City and Guilds - Texture 1

I realised yesterday that I had failed to keep up with my intention to blog about my City and Guilds Course and consequentially have skipped over the colur module completely! I will return to it. At the moment we are doing texture and have been told to do it on the theme of texture at the seashore or in the sky. Which inspired me dragging my poor husband to a freezing beach in the rain. (In my defence it was not raining when we left)

Formby point is our nearest decent beach and is only 40 min drive away but we never ever go there. It is also a National Trust red squirrel reserve - there is a forest leading up to dunes before the beach. We didn't get to see any this time but we had a bracing walk!

Here are just a few of the photos I took of texture-y things. I now have to work out how they inspire me. ( Not very much at the moment!)

(oil I think - yuk in terms of the environment but lovely marbelling effect!)

Why not to shop in the New Year Sales

This is a consumer story especially for Brenda - I know how much she enjoys them!
It's also the story of how it took me from 11.30 to 4pm to buy an MP3 except I've stuck to the worst highlights!

The first highlight was when after comparing goods in three stores ( none of whom actually put the salient information on the shelf sticker so you have to hunt down a teenager on their holiday job to try and get some product information) I bought a Cream MP3 on sale. I took it home, inserted the CD and wondered (a) why the rechargeable battery would not charge and why the instruction manual had entirely different pictures in it compared to the product. Answer: because it was an entirely different ( and of course) inferior product in the box.

Back to the shop. Excercised consumer choice and decided not to shop there again. So headed to Currys to be faced with a gridlocked town centre as every man and his dog headed for the sales. Smugly I drive the long way round on sneaky shortcuts to get to the out of town retail park which I assumed would be quieter as it had been earlier. Not so. people were now fighting over car park places. Literally!

Eventually I got in the shop and chose 2 substitutes. The MP3 players are displayed with a model tied with an alarmed wire to the (lack of) information display.
I found a salesman. "I'll have either of these two"
He vanished to the computer.
"We don't have the white one. The Prescot store has 5 of the black one but its not £59.98 as priced. Its only £29.98 now."
"Fantastic, I'll go there. Can you reserve it for me?"
Man vanished. Returns. "Prescot don't have 5. Speke have one."
"Fine. I'll go there. Can you reserve it?"
Man vanishes. Returns. "Speke don't have one."
"Can you sell me this display model?"
Man vanishes. Returns. "No. We've lost the box and USB wire for it."
"Can you recommend somthing else with similar fetaures?"
Man pauses. "Have you tried going next door to PC World?"
I look surprised and sweep my hand in the directionof the 30 or so display models. "You don't recommend any of these?"
"We don't sell most of them. You can tell because the price ends in .98 or .97. That means its a clearance model."
I examine my first choice. It ends in .98.
"So you don't actually sell this one at all?"
"No." He examined the card on the shelf then removed it and took out a biro. "But its not £59.98 any more. Its only £29.98." I watched him alter the price replace the card, resisted the urge to hit him and went to PC world!

The good news is that I have a reasonably priced MP3 albeit with a little less memory than I hoped but ample to transport quilting podcasts with me which is mainly what I wanted it for. That and for some pumped up music to run to in the gym. For which I need about 1KB memory given howfar I can run without collapsing!

Christmas presents

We are just back from a few days at Sunningdale (my parents B&B just outside of Penrith in the English Lake District. I am very jealous having had a quick look at Brenda and Erica's blogs - both have been dying fabric which requires sunny weather as far as I know - OK they are in Australia but nontheless .... we drove home today mid-afternoon in the dark and lashing rain. (I was going to post a picture of rain from Google images but all they give you are nice warm raindrops on tropical lush leaves - its not like that here!)

Still, I have enough chocolate to survive inside for some days so I'll just stay here by the fire with my Christmas presents which include - from my husband - all the fabric needed to make this quilttop from Kaffe Kassets Kaleidosope of Quilts

Not my usual colours at all ad when you look at them individually they are hideous ( to my eyes) but that's OK because I told him to challenge me and I do like the end result so I obvously am about to learn about colour blending! There seems to be a theme going as I got this book too.

From my Mum this book

and this one from my sister.

(Apt given my last post!)

And from my mother-in-law a large cheque so I can go online now and buy more quilting things. Yeah!!

I was asked by Erica which manufacturers the African Fabrics I posted last time came from. These two have no real marking on the selvage except that close to the selvage in the pattern selvage is the word Homeland which I am guessing may refer to Homeland Mart who seem to import African Fabrcis ( google Homeland fabric and the firm comes up).This one is The Riverbed by Benatex Style 1303and this one has no clue at all.

They all came from www.craftsandquilts.net so if you emailed them and sent these photos as picture attachements I'm sure you could track thenm down or order online from them. The shop is closed for refurbishments to 14th Jan though.

To reverse or not to reverse?

I have had the house to myself today (a rare occurrence) becuase Dennis is off in Northern Ireland buying my rather spohisticated nephew Starbucks Caramel Cream Frappachinos. I would say that when I was a child a simple milkshake was a major treat but I won't becuase it makes me sound old and I'm not really! Anyway it gave me a chance for a good old quilt and this is a photo of the king-sized quilt top I started on Thursday evening did a bit on yesterday after work and finished at 6pm today. Secret - BIG blocks (15") and no templates or pattern - just a pile of FQ's (Almost all Bali Batiks bought very cheaply earlier this year from the Fat Quarter Shop) and lots of freestyle rotary cutting. I suspect the quilting will not be so quick!

I had two cases in the Southport County Court yesterday and so took the opportunity to spend lunchtime at Crafts and Quilts which is only a couple of miles away from the court. It is really my local quilt shop ( ish - its 45 mins away) but I haven't been before because its 45 mins in a direction I never drive and I am up in Penrith at Just Sew frequently anyway for classes (1.5 hrs away). However, I find it has a good stock of fabrics. Not so good on threads - I was unable to get a netural coloured Guterman thread for piecing because the rack was half stocked ( perhaps just the time of year with hordes of panicked quilters stocking up there instead of Tesco's supermarket?) but I did get these great African style fabrics plus some others to make a pieced back for the bed quilt. ( the blues are much stronger than on these photos).

Or should I just get one backing fabric for the first quilt and make a fresh one with these?! What is the view of you lot out there - are reversible quilts a good idea or not? I appreciate that if you are quilting in specific areas of the quilt it would be a nightmare to match front and back but if we are doing free motion all over quilting - why are most quilts I've seen not reversible? Views please.

Anyway - I was impressed with the shop - I got a free cup of tea as I browsed and some chocolate caramels. Then when I expressed frustration that I'd arrived a day too early for the sale I got 1o% off anyway ( after I wheedled a bit!) and a free bunch of bananas. I missed what the guy said when he was explaining why he had bananas in the first place so I'm a bit puzzled by that but was grateful for them!

Tomorrow we go to stay with my parents in Penrith for Christmas so I am going to take a blog break for a little while. I hope everyone reading this has/ has had a great holiday.

My brilliant nephew

I don't usually use this blog for personal messages but I hope readers will forgive me this once. My husband has departed for Ireland today to see his family ( untroubled by the fog thank goodness) and has just rung me to say that Neil Woodock, my young nephew, wanted me to hear something. I then got a perfect rendition of Beethoven's Ode to Joy played on the piano down the phone. (Twice). I know Neil also wanted to check out this blog to see the bear photos so this post is a special message for him:

Neil: Sorry I couldn't get over to see you but the piano playing was FANTASTIC!!!! I am dead proud of you. Hope you like the blog. Keep beating Uncle Dennis at the games! Have a great Christmas
Love.
Auntie Helen.
PS I wanted to keep your Christmas presents from us but Uncle Dennis wouldn't let me!! You'll see what I mean on Monday!! :)

Bodecott Bear

Meet Bodecott bear ( named after the teacher who rescued him when I made him hunchback by sewing his shoulders to his legs and his bottom where his neck should be.)

He's kind of boss eyed and pigeopn toed but as he is going to my sister as a Christmas present and she is a bear collecting paediatric nurse I think he'll be in good hands.

I just think that perhaps I was over optimistic in making him as one of her main presents and that Bodecott's outing might be to go and buy a gift voucher for him to hold!!

PS I don't have orange walls - its actually a deep maroon red!

Postives and negatives

1. Clearly this is a negative - watch out for those nasty rotary cutters .

It looked worse when the finger bandage was on - the advantage of having a nurse in your quilting class.



2. Positive - I swapped to new Blogger this morning, disencouraged by the heavy hints from Blogger that my old blog was sadly out of date and encouraged by Brenda's account of having done so with her guild blog. Its easy peasy! (And for now with just minutes to go before I have to leave for work I am ignoring all new features so I don't know if its better or not).



3. Negative - my camera is playing up and is running batteries down at a daily rate if I leave them in so I have to take them out then try to track them down when I want to show you something. Very irritating as it is not that old a camera and certainly not a cheap one.



4. Positive - work is well underway on wall hangings for my newly decorated lounge. I bought a whole load of end of roll dupion silk at £7 per metre and challenged myself to just cut it all up and sew together (no patterns or templates) until it was all done and I had as many 36 x 36 quilts as I could get out of the material. These are the blocks for the first one, hopefuly to be sewn together later today.

5. Negative - My husband says that the European Center of Patchwork near Narbonne is the other end of the country from our planned city break in Paris next summer, far too far away ... and I know he is right but it will be nearer to Paris than it is to here and I want to go...!

6. Postitive - I found a patchwork shop by the Notre Damme to visit. Ha!

new blogger

I have just got a comment from a brand new blogger who is pleading for comments to encourage her on her new quilting blog - she's brand new to it. Don't know anything about her but I too long for comments so check her out and say hello to her ( and then tell me you've done it!!)

http://lilyflower-dnomder.blogspot.com/

At last!

At last - the top is finished! I started in September and it seems to have taken for ever.
I had a mini disaster -I had just two outer borders to go when a drama with Victoria Wood I wanted to watch came on ITV. I pinned in the living room and when the adverts came on dashed into the dining room to sew... catching the pinned lower border on the door knob and ripping six one centimeter holes through inner and outer borders. Grr. Had to unpick and add more seams than a wanted but still - I'm pretty pleased with it. Its the biggest I have ever done.

In a few spare moments tonight I also started to play with possible blocks for a silk wall hanging for the lounge.

On a more positive notes

Today my first article on quilting ( as opposed to law) appeared in British Patchwork and Quilting. It is about quilter's blogs so it is ironic that even though my copy arrived this morning and I had optimistically taken it to court to read in hope of a lull in business (fat chance!) I only reaslied it was in this month's issue when I returned home and got an e-mail from Brenda Smith ( who I 'met' via her blog) saying she had had a comment posted from a new reader in Scotland who had found her via the article. So I know at least one person read the piece!

Blog frustration

It has taken me five days to post the entry below because Blogger has just refused to let me post the photos without which the entry was meaningless. Even now it will only do three out of four. Does anyone else have this problem?

Anyway here is what I can give you from Monday......


I may have been a poor blogger recently but I have been busy. Today my house was transformed into a film studio complete with blinding lights and two cameras no less trained on me as I recorded five seperate programmes for a legal training programme on the internet. ( Anyone sad enough to want to will in the next few days be able to few part of the broadcasts free on www.cpdchannel.com in their family law section There are such thrilling programmes as 'seven capital gans tax traps for family lawyers to avoid'... wow!)

I have also remembered how to knit with the patient help of my Mum who taught me in the first place when I was a child./ She rescued this scarf (ably modelled by Solomon our teddy bear) when I started out with twenty stitches and then realised that somehow I had twenty-seven. (Ribbon wool: note - take care not to knit through the yarn). I liked it so much I immediatly started on this one {missing - see above!!} which I will finish tonight whilst vegging out in front of trash TV. I'd love to use this yarn for a jumper but bought it unwrapped and cheap at Harrogate so if anyone recognises it and can tell me where to get it I'd be grateful.

I've also been putting time into my seemingly never ending maple Leaf Quilt. This is the centre of the pieced back - it will have large green leaf borders


and this is the almost done front centre.

I will probably move some of the blocks around before sewing the rows) I though I'd done the maple leaves at the class last week bar two but irritatingly I find I am five short. However, purchase of a mini iron last week is making the job much easier although I now get no exercise -not even that of getting up and down to the ironing board.

I plan to take this one to Bradford to use Chris Marriage's long arm quilter but shs is about to move to a new studio so her site www.fathers-heart.co.uk is available for viewing but not purchase at the moment and I won't be able to have a go on her machine until Feb or March. Tonight I plan to get all my books and photos of quilts out and decide what to do next - I need at least two wall hangings for the newly decorated lounge and it seems daft that I haven't yet made a quilt to go on our bed, so despite the temptation of such books as this recently acquired one I must focus!

By the way -can anyone tell me - do I want to change this account to the new blogger or is it just going to give me grief if I swap? Is it any better than the current one if I am not a techno geek?!

Chaos and show shopping

I am just back from a weekend away - first up to Penrith to sit quietly in a corner of the class and just get on with my maple leaf quilt. It seems to be taking forever and I want to get on with some of the so many other ideas I have bubbling in my head... really I only started it in September and given that (a) it is foundation pieced (b) I have made another small quilt, a bag, 42 hand pieced blocks for another quilt, a skirt and two city and guilds portfolios since I started it, and (c) that its the biggest one I have ever made ( should be 84 x 84) its not taking that long! I'm just greedy for quilts! Its well on its way though - photos soon.

It turns out I am greedy for wool too. The second day of the weekend was with my Mum to Harrogate to the Knitting and Stitching show where despite the fact that I don't knit I ended up with these...

(there are actually 2 packs of the blue wool)... well it was all so soft and so cheap ( and some came with free patterns) and the jumpers on the fashion show so lovely.... I have wool but no needles at present as Mum convinced me it was a waste of money to get any when I could use hers. (But hers are in Penrith and the friend I hoped to borrow some from tonight is not in, so all I can do it look at the balls and stroke the oh, so soft wool....

I got a lot of beautiful silk brocades too and some play stuff for C&G purposes ( that's my excuse). At The Coats Crafts stall they were demonstrating a soluble sort of interfacing called Solufleece and showing how you can make scarfs or stoles simply by laying down the yarn between the fleece and stitching then disolving the fleece. They'd made bags too. All very exciting to me ( this may not be news to some readers I know but I'd never seen this) so I stocked up on the Solufleece). I intended to make a scarf but then I succumbed to the wool which will go to scarfs while I work my way up to a jumper. ( The Zip and Amor woolls knit up into beautiful lacy suit scarves rather than warm wooly ones)So then I came up with a different plan:

I bough these threads and others...
with a view to making small parcels of fabric for use in a qulit with silk dupions.

The problem is, I can't get started tonight because the house is in chaos.

This is Dad in my living room cheerfully operating as slave labour and decorating for us. So is Mum but she declined allowing me to post her photo.

This is my study becuase a few minutes ago the shelf collapsed and threw all the books and files over my head as I spreadeagled myself to protect the laptop.

And this is the dining room. Yes beautifully tidy. Trouble is, it is usually my sewing studio but I have been banned so my parents can at least sit down to eat. Which is fair enough but I want to set my machine up..... :(

Two Ravens Press

Its ten thirty pm and I am just off a train from London so a very brief blog tonight to alert all writer friends to a brand new publishing company Two Ravens Press based in Scotland. As well as seeking new manuscripts that fit their criteria (set out on the website) they also offer critiquing, editing and proof reading services by qualified and published writers and at very good prices. Check them out and sign up for their new newsletter. They also offer creativity training run by a psychologist who I can recommend having used some of her training myself.

Dressmaking

I have just had my first foray into dressmaking since I was forced to make some hideous floral pinafore dress at school ( which of course was never finished and would never have been worn if it was). The wonderful Yvonne at Morceau in Penrith talked me into having a go and I have to say my first attempt was no where near as frightening as I thought it would be. I took advantage of my new four day a week working schedule to go to a class on a Monday which is much quieter than the quilting class and was able to make, in a day this.....

As you can see its not hemmed yet but I'm going to do that by hand which means I can take it to Leeds and do it in the hotel tonight. I'm contemplating some beading on it too... now I really am geting carried away!

Food processing

The food processor I ordered from Amazon came today. I've managed without one perfectly well for years but got sick of reading recipies that came to the instruction ' ...in your food processor...' and decided I was missing out. Now I'm not so sure. I have a Kenwood one that comes with about four squilion attachments and bowl lids, none of which I have any storage space for. After about an hour of trying to put it all together we concluded that the sealant ring and a jar are missing which means I cannot use the liquidiser or shaker jar. Which is irritating but hardly a problem until the spare parts arrive given that I have both a freestanding liqudiser and a shaker jar already. But the main processor works. It didn't like being fed cubes of cheese and rather than grating them kind of rolled them up into tubes which were interesting but not very practical ( We decided the chunks were too small. It is certainly not that the blade is blunt becuase it sliced my thumb very effectively when I rather clumsily removed it. The blade that is not the thumb. It was a plaster job not A&E.) It sliced the one piece of fruit we had in the house well but having sliced it I then was unable to use it to test the centrifugal juicer. And because the fruit was an apple I couldn't test the citrus juicer. All in all it appears to do by way of a motor what I have been doing happily manually with my cheese grater, Nigella Lawson lemon squeezer and a set of knives.

Except - it chopped my onions without making me cry.
And it came with a great recipie for choc chip oat cookies that I was able to make without getting dough stuck in my finger nails.
Which two things alone might well make it worth £80.

African fabric projects

I spent some time struggling to make this backback for my elephant loving sister ( who I am pretty sure does not read this blog. (If you do sis, don't worry there will be surprsies too!)

The pocket and flap is in fact straight despite how it looks on this hurried snap but the straps were a nightmare. It's a Simplicity pattern which called for fusible batting but the shop I went to didn't have fusible stuff and suggested I bought the wadding they use for bags in their classes and fuse it with WonderUnder. Which was fine except for the straps - they were so thick that it was impossible to turn them inside out. Possibly becuase the wadding was thicker than a fusible one? It didn't help that I'd mislaid my loopy-gizmo thing for turning tubes and had to substitute chopsticks. In the end I just did straps without wadding - but even then they are so narrow that turning them was hard - I put the chopstick right through the fabric twice.... the air was blue.... still got there - it just needs a drawstring ribbon to pull the top in.

I've also started these blocks just for sanity. They are extremely simple and great for 'TV quilting'. I have been told that handpiecing is nuts but I like having a pile of blocks to sit with, under a finshed quilt, with a good drama. Of course the drama has to be on DVD or video becuase I miss so many crucial bits becuase I look at the seams far more than then screen....

These are in no particular order and the pink will not dominate so much - I just started with that fabric ( all the colours are the African packs from Ragbags). The pattern came from a Kaffe Fasset book and it does look good with lots of blocks and no borders but I might pay around when I have a few more and see if I can do somthing more innovative with them. It seems tame now to just follow someone elses pattern!

Time to discover

November is the month when all the travelling I have to do for work in September and October dies down. This year it is particularly significant as it will be the first month where I really get to test the effect of deciding to only take bookings for 4 days a week, leave a day free for study based activities (writing, invoices, research etc) and leave evenings and weekends free for quilting, pleasure writing and other life stuff.

In fact I seem to be getting a bonus ( not sadly in money terms) since I took my day off yesterday, didn't get any bookings for today anyway, Monday is my regular day off - so 5 days in a row. I tried to work today, writing a bit of a book excitingly ( not) called Family Law - Key Facts, but my husband was all jittery having had to go to the surgeon to have a camera stuck down his throat so he wanted to take me out for lunch. Who am I to complain?! So the legal book I was writing got sidelined a bit and we went to the local golf club where you get a view over the Lancashire plain - which I forgot to photo!

We didn't get back until nearly four and Since I was good and then finished the sample chapter the publishers required I decided for once I had time to blog-surf a bit. Here are some cool things I found today:

1. Fast Friday quilts.
This is a group of quilters who lay down a challenge one Friday a month. They then produce a small art work within the next week and post for comments by other group members at
www.fastfridayquilts.blogspot.com
This is one quilt I particularly liked by Cynthia

2. Alma Stoller made these beads from polymer clay. She gives a tutorial on how to do it at
www.almastoller.blogspot.com on her entry for 2nd October.



3. I lkied the colours and shapes of this quit made at a guild attended by Marion . See more at www.marionstextilearts.blogspot.com Everynow and again ( well quite frequently actually) I see a quilt made by someone else that just makes me want to abandon my curent project and dive into yet another one. This is one such example.
and this was another - also from her site but exhibited at Insbruck quilt show by a group called quilTEXsens
5. Another podcast site at www.dreamtoquilt.com

6. I did A level German but have sadly lost much of it from lack of use. I therefore love www.quilterin2006.blogspot.com as it is written first in German then translated into English. Great for refreshing. UFO in German turns out to be ..... yup you guessed!

Independent book shop

I know- I have a lot to say today (this being my third post today) but I wanted to to alert all book lovers (and in particular the one who just gently pointed out that my blog is supposed to be about writing as well as quilts) to a newly open shop and website and set of blogs.

Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath has a name that alone makes me salivate but this new shop we discovered is a beautiful, calm, haven for book lovers devoid of chicklit and orange stickers but posessed of free coffee for browsers and a dog who lies wagging its tail in encouragement when you pick up a book.

And unlike Borders they don't stack their books on the floor like tins of beans.

For those like us who are not close enough to try to get locked in this place on a regular basis and who can see the merit at least some of the time of not buying on the basis of Amazon discounts only, they do sell online.

Plus there is a series of blogs about books. The owner has one based on the Guardian's website. The dog has one and the so called Book Monkey - who was absent when we there there but seems to do a lot of reccommending - even has one. Go to this link to see all three.

A stray non-quilt entry

I am feeling vindicated. I get teased a lot for the time I spend on the Internet and the way I think it is a magic box with wonderful amounts of information inside it. On the way home from Bath we decided, with the assistance of a brochure which I made myself travel sick reading, to go back to Morrocco in May. Being constitutionally unable not to go on line for information I decsended from the study a couple of hours later, jubilant. I saved nearly £800 off brochure price for our trip and found a deal on a deluxe room in this hotel which is the one we wished we'd stayed at last time in Marrakesh ( we used to leave our disappointingly tatty four star and go for lunch here and sigh). The price we paid was £68 per night cheaper than any other internet travel agency. Now that you don't get on the High Street
















Plus I'm all excited because I've found this kasbah to stay in in the mountains - the very word is tantalsing. It has a textile shop opposite it!! (And I even managed to book it directly with the french speaking owner).
















Finally did you know ( and this is the lawyer coming out) that riding one of these...






... requires you to pay the supplement on your travel insurance for dangerous sports unless it is tethered and led by a guide in which case it is listed in the exceptions to policy exclusions? I know. Anal. ( Me, that is not the camel. Although last time I passed one there was a bad smell coming from somewhere....)

Confusion

Yesterday I posted a now deleted entry complaining that Blogger wouldn't publish my photos - which it wouldn't. Honest. And I am somewhat vindicated because I notice that Melody had problems on the same day with Blogger too. Only I log on today to try and add the photos only to find that not only has it published the photoless version it published the one with photos and a draft version as well. Apologies to anyone yesterday who tried to work out what on earth I was up to!

Also yesterday I was all excited to start quilting my first fused quilt ... here is the basic top, made out of those strings I wacked togther by hand on trains and in hotels last month.. to be embellished later..

But when I dug out the wadding from my many Bath purchases I found they had cut 45cm not 45inches! Grr.

Then Dennis reminded me to tax my car. Only I couldn't find the required MOT certificate. Which turned out to be becuase I hadn't had the car MOT'd. So there was a panic visit to the garage who kindly booked it in for 8am this morning. I've just been to collect it only I forgot to take any payment method with me so Dennis had to stump up then bless him he's even gone to tax it for me so I can come back and work on some opinions before driving to speak for an hour at a conference held at Manchester United football ground. (I'm going to be in big trouble when he sees I've actually been blogging!)

Now where is that darkened room?

Back from bath

Back from a lovely week holded up in our retreat flat in Bath which we rent a couple of times a year. Plenty of time for reading, restaurant lunches and retail activities including some books, high leather boots, bits and bobs of clothes and this necklace and bracelet set from Bijoux beads to which I couldn't help but treat myself.

Oh yeah and I might have gone to Country Threads. A couple of times. OK, four times. And to a Husquavana shop for some Simplicity bag and skirt patterns on half price sale. ( I got talked into taking some dressmaking lessons as from next month. )

Dennis bought me a Kaffe Kasset book and I did really try to buy some outrageously colourful fabric from his range but didn't quite manage to get away from 'my colours'. I will one day. But for now I needed 4.5 m to back an autumn coloured log cabin and maple leaf quit I was working on down there (managing to set up studio in the tiny galley kitchen so that we almost ended up with rotary cut batik sandwiches for supper one night.) Only they didn't have enough left of either my first or second choice fabrics so I decided to piece a back, got a bit carried away and ended up with this tasty selection ( they look even better in real life). I think that the back may end up better than the front!

Whilst the shop owner and I were both stroking the pile she told methat they discovered recently that they have a couple of regular cusomers who don't actually sew anything -they just collect fabric!

I did also get a lot of work done on my first fused wall hanging - But Im not showing you that until its finished. Watch this spot.

The thing I hate about coming back from holiday is the washing. Somehow it didn't seem so bad today......

What the heck - the clothes can wait.

Oh and came home to find that I had sold my first quilting article (I've written loads of legal ones before) to British Patchwork and Quilting - about quilters blogs - expected to be in sometime in the Spring.