Inspired

I haven't done much sewing lately with not feeling well but going to the Festival Of quilts made me want to do some sewing. Last night I had a look at what fabric I had and ended up putting together the Curiosities charm pack with a Feeling Groovy charm pack from Crafts And Quilts. I'm going to add fabric to the top and bottom - two white strips with a bright colour strip in between.

Festival Of Quilts Holiday!

The holiday definitely wasn't as planned. What was supposed to be a 3 night camping break turned into one night in a Holiday Inn Express because I really wasn't well enough to camp. Then again, I maybe wasn't well enough to stay in a hotel either seeing as I had to send Alan out to find a 24 hour supermarket at 1am for painkillers (how wonderful is he?!)

So, the Festival Of Quilts. I wasn't really sure what to expect as last year I'd been a little disappointed. It waas great don't get me wrong but I'd gone to Harrogate's Great Northern Quilt Show at the end of the month and enjoyed that just as much. This year though it seemed better somehow. I got the impression there were more quilts on show and there seemed to be more places to get a drink (perhaps I just missed those last year, who knows?). The latter was very important to me as it was really hot in there and with not feeling great anyway it was nice to sit down and have a break.

I didn't get any photos of the quilts. Tbh walking up and down staring at gorgeous quilts made my head hurt and made me feel more off balance so I kept breaking it up with a wander round the stalls or a sit down. Unfortunately this meant I didn't really take the quilts in as well as last year.

There was so much lovely fabric for sale too. I had a very limited budget and it was so hard to choose what to buy. I often find that I see something I like but then think I'd need extra fabric and the cost starts to add up. For example I saw the stunning Regency Romance and Jane Austen's Library panels at the Quilter's Trading Post stall and was so tempted by them. The thing that stopped me was knowing I didn't have any fabric that would have suited them at home so I'd have had to buy a full quilt's worth of fabric. I managed to resist those panels but the stall was full of amazing fabric and I eventually gave in and bought a charm pack of Curiosities by Nancy Halvorsen.

I decided it would be nice to make each of my girls a quilt so I decided to go in search of another charm pack. I ended up at the Beyond Fabrics stall, where they had all their charm packs at £9. It took me a while to decide which to buy. I almost got Summersville, which I wasn't keen on when I first saw it but it has grown on me after seeing lots of bloggers using it. In the end though I got A Walk In The Woods. I'm planning on combining it with some solids.

I also got a pack of 30 5" squares with a Christmas theme, some Halloween bits, 4 small-ish pieces of fruit fabric and a lovely little panel from a French stall. I swapped £1 for a FQ of fabric at the A Gift Of Quilts stall. I managed to resist buying fabric from the stall that had made it look like sweets and lollipops as tempting as it was!

Perhaps the most exciting this was winning a prize on the Quilters Guild tombola. At this tombola you pull a coloured lid out of a tub and the colour determines whether or not you've won and what prizes you can choose from. I was very lucky and pulled out a purple top. The lady before me also pulled out a pruple top and chose a gorgeous table runner. I chose this:

It has pockets on either side and the top is a pin cushion. I thought this would be really handy when I'm hand-sewing sat on the sofa and also for when I crochet as I'm always losing my scissors and finding out I'm sat on them!

That evening we went to The Little Owl for our meal. It was a good job Alan checked if we could book a table as they had nothing between 6pm and 8.30pm so we booked for half 5. Now I can't say the service was amazing; lots of tables were left uncleared and they almost forgot our mains (we'd asked for the kids' meals to be brought out just as soon as they were ready as we were having a starter and they then forgot to say we wanted our mains) but the food was lovely and we had a really nice evening.

The following day we went to West Midlands Safari Park, which the kids thought was fantastic. Orla sat on my knee as we drove round. I think she was a little unsure at getting so close to the animals.

After the bit in the car there was also plenty to walk round. We saw hippos:

but the best bit for the kids was the sea lion show

It requires a lot of concentration!

It was a long day (the sea lion show above was at 5pm) followed by a long drive home but well worth it.

Almost Back!

Argh, 2 weeks into the summer holidays and I get a rather nasty case of tonsillitus. A week and a half, 2 types of antibiotics and a lot of painkillers later and I'm almost feeling human again! I'm still taking it easy as I still have pain in my sinuses and it's making me feel a bit off balance.

Unfortunately this has meant we've had to cancel the camping trip this week. We were meant to be going on Thursday for 3 nights but I'm not up to it. Instead we're going to have Friday night in a hotel. We'll spend one day doing a family day out type of thing and the other day I'll go to the Festival Of Quilts while Alan entertains the kids for the day. I'm really looking forward to it, though I'm not planning on buying much (famous last words!).

My current plan is to have a browse for some solids and maybe a charm pack or a few FQs. Of course I've always got my eyes open for a bargain.

Just like this big bag of buttons I got the other week. Actually it was better than that, my husband bought it for me!

Some of the big buttons

I think this was my favourite!

FO Friday: I've finished the quilting!

On Monday evening I managed to finish quilting the Christmas wallhanging I'm making. I was hoping to have made more progress last week and to get it totally finished on Monday but a Saturday trip to the seaside and teaching a full day workshop on Sunday left me with very little time so I didn't get any work done on it. Anyway, on Monday I finished the quilting and cut the strips for the binding so it should be finished soon.

I've done some of the quilting with a walking foot, mostly taking inspiration from the shapes and patterns in the print.

This block has zig zags - inspired by one of the stripes

This design was inspired by the squares in the pink stripe

Wavy frame design

The wavy frame design was suggested by my very experienced quilting friend Sarah as I didn't feel confident enough to do circles!

This one had stars, a design I used on a quilted advent calendar and loved!

I also decided to be brave and do some free motion quilting on an actual quilt rather than just having a try on some scraps

First attempts at free motion quilting

...and then I was really brave and did free motion quilting on the border. It was printed with spirals so I didn't really have a choice ;-)

They are far from perfect but I learnt quite a lot while doing them. Sorry to my Monday night friends who had to put up with my squeaky sewing machine foot.

The backing for this quilt is navy. It was a bargain remnant piece. The thread I've used for quilting is a Madeira variegated one and I was happy for it to show up on the navy as it makes it easier to see how my quilting actually looks. I've also seen a number of quilts in blogland recently with the quilting pattern showing on the back in a totally diferrent colour thread to the fabric and have really liked them. So here it is, the back of the quilt

I'm really pleased with how nice the back looks. Hopefully next week I'll be able to show you the finished wallhanging.