here is a picture of the lavender that we picked, drying on a towel upstairs...

 

 

I haven't really researched the preparation process so I'm kind of glad that I've bought some that is already dried and prepared.  But we took some of the seeds and scattered them in a spare patch of soil in the garden, so perhaps next year I  will be able to fill the cushions with our own home grown lavender!  Here is one of my little helpers, my nephew Philip, sowing the seeds:

 



Toby, my son, has also been invaluable in his help.  Here he is weighing out the barley:

There's still plenty more to be done (I haven't even looked at the technical side of things, including getting this blogged noticed!)).  Tomorrow I will be printing calico squares for the 'citrus' range.  But for now, we are going to have a barbeque!