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..... :(