Keeping Warm.

My experts in the field of keeping warm were not willing to comment, so I left them cuddling up to their quilts. Needless to say neither Coco (top), or Felix have been very impressed by the weather outside this week. Visits to the outside world have been very brief and they have demanded cuddles to get warm again once back inside!

This is the view from my bedroom window.

As I write this, Felix is snoring on the chair I use for working on my sewing machine. Coco is snuggly asleep on my bed.

The next photos show things I am, or shall be working on in the next few weeks. The first is a part-made quilt top which I started some time ago. It started out as an autumn quilt, but didn't continue beyond this size (20 inches square). I rather fancy making this up as a large lap quilt with a fleece backing.

The next fabrics are those I shall be using for a quilt for my mum. She asked for a quilt to cover her leather chair. This will have a fleece backing and will be around 72 inches square when finished.

The floral fabric at the bottom of the photograph is the upholstery fabric covering the main chairs in mum's livingroom. This is my next big quilt project.

The next item which really just needs to be assembled is the lining for this cotton fabric shopping bag. The bag does not have a lining and is rather floppy. I shall be using some heavy-duty interfacing between the lining and the bag to make the bag stand up. This will make it more useful to me when I take it shopping.

I have been busily working on finishing this little project over the past couple of days. This is a little needle case kit which I was given by some friends when I left my teaching post in the summer. I shall use it to house my collection of needles. These are in a tin which does not close properly at the moment. I was prompted into starting this when my needle tin fell onto the workroom floor............ You can imagine the resulting mess. The tin is quite a large one. It used to hold my sketching pencils.

This is the second of two hats I have made this week. This one is double sided, so I can wear it in a number of different ways. The design is "Very Warm Hat" by Elizabeth Zimmermann from her book "Knitting Around." It certainly is cosy and warm to wear.

The green yarn was already in my stash, left over from a lovely thick aran jacket I knitted some years ago and still often wear. I bought the cream aran weight yarn as a contrast.

My latest knitted project is the delightful sock design Widdershins by Brooke Chenoweth Creel.
I have been using the bamboo yarn, Happy by Wendy in the colourway Pisces.

This is the gentle cabled design on the top of the foot.

The bottom of the foot looks like this. I just love this self-striping yarn. It is so pretty.

The design knits up really quickly too. I started the first of these socks yesterday evening and its already just over four inches in length. Perhaps I shall be able to finish them both before the weather improves.

The Green Quilt.

Happy New Year everyone.

Well, the Green Quilt has been completed and has been handed over to it's new owners.

I am very relieved to report that it was very well received. They really like it.

The photos of the full quilt were taken by my husband who found it really surprising just how difficult it is to photograph a quilt..... I did warn him.............

My photos of Simon and Liz with their new quilt give a truer idea of the colours.

Just to explain the story behind the quilt. Liz had asked me for a "Green Quilt". The four of us, my husband Ian was there too, had been enjoying a rather nice lunch at a small cafe in Macclesfield. That was back in mid September.

My imagination went into overdrive since the word "Green" has many different meanings. I decided to use a variety of these in the quilt rather than just provide a green-coloured quilt.

Using applique and as many different green fabrics as there were in my stash, I set off. There was no great plan, just a series of ideas linked to the theme of "Green". I decided not to post about it here since I wanted the project to remain secret for as long as possible.

Neither Simon nor Liz knew more about the quilt other than it was "being worked on"............ So it was a complete surprise when they unrolled it for the first time.

A double-sided quilt, the back is made up of different fat quarters I had collected over the years. It has been constructed as a quilt-as-you-go with each of the blocks being quilted before being assembled and linked together using narrow strips of green fabric. I did buy quite a lot of fabric to complete the quilt, but since most of this was for the flowery mock sashing and the thin strips used for the linking pieces, I felt this was appropriate even though I had planned to use only stashed fabrics. (Adding yet another meaning to the "Green" of the quilt's title.)

Each block is very simply quilted to keep the quilt puffy and cosy. The flowery sashing has been quilted using free-machine-embroidery using linked images of leaves and flowers.

Hope you like it too.

Update on the Thousand Colours for Abruzzo project.

You may remember reading about this wonderful project some time ago. I was lucky enough to take part.

All we had to do was make a brightly coloured quilt suitable for young children. This was then going to be given to the young children affected by the dreadful earthquake which devastated the Abruzzo area of Italy. I was very fortunate to have a good friend, Jude, helping me with the quilting. She has a long-arm quilting machine and her kindness in quilting this for me meant that I could send the quilt off to Italy in good time.

It was really exciting to hear from Roberta the other day, and to hear that the quilts had been delivered to the children.
Please go to Roberta's Blog to read all about this amazing project and to see photographs of some of the children's faces. It sounds from Roberta's descriptions as if it was a really emotional time. Be prepared to take some time to read all of the posts, so get yourself a cup of tea (or whatever you prefer) and settle down to the full story. It is truly delightful.

I do hope that you have had a really lovely Christmas. My best wishes to you and your families.

Frosty morning.

Its so lovely outside. A really frosty morning. Now I see the fog is slowly creeping back. How sad, but at least we had a short spell free of fog when the sunshone on these beautiful cobwebs.



Its nice that even the rubbish bins outside can be adorned with jewels like this.



The garden gate and my car got their share of embellishments too. I came into the warm before my fingers got too cold.



I have been buying fabric again! Not good, but I really couldn't resist these lovely pieces.



This is the collection of green fabrics left after working on the Green Quilt. Why is it that my collections of fabric grow even though I am using the fabric faster than I can buy it? Does anyone else have this affliction? Well, more a pleasure than an affliction. I love cuddling my fabric.

Sorry, there are no photos of the Green Quilt yet. I shall post these publicly once Liz and Simon have taken possession of what will become their quilt. It is their Christmas Present.



The fabric on the right is going to be the sashing for the quilt. The fabric on the left is destined for my mother's quilt. This should be my next big project. I have not quite decided upon the final design yet. Mum needs a quilt with a fleece backing for her favourite chair. I see the design being something to do with gardens. Mum's garden is a delightful jumble of plants, and in the summer is full of colour. It is long and narrow, sloping away from the house - one of a row of terraced houses. A traditional English Country Garden but without the vegetable plot. There is even a lovely bubbling stream down at the bottom of her garden. It floods at this time of year, but seldom reaches much above half way up the garden.

Working steadily - my own projects.

Sorry to report that I have nothing new to show you. I have been working steadily on two projects, but neither is yet complete.



The first of these is a box I have been making for the "Think outside the take-out box" series of lessons by Debbie Babin. This has been great fun since I have been busy getting messy and playing with beads and thread as well as paint and fabric dyes. The series of lessons is one from Joggles. It is certainly well worth doing. I have a learnt a lot in the process.

This will be the outside of the box. Lots of dye inks used here.

A complete contrast - this is the inside lining of the box. It looks hand-dyed, but is actually a printed fabric I found and loved.

The next is the Green Quilt. I cannot even show you my progress here, since Liz and Simon have not yet seen it. This will take a while since it is rather fiddly, but I hope it will work out all right.

I've done it again!

I have a confession to make. Do you remember a couple of weeks ago, when I told you I was on a yarn and fabric diet? Well, I've bought some fabric! Oh dear..........


I went to a lovely Quilting Exhibition given by a local Quilt Group. It was Beartown's "Sewing through to Silver" exhibition. A celebration of 25 years as a group. A lovely exhibition held in the Town Hall in Congleton. The main hall was beautifully lit. It is a very high hall with lots of windows around the top where there is also a balcony. There were some exhibits by local school children upstairs on the balcony and from here there was a marvellous view of the rest of the exhibition. Sorry, I didn't take any photographs......



It all fell apart when I left the exhibition. I went past Dot's stall. Big mistake.


I met this delightful witch and remembered that soon it will be Halloween. I often have youngsters coming to my door as part of their Trick or Treat. So she just had to come home with me. Then I thought about lining her cloak, so the next two fabrics joined the collection.






After that, I just could not stop myself and the next few pieces added themselves to my feverish fingers, all the time hearing my husband's voice in my head saying "I told you so."

Some black and white for my collection of black and white fabrics; a vivid splash of colour for the linings of two boxes I am making; a delicate blue and white Royal Doulton print from Woodrow which I could not resist; a music inspired print for a bag I intend to make for one of my music groups (a Recorder group, and two choirs) to stop me getting my piles of music muddled up; and some batiks. What is it about batik that I just cannot leave the fabric alone?

Now I find that the two fabrics I had chosen for the cloak lining are not quite big enough and I will need a much bigger piece. How will I just confine myself to a single piece? I must be strong...

The two pieces of halloween fabric? I now have plans for two drawstring bags to hold the treats for my young visitiors when they arrive. Much more fun to reach in and help yourself than just being handed something.

Exploring and learning new things.

I've been away. On holiday. Short notice as usual, a last minute decision to go away for a few days. The cats were not impressed, but forgave us a soon as the next mealtime came around.

(Outside display of a small shop in Nice. The steps you can see were those of the alleyway leading up past this shop.)

(Picture taken while the ship was in Ajaccio, Corisica.)

An amazing experience. We went on a cruise in the Mediterranean. Its the end of the season there, and we were very lucky with the weather. Taking advantage of any trips offered, we visited Nice, Monaco and Monte Carlo, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Girona, Palma and a quick tour of Corsica!

(The gardens in front of the casino in Monte Carlo. I just loved the use of the mirror in the fountain. It is reflecting an image of the casino itself.)

This photo is the Duomo in Florence (Firenze).

I later found evidence of knitting in Firenze! I didn't see any yarn shops though.

Some delightful carving on the side of the Leaning tower of Pisa.

Blocks of marble at the port of Cittavecchia, From this port we went to visit Rome.

This marvellous marble floor is that of the beautiful Pantheon.

A wonderful mix of the ancient, the old and the new.

Our only bad weather arrived in Rome, when it rained. It didn't stop us having a really interesting tour around the city. There were also a couple of nights when it was a bit blowy at sea, but even that wasn't much. As I mentioned before, we were very lucky with the weather.

The following photo is of a gorgeous tile floor I saw as we passed through a narrow alleyway in Girona. The house was being renovated.

This amazing building is in Ajaccio. The Post Office occupies the ground floor.

The last few photos were taken as we walked around Palma, Majorca on our last day.

This building used to be the Grand Hotel. Its now a Library and Civic centre.

This is the floor inside the entrance of the Museum of Modern Art. The building can be found in one of the alleyways up in the old section of Palma. We found an interesting temporary exhibit of Picasso's drawings while we were there.



My last photo was of one of the private courtyards to be found in Palma. The gates were being rebuilt, and so we had this delightful scene peeped at through some railings.

We saw so much that I really couldn't explain it all to you. It's such a special experience to wake up every day knowing that the ship has arrived somewhere different. We shall try to return to Rome and Florence again one day - these places are so huge and there is so very much to see. Girona was quiet by comparison. A lovely place to see. Corsica was amazing. Now that is another place I would love to return to, perhaps to visit Sardinia as well.

As you can tell, I took loads of photographs, mostly following my own fascination for texture and colour. The colours were so bright and gorgeous.

I promise I shall get back to the textiles next time.