To Mosspaul

Saturdays 'ride out' went to Mosspaul, 24 miles in total, it's a hard ride, 207 horses crossed the Pilmuir field.

Here are a couple of links for further information....

Mosstroopers club

Mosspaul Inn

The Cornet leaving....

Pilmuir field

Pilmuir Field

Skelfhill

Arriving at Mosspaul

It was a freezing cold day at Mosspaul.....we rushed over to get a good spot to park and chat then got a bit cold waiting for the horses. After a picnic and refreshments the horses were ready to travel back to Hawick.

On the way home at North House the Cornet presented Kyle with the William Mitchell Hislop Memorial Cup for Junior Moss Troopers with Good Grace. Thank you for honouring Kyle with this award, of course we all secretly know our Grandson is special.

The Alan Water

Mini Ride Out for the Primary School Children

This will be the last time Fieron can join in with the Mini Ride Out, next year she will go to the High School so will be too old.
This ride is for Primary years 1-7 and ponies under 14.2hh. Fieron rode her Grandads pony, Bess is 14.1hh.

The children rode around the park following the Cornet for one hour...then came back for refreshments, everyone seemed to have a good time.

 My Lovely Granddaughter riding Bess...

Philhope Bridge, A Bridge too Far

Tuesday's Ride Out was to Philhope Bridge.....this ride comes right over our land, passed and on up the valley to Philhope Bridge. We had arranged that Kyle and Millie would ride with Tessa and Willow. Willow is a young horse, this was her first time away from home, in fact her first time off the farm and she wasn't really fit we trailered the horses up to Philhope to ride back into town. This is still around a 12 mile ride for just half of the ride.....

There had been a severe weather warning for the afternoon....only around 100 horse turned out. This is a hard ride if the weather isn't good, we have had snow and hail on this ride before. Just as the horses started to leave it rained but the riders stayed dry as the weather swirled around and about....us followers got a little wet though.

Off they go up over the hills, the next view point was at the Allan Water at Newmill Ford, here's the Cornet with his Right and Left Hand Men and the Acting Father

Kyle with Tessa and Millie with Willow in the middle of the photo

Waiting back in town....flags are up and the Towns folk are waiting as usual

It stayed dry for the horses,  riders and the crowds of folk cheering the horses in....Tessa and Willow are field mates so stayed together, Willow was as good as gold and took everything in her stride....

String Quilt Tutorial

As promised here is a quick tutorial of how I used foundation paper piecing for this string quilt, it's really fast and easy....

All that's needed is a tub of string scraps and a telephone directory. String scraps are strips of scrap fabrics measuring 3/4 - 2 inches wide.....length can vary even pieces as short as 3 inches can be used up in this technique as long as your paper foundation is covered. 

In the UK we have these dinky telephone directories. The size is perfect for a 6 inch finished block.... I pull out a few pages in a wad and quickly cut of the glue residue from the edge with a rotary cutter and ruler and then trim to a square roughly 7 inches x 7 inches. You can if you think it necessary draw a diagonal line on each piece of paper however I don't.

From your tub of string scraps take a light and dark string, place right sides together and sew right on the diagonal line. For this quilt design a good contrast between the light and dark fabrics for the first two pieces really adds to the design.

It is necessary to press each piece as sewn so have your pressing station close to your sewing machine and press open.

Keep adding lighter coloured fabric to the light side of your square, they don't have to be in any particular order just as long as the colours are in the light to medium range. Make sure you cover the paper foundation and be sure to press open after each piece is added. 

Now pull darker strings from your tub and add to the darker side of the square, again no particular order as long as these strings are in the medium to dark colour range.

Once all of your paper is cover it will look like this from the back.....

I used a 6 1/2inch square up ruler and trimmed to 6 1/2 inches x 6 1/2 inches.

I made up 48 blocks and then removed the paper,  this paper is very easy to remove.

Then all that is necessary is to choose your layout. The contrast fabrics on the diagonal provide many opportunities for choice...

I chose a layout that gave a diagonal looking block design where the darker part of the blocks fell to the edge of the quilt and gave the impression of lighter blocks in the middle. I added a red border and quilted with an all over pantograph design by One Song Needle Arts called Chocolate Leaves.