Weep not fair lady

Several times today I have tried to use my lap top but to no avail . It just kept saying 'not connected' I was ready to have a little weep of frustration . I needed to contact someone . Could it be I dusted it this morning , ? I'II not dust it again , It will get a blow.

This is a picture of my next quilt . In my last post I showed the shirt strips bluebell and myself were cutting . This quilt is in the Kaffe fassett book 'Quilt Road' We cut more strips today before we went to the garden centre for some R&R .

Off to do a little potting on of some Cosmos and a bit of planting .

A SHIRT TALE OR SHOULD IT BE TAIL

Wallpaper Quilts !!! That is the name Kaffe Fassett gave to the name of quilts made from strips of fabric . Lovely name and a very pleasing outcome .

Bluebell and myself have spent quite a few hours today cutting shirts into strips . We're hoping to get at least 2 large quilts from the shirts we have .

This is a picture of our workstation , one each side and steady as we go.

This is the washing basket still with many shirts to iron and cut



These are the strips we have cut so far . 3 1/2 inch strips . Many more to cut before we have a good mix of colours.

The next exciting part will be to show you our quilts in progress .

O Happy Day

I had the best day yet at Malvern Quilt Show , Bluebell and myself had a great time . I didn.t get tired at all . Was it because I had a coca cola at lunch time!! I bought a little , spent a little .

I bought a roll of fabric from Kim Porter of 'Warm and Washed' she has beautiful recycled fabrics cut like jelly rolls . I had a 4" wide roll that equals 4 mtrs fabric . Tomorrow I shall put on a pic ,. of my roll . I have looked at Kim's fabric for the last 3 yrs but thought although beautiful it seemed out of my price bracket but this year I went for it . At present I,m still stroking it . I bought 2 patterns . A christmas one and a pincushion pattern , Patterns had gone up in price , now £8 where they used to be £6 . The price of fabric on most stalls was extortionate . Even the price of gadgets had been increased . Patchworkers will be using their stash instead of falling for new lines .

The quilt in the pictures is a 9 patch I have made for my daughter in law .

I have recently taken part in 2 swaps . I sent my end of the bargain off but have received nothing in exchange . Why are people so unfair? No more exchange blocks etc, for me . I didn,t need them , I was entering into the spirit of the thing . I could have saved on materials and postage .

To start the day

I've filled the bird feeders , scurried around the house doing a few necesaries and now I shall be sewing down one side of a quilt I finished yesterday ,well it isn't finished till the binding is sewn but nearly there . It.s a cool day so sitting sewing facing my garden will be very pleasant .

The sparrows bought their new family out of the nest yesterday . They haven't been feeding so frantically this morning , perhaps they are on a trip to show the area to the young ones . I still have pesky pidgeons though .

HAVE A GOOD DAY

I like

Just look at this beautiful African print fabric . I looked at it last week but when Bluebell said she had to go back to the fabric guild again this week I knew I had to buy a yard . I have a nice stash of African related fabric and to me this is beautiful .
I have a bag and quilt in prints of a similar kind . I,m so looking forward to making a start on something .

We go to the Malvern quilt show this week . Such an exciting time of the year , gardens , days out . mooching in the charity shops and the quilt shows .

This is what I,m working on at present . It's a nine patch . I finished a similar quilt about 3 weeks ago . Always a favourite and so easy to do . Hand quilting on the 9s and machine quilting in the plain block . Just a large squiggle on the plain . It's myopinion that while close quilting is lovely and very decorative it doesn't have the warmth and softness of a quilt more loosely quilted .

This quilt with the sheep I finished last week . I love the cream and brown colouring



While sitting at night I,m doing sewing over papers in the English method . This one I,m showing was finished many moons ago but I'm doing one the same but a different colour way .

I'm also working on a grandmothers garden quilt and a tumbling blocks also both are paper piecing . This means I have 3 quilts on the go paper piecing . they each require different size scraps and different colours so I'm not fazed having 3 on the go at once .

It has been cold here in England this week so it's difficult not to sit cosy and have a couple of biscuits with a cuppa . Enough said !!

A Hard Days Work

Bluebell and myself paid our final visit (I think) to the garden centre .

Between us we planted the last empty space in my garden . This is bluebell when she had finished her part of the operation
The planted bed . Astilbe , foxgloves , bishop of Landaff dahlia . pinks . verbascom ,lupins ,a new specie delp,.lavender and a couple of others

This is the girl herself having a refresher , bless her .

A big public thankyou Jill xx

Life gets wild sometimes

In my garden A heron who visits to steal my fish
Pidgeons and collared doves to steal the bird food
and this morning , a mouse on the patio eating the crumbs I had just put out for the blackbirds .

A Fishy Tale

This afternoon bluebell took me to the garden centre for some herb plants , we didn't see any . One of our garden centre haunts has had a massive revamp and an even more massive extension . As I said to bluebell " we could have a weeks holiday here ,any more walking and we would have been beside the sea . Thing is the prices have gone up massivly too .I bought a heavy trellis support for an Albertine Rose .

While there I called in the fish section for pool plants . I bought 3 . Last year a Heron took 7 of my fish . I had 2 left of the original and bought 6 more . This year the fish dive under the pump when I go near . I had a word with the man in charge about this happening . His comment is the original fish that escaped being eaten by the heron will always be nervous now and they will have passed that on the new fish . what a carry on , buying fish food and plants and not having the pleasure of watching the fish feed . the previous fish came to the corner 9 o/clock each morning to feed .