Christmas decorations, popping into an art gallery and a fabulous lunch.

We went to Liverpool yesterday (Thursday) it's my birthday on Saturday and my other half wanted to take me out for lunch. The reason we went yesterday, rather than today or tomorrow, was because it was supposed to be the best day of the week as it was due to bucket it down today (instead the sun is cracking the flags!) and on Saturday. That's British weather for you!

Anyway, here's what we did. We had coffee and toast at John Lewis' and also spent a happy time looking around the Christmas decoration department. The shop also had its decorations up, which are quite lovely, but it's not even bonfire night yet! It's too early!!

They always have fabulous decorations for sale at John Lewis' and this year is no different. I do make my own, but I do have a weakness for shop bought ones too.

There's folksy ones.

 Vintage-style ones. These are my favourites, using glass, pink and silver.

Knit covered reindeer heads.
 

 This Christmas tree with the icicles is beautiful.

These two are in, what I call, a dirty blue colour. They wouldn't fit into my decorating schemes, but in the right place they'd be chic.

 

Primary colours, again, not really me, but they'd look great in a modern flat or a child's room. I do like the paper concertina shapes though.

Felt angels.

After the Christmas decoration gazing, we popped over to the Walker Art Gallery. A few years ago they had an exhibition of clothes from the wardrobe of a Mrs Tinne, the wife of a quite well to do doctor. Since then, the remaining pieces of the collection were donated to the gallery by one of Mrs Tinne's daughters and items not previously seen have been put on display. I took lots of photos of the garments, shoes and hats so I'm going to write a separate blog post on these next week. For now, here's pictures of the good lady, probably taken during here honeymoon, a little about the collection and a peek at one of her evening coats (apologies for the reflections in the last photo).

When we left the gallery, the sun was shining directly behind the Steble Fountain, which is at the top of William Brown Street, making it all twinkly so I just had to take a picture.

Lunch was to be had at one of our favourite restaurants in Liverpool, the Italian Club. This time we both decided to have their steak sandwich. It was a great choice. The steak was cooked superbly (medium for me, rare for Ray), and came on a panini, with cooked onions, lettuce, tomato and mustard. This piece of gastronomic delight (I think I'm getting a bit carried away here, but it really was that good!) was accompanied by french fries and salad. You should go to the Italian Club (or their sister restaurant Italian Club Fish, which is equally as good), all of their dishes are authentic Italian and are served with the Italian love of food and sharing.

We ended the trip on this heavenly note (sorry!) and caught the bus home.

I have done some making over the past couple of weeks, but most of it is for commissions so I can't share pictures until they've seen the finished articles. It's mainly included embroidering and embellishing (fun bits), with just a little work on the sewing machine.

I have spent a bit of time adding things (not much fun bits) to my own website and onto my new outlet Crafty Magpie too.

Hope you have a great weekend.
TTFN

Louise