Textiles, textures and knitted pieces.

"From Jacket to Wallhanging" by Jan Tillett.

This is my favourite acquisition from the Festival of Quilts this year. I was really very fortunate in being able to buy this amazing piece, since the pieces on sale were being sold so very quickly.

At Festival this year, there was a really interesting stand, "Unfinisheds". Do visit the site to see the wide range of pieces on offer. Just click the tabs stating "From the UK" and "From abroad". All were sold.

At the time I visited the stand, in between duties on the Contemporary Quilt stand, my eye was taken by this delightful piece by Jan Tillet. I just had to have it and paid for it straight away. Yes, a rash decision, but I was so afraid that if I walked away to think about it, the piece would have been sold by the time I got back. It now has pride of place in my workroom. It speaks to my fascination with colour and texture. I just love it.

Crochet challenge work in progress.

From the beautiful work of Jan Tillett to a work in progress. This is a piece of crochet. This is something I very rarely do. I think the last piece of crochet I completed was a shawl made almost thirty years ago.

This particular piece is the result of a Mystery Crochet-a-long organised by Valerie Bracegirdle on her Ravelry group. I'm really enjoying it so far.

Liz's skirt.

This was another recent project - a skirt for my elder daughter. The skirt was a purchased one which was both too big and also rather too transparent. This is the finished skirt after I had rebuilt the waistband having gathered the too full skirt slightly to fit. The skirt now has the full lining it originally needed.

Another knitting project.

This project is languishing for the moment since I have been busily stitching the next piece.

"Summer Blues" - in progress.

This next piece is a challenge for the Sky's the Limit group. The theme this month was "Blues". I found myself playing around with some free machine quilting stitch patterns ready to quilt a top I have ready for a waistcoat I am also working on. I got carried away and ended up with a piece which I felt fulfilled the challenge topic for the Sky's the Limit group. I added bits and pieces from my stash and collection of stitched items. The piece was a lot of fun to make.

"Summer Blues".

Dressmaking again, again

Finished dress.

Well, I finished the dress this week. I was really quite pleased with the fit. It is rather a good design which I shall definitely be making again. I shall probably do one of the sleeved versions next.

Dress with jacket - this will be trimmed with offcuts from the dress.

This is the simple black jacket I intend wearing over the dress. It just needs trimming since it is rather a drab piece of clothing otherwise. It started out as one of those tops with a false top beneath. I cut off the false piece since I found it rather ugly, and I really found myself wondering why I had bought the piece in the first place.

Bits and pieces waiting to be put together.

Jacket awaiting trimming.

I finally managed to take a photo of the two animals together. This was their evening meal. Luckily, last night was much cooler and they were really hungry, so they were quite happy to ignore me as I took photos. Both animals are really getting on quite well now. Ella is a little cautious of Coco, whilst Coco tolerates Ella's presence in the house.

Tea time.