Suffolk Puffs

Helped with setting up the Norfolk Quilters Quilt Show today, at The Assembly Rooms in Norwich, so if you are in the vicinity come and visit! Tomorrow I will be demonstrating all day and then off the radar for a bit as I am off Grandmothering in Bedford until after the weekend.

Looking forward to getting back to my little blocks... I have a plan for making tiny half-square triangles.

Till then I should finish my cushion made with large Suffolk Puffs.

Autumn Trip

Had a lovely afternoon driving over to see Helen which takes me over the river on an ancient chain-drawn car ferry. I saw a woodpecker fly from a tree, and all the autumn colour in the hedgerows with dark blackberries and bright red haws.
I acquired some lovely fabric scraps too and our usual information swaps!
No pictures though as it was foggy...

Night and Day

Another 6" block, this one, Night and Day, I pieced over paper - took ages to pull it all off, but it is a nice little block.

Stones, and bookwraps.

Jude at Spirit Cloth Posted a thank-you for the stones I sent her here:
http://spiritcloth.typepad.com/spirit_cloth/ 
and a link to my blog which is nice!

I've spent the afternoon making lemon meringue pie for the Church Harvest Supper tonight.

Consequently I haven't made another block, just got the pattern ready.

I did make 7 small covered books this morning though, for the craft fair at How Hill on the 
31st, Halloween.
How Hill in Norfolk, is a beautiful old house on the river with lovely gardens. The story goes that one of the Colman girls (an heiress to the mustard fortune) was sailing up the river with her Beau, an architect called Boardman, and looked up at the hill and asked him to build her a house there - and he did!

Wood Lily Block

Wood Lily Block - 57 tiny pieces!

Carefully cut from templates and machine pieced. I think this one would be easier to produce using Foundations. I did unpick a couple of times and it took quite a while. The finished block is slightly more accurate one way than the other!

Postage Stamp

Well it looks like there is a much better way of doing the Postage Stamp block and there is a good tutorial on Elizabeth Hartmann's site Oh Fransson! 
http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2012/03/stamp-collection-making-the-block-.html
I will need to draw a smaller grid but it looks worth a try for an accurate tiny block.

The Farmer's Wife Sampler

I have recently acquired the Book The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt which has 111 different 6" blocks. A group of friends, some of whom started out as students, quite fancy doing this with me and swapping blocks. I want to use up boxes of scraps mainly reproduction fabrics, so I am thinking mine will be predominantly Blues and Reds. Here is the first block, Postage Stamp, which has 36 one inch finished squares. Some blocks have tiny tiny pieces!

A quilt for Rachel

Finally finished: Rachel's quilt. This one for my daughter's friend Rachel for her birthday, but rather belated as other things got finished first. Rachel chose the colours by putting ticks on a paint chart!
The pattern develops by rotating an asymmetric block quarter turns.

Craft Fair Toys

Today I am making small toys,floppy-eared dogs. They look very sad before they are stuffed!

Bookwrap

This bookwrap was made with a piece of experimental fabric where lots of shiny scraps are trapped under net and stitched down. It seemed rather scruffy and I had never done anything with it so now I added another layer of shot voile and machine quilted through it all. Then a lining - a bit of hand dyed cotton and here it is!

Out to Lunch - by river!

 Sunday today so we went out to lunch - 
by boat! 

Well we live on the Norfolk Broads.

We met a couple of intrepid canoeists and this year's cygnets now fully grown but still in their juvenile plumage.

  

 

 The river was quiet and peaceful. The reflections are lovely.

Back at the boatyard after an excellent carvery at the pub, the resident Guard Goose got cross when I approached him. He has the most beautiful blue eyes!

Bookwraps

Busy using lots of workshop samples to make bookwraps. There is a craft fair at the end of the month and I am to share a table so need some stock... Then there is the call from the Quilters Guild for Bookwraps  

Bookwrap Gems Project
http://bookwrapgems.wordpress.com/

for the Tombola for The Festival Of Quilts 2013, so I know any unsold will go to that good cause.

Here is one made with a piece of printed velvet which then had a shiny fish stencilled on using transfer foil. I don't remember doing this so it must be a while ago!