2017 Wk 13 - Mostly Mono

I've finally had a bit of time to spend in the sewing room - mostly tidying up!!! I haven't even unpacked the linens, but thought I just might cut unto the black and whites!
So this . . .

. . . has become this!

180 black & white and white & black charm squares!

At some stage they will become 45 four patches, which will then have a shot of colour added to each one. (Some are spare as I have no idea whether my cunning plan will *actually* work!)
Fed up with the monotonous monotone I also had a quick play with the flag fabric I picked up - and made two zippy pouches, one for each set of travel plugs we have!

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The one where I've been to Festival of Quilts (part 1)

Oh my gosh - lots of inspiration, lots of shopping, lots of walking, and lots of talking!  Altogether a great 48 hours in Birmingham!

For now I'm going to share some of the  shopping!

some grey FQs and some picture fabrics as I'm running low for i-spy quilts

Plus a few more greys (I have some ideas!)

And some wool for Lisa,

Plus threads and new snips for me

And somehow I bought some charms too!!!!

Other People's Crafts (and One of Mine and a Question)

I've been really impressed with what some of my friends have been creating!

The lovely Tara from Crafty Church made these free motion raw edge applique blocks at a course in Dorking, at Gillian Gladrags

Lots of the Crafty Church ladies had a go at screen printing last week

And Jackie is making this fab quilt:- I LOVE the way the colours pop against the grey, I think I need to find my grey fabric!

And as for me, I *really* hope I've got this quilt right - after Ely's error I'm starting to doubt myself! A friend a school has a new grandson - I wrote the name down and got her to check it, and I've kept the paper safe to check against!

Inspired by Helen's quilting of her Christmas Cherry (over at Archie the Wonder Dog) I decided to quilt this in a sort of orange segment design

Maybe easier to see on the back?

 I'm really pleased with it - thanks for the idea Helen x

And finally - I went to my drawer of rainbow charm squares as I fancied starting something new . . . and  I found this message that I left for myself a while ago.  I'm guessing it's cutting info for a quilt top - anyone got ANY idea what I'm supposed to do next?

La Passacaglia Progress and Pretty Post

I have tacked and joined some of the La Passacaglia templates, and a shape is beginning to emerge.  The question is do I take it with me as a travel project?  I'm worried all the shapes will fall off and I'll get confused again

I might try some fussy cutting later, but for now I'm happy using solid scraps from the HST quilt a few months ago

Some fab post arrived from the lovely Reene in Oregon, USA.  She is making a Bow Tie quilt - she's making 700 (yes SEVEN HUNDRED) of these blocks, and is trying to make them all out of different fabrics

I sent her some charm squares and scraps that I had got fed up with trying to use,  and she sent me these to add to my sweet sixteen blocks - I was delighted - ALL of them are new fabrics tome

She also sent me a barrette (translates to hair slide this side of the pond!) that her husband had made.  It's really beautiful - made of modern dicroic glass (developed by NASA). 

I had several attempts at photographing the slide in my hair, using mirrors . . .

 But finally managed to get this

I did decide to have a go at quilting the Light House Quilt.  Its been a very long time since I tried FMQ, so I had a practice, and was happy with it

And then had a go on the real thing - not so good :-(   This isn't brown bobbin thread pulling through, its fluff from the brown fleece I have backed it with.  I think I'm going to have to hand quit this one

Off to mum's for the night tonight, then back to teach advent calendars and marbling onto fabric tomorrow . . . and off to Jackie's for FOUR days on Saturday, 

YIPPEE!!!!

And I'll have hours and hours to wait at the airport so I'll catch up with reading other blogs!