FO: Quilted Placemat

It's quite a while since I spotted these lovely red and white fabrics at a stand exhibiting at the Great Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate but I couldn't resist them. They were small pieces (about 10" square) and I think I paid about £1.50 for a pack of 4 pieces.

I was planning on making something for Christmas with them. The stall I bought them from had joined strips of each fabric then cut triangles to make Christmas trees for placemats, etc. I was thinking of doing the same thing and making a table runner or tree skirt or similar. As it happened I just never got round to it and I've now used them for a square placemat to go under the fruit bowl.

I had a bit of a tidy up in the kitchen the other day. This involved moving all the cookbooks to the top of the dresser making space for the scales and fruit bowl and freeing up worktop space.

Here's a close up!

and one without the fruit bowl

The pattern is from A Passion For Patchwork, in fact it's the same as the cushion you can see on the bottom right of the cover. The book gives different dimensions to cut for a few different items.

The Great Northern Quilt Show 2011

I've had a lovely few hours at the Great Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate while my husband took the children for a picnic and a walk near by. I went to this show last year and really enjoyed it so I can definitely see it being a yearly thing. Last year I also went to the Festival of Quilts but decided against it this year due to the overall cost of going (mainly the travel costs as we have a few trips this year).

I'm always impressed at how much there is at the Harrogate show. It never looks huge from the outside but when you get in there's an impressive display of quilts in one half of the space and a good selection of stalls in the other half, as well as a couple of places to get food/drink.

One thing I find when I go to quilt shows is that I set off with a plan, usually a small list of things I want to look at and maybe purchase but as soon as I get through the door I'm immediately drawn to the fabric. Today was no exception, I had two things on my list and I can't even remember what one was. The other was paper pieces and I decided against those on the grounds that I *could* cut my own and spend the money on fabric instead. 

Not that I spent a fortune though, I went with £20 in cash and came back with change. For that I got 9 FQs, a panel, a pin cushion kit with all the fabrics in, some buttons and a strip of Easter themed pictures (they're classed as labels but I'm planning on getting inventive with them). 

This is the pin cushion kit and the buttons. The pin cushion kit is a little house that opens and closes and I couldn't resisit it at £2.99 from  The Little Lavender Patch and the buttons were 40p and 45p for the packs. The Easter strip below was £1 from Rags For Linda.

I'm also fancy making something in bright colours so I couldn't resist this pack of 6 spotty FQs for £5 from Images of Egypt.

I also picked up some Hallowe'en themed fabric to go with some bits I bought from The Skep last year. Hopefully soon I'll be making a quilt with them. The top one was from Stitch Witch and the bottom two from Cotton Dreams.

The first thing that grabbed my eye at the show though was this lovely Flights Of Fancy panel that I bought from Crafts And Quilts for £4.99.