What Happens .........

when The Young One is on holiday?

You have to move to the kitchen!

Goodies in the Mail and a Little Bit More

A couple of weeks ago Suzy over at Suzy's Quilting Room was having a giveaway and guess what!

I Won!

You'll never guess what the book is :

Suzy - thank you so very much.  The fabrics are gorgeous and the book is just ......... WOW!

I'm starting to mark up Halloween Houses.  It's proviing a beast to do.  I decided to do a cobweb as the background.  I thought of fans, but the quilt is so busy I don't think fans would work somehow.

Anyway.  How on earth do I get the lines to stay put!  I put the quilt away every day (I'm working at the kitchen table as the quilt is too big and heavy to keep on my lap) and have to retrace the lines when I open the quilt up. 

The chalk lines look ok in these photos, they aren't now. 

I bought a special quilting marking pencil on Thursday.  It doesn't even show up (those lines are chalk ones - the pencil is useless)!

Perhaps I shall have to revert back to the slithers of soap.

How do you mark up your quilts?

Wordless Wednesday

Ghoulies and Ghosties and Things That Go Bump in the Night

Basted and ready to go!

Not a very good photo - sorry.

This is BIG.

About 46" by 44".

I can see lots of fun ahead.

Finished!

The Front

The Back

(which happens to be the wrong way round!)

and how The Young One sees it when it is nearly in its home.

Hedgehog Jen may recognise where it is.

It's about 28" by 30".  Not as big as it looks. 

I'm thinking of making one of the series a lot bigger, but not quite sure which one.  Definitely not the blue.  Perhaps the green?

On to the next one.

A bientôt.

A Blustery Day

The wind has turned round to the north and is howling round the house.

I hope this is not a foretaste of what is to come over the next 3 or 4 months.  Brrrr.

Yesterday I got the winter duvets out from storage and put the summer ones away.  We lit the wood burner last evening.  I do like the first fire of autumn/winter, but after temperatures in the middle 20's over the last few weeks, the sudden change is a bit of a shock to the system!

Still no rain though.  Everything is looking parched and brown.  The farmers have already started feeding this winter's hay to the cattle as there isn't any grass.  We have been on water rationing for months now.

Now is the time to pull the UFO's out of storage and start on some serious catching up, apart from the fact that the light bulb blew in the sewing machine the other day and now I can't see properly, but I did manage to get the borders on Halloween Houses before it blew.  It was my fault.  The earth wire in the iron was dodgy and when I plugged it into the mains the trip went.  Not once, but twice!  30 minutes wasted tracking down a new plug and rewiring the dratted thing.  Sigh!

Ok.  So Halloween Houses is ready for basting and then quilting.  I'm looking forward to the quilting part - lots of fun things to add like skeletons, cobwebs and spooky words.

Remember this?

Blackcurrant Fool

Well, it's been tied and I'm putting the binding on.  Hoping to get it finished this week as I want to start on the next one in the series, Blueberry Fool.

The process has started.













I'm also thinking Redcurrant Fool, Gooseberry Fool and Lemon Curd, but we shall see.  Got a few quilts to finish first!

A bientôt.

Wordless Wednesday

Oh Oh Oh!

Goodness I am enjoying this. Watching videos, catching up on blogs (had to clear over 900 so please forgive me if I didn't leave a comment on yours). To celebrate, I'm going to upload some photos of this and that just to see how longs it takes. Ready? Gracious - that took seconds! Ok - we've found this at the vide grenier at Brantôme last Sunday - 2 for 5 Euros. Bargain! I love the blue, but then you all know I'm a sucker for blue. Next one. Even quicker! OMG who took that! This is the current state of the sewing corner. Notice the books everywhere? I'm seriously running out of book space. All book shelves and spaces are full to bursting. They are overflowing into the sewing area Which Is Not a Good Thing. If I want to do some serious piecing it's going to take me an age to clear the decks and sort everything out. I suppose I could just do what I normally do. Shift it to one side. Just for the moment until I get round to sorting it. As if! Oh now you are talking! I can't remember the last time I showed AbFab. I think I'd got to the green bit top right. Anyway, the pinned bit to the right of the orange is only about 3 inches. It will probably take about a week/10 days and then I can truthfully say I've done a quarter. A quarter after 2 years probably means another 6 years to go. I seriously hope not! Woo hoo - Tonya's posted about Gwen Marston's new book- Liberated Quiltmaking II. I'm off to take a look. Catch ya soon!

We Have Lift Off!

Be prepared to be innundated with posts, photos and lots of chat! Clare is back in blogland!