Had a nice time mooching and stroking fabric and came away with a nice selection of greens. The photo really doesn't show the colours very well, they're a bit washed out and seem to contrast more than they do in real life.




We've finally settled on a pattern. I was drawn towards Storm at Sea as I've always had a hankering to make one, there were four votes for Irish Chain and two votes for Saw Tooth Stars which I hadn't considered and immediately wanted to make. The surprise winner however is a pattern that is called London Square on Quilter's Cache. I suggested it and got a very enthusiastic response, so that's what we're going with.

This is an example from the turn of the century though happily she wants hers to be nice and scrappy.


I'm now off to run the OH to the airport. He's off to Marakesh for a week. Lucky bugger... I've got the kids on half term.

Isn't life full of coincidences. I've just been looking at Ferret's Blog and she's posted up pictures of her charity quilt which are scrappy bow ties. To be truthful I like her quilt better than mine, I wish I'd thought of alternating rows of large and small ones. It gives it a lot more depth.

In other news, I have a commission. A friend of the MIL has requested a green and white quilt in a traditional pattern to go on her Victorian iron framed bed in the spare room. She'll pay for the fabric and I get to play. I'm about to head for Hanson's Fabrics at Sturminster Newton to look at material and see if I get inspired. See you when I get back.

In the meantime if anyone has a favourite pattern that would look great in green and white on an antique bed in a very old farmhouse, let me know.

Life seems to have gotten in the way of most of my internet stuff lately. I've hardly had time to keep up to date with everyone else, let alone write about what I've been up to.

The highlight of the past couple of weeks was that I was taken out for Valentines Day. It came as a bit of a surprise as we don't usually bother but MIL volunteered her services as sitter and as she's away for 99% of the time we didn't want to miss our chance and took her up on it. We went to the cinema to see Hot Fuzz and then stuffed ourselves with indian food. He drove so I had some beers which was nice and a good time was had by all.

The distinctly low point was that boiler died a week ago and proved tricky to fix so we've not had any heating or hot water until last night. Brrrrr! Hopefully it will be OK for a while, the engineer did say that if anything else went wrong with it we'd be better off getting a new one though which is not good news.

The only room with other heating is the living room so we've spent a lot of time there and so I've been hand quilting mainly. I did manage to put together the batik sqares into a border for the purple strippy quilt and I've just finished adding them. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. It looks to me as though the border and quilt were planned to co-ordinate when in fact the fabrics for the quilt were just what was in my scrap bag and the batik squares I'd not seen before I was gifted them.




The Gracie has disappeared under a pile of boxes, fabric and 'stuff' so I need to unearth it and get on with quilting these cuties.

Birthday boy

It's E's 13th birthday today. There should be wonderful pictures of the cake my Mum made for him. It was a race track complete with candle cars and a gold trophy candle. She spent 2 days on it and did a marvelous job. It is, unfortunately, inside the tummy's of 3 very smug looking dogs who can apparently jump 6 feet vertically when it's made worth their while. Buggrem, buggrit. I'm right down the list of top mothers right now, Granny is however high on the top grannys list for bringing back chocolate eclairs from town as consolation.

Don't they look guilty?

I've got the flu

I've got flu. Not just a nasty cold but proper, full on influenza. I nursed the boys through it and then got it myself. 2 days with a temperature of 102, shakes, aches, blinding headache and delirious dreams and now a wracking cough that doesn't stop until I'm nearly sick and I'm feeling like I've been run over by a truck. The boys are much the same but about 3 days ahead of me.
It's poor E's 13th birthday tomorrow and it should have been a big celebration with all the family, instead we're going to be sitting at home drinking lemsip and feeling sorry for ourselves.
Blegh, I need a hug.
Obviously I've been totally unproductive but I did finally get photos of Ally's 40th birthday quilt, only 2 years late, so I'll share them instead. This was the one I found the hardest to give away. It is a quillow with flannel backing so it's really cuddly and the colours fitted in my bedroom so well.

I was tagged

Ferret tagged me to come up with 5 facts about myself that wasn't known. I was horrified to discover that I couldn't think of anything that was interesting but after she sent me a useful list of topics to think about and chatting to a friend about it I've come up with the following:-

1. I'm 4'11 1/2" but I always tell people I'm 5' because it sounds taller.

2. I love women's body-building and 2 years ago was starting to train seriously for a competition when I developed some major rotator-cuff problems and then wrecked my knee really badly. Since then the only exercise I've had has been walking the dogs and I've put on nearly 4 stone. (The shame!!!!)

3. Despite not even being a Christian I'm going to be sending my son to a Roman Catholic Secondary School because it has the best reputation locally for kids with special educational needs. Could be interesting.

4. We live in a dilapidated late Victorian detached house which is constantly in a state of complete chaos due to all of us being almost pathologically untidy. By the sound of it we also have the twin of Ferret's book collection. When the book cases in the downstairs hallway had to be moved because of shredding puppies we boxed up those and put them in the attic so now that is full of books too. Pretty much every room has book-cases and we have way more books than the existing shelves can cope with and there are now piles of books too. I need the Life Laundry or whatever that show was called to come and sort us out.

5. I'm going to die alone with about 100 cats according to an Internet survey that links over use of smileys and terms such a ROFL to this eventual demise. Even more tragic was that my first thought was 'If I've got 100 cats I'm not exactly alone.' ;)

6. I'm possibly the most boring person in the history of the world... and I can't count either.

I'm not sure who to tag next, everyone seems to have done this one. I'll have a read through all the blogs I follow and see if I can find someone who's not 'been done'.

Postcard from Kate

I've just realised that I haven't posted any pictures of the gorgeous postcard that Kate sent to me. It's got pride of place on the wall behind my computer and it looks great. Thanks Kate!

I also got tagged by Ferret to post 5 things about myself that I hadn't mentioned in my blog. I hadn't realised before what a boring life I lead. If I can come up with 5 things I'll post them up later.