Three tumbling blocks....

... don't make a quilt. However today I decided to bite the bullet so to speak and have a go at making a 'tumbling block' - much playing around later and dah! dah!... Now I know all you seasoned quilters will be able to see all the mistakes but for my first solo effort I am quite happy with the results... They actually look like they are meant to - and that astounds me!!!!

I learnt a few things today which I will keep in mind for future block making... I rather liked the time and effort it took and I can now appreciate even more how those people who take it seriously how much time and concertration must go into each step of the way...

I will agree with Gina though - I cannot see myself ever making a proper bed size quilt - I don't think that I have it in me to do more than a couple of blocks at a time... I think - somewhat like Gina - I really am happy to 'see how things work ' but not really interested in making huge pieces...

And what am I going to do with my three lone blocks??? I have another three lots of fabric cut out which will give me six in total so once I get them to that stage I will have a rethink...

Sharon xxx

Opps...

... I forgot to tell show you my latest acquisition -because I was feeling miserable with my cold - (any excuse!) - I did a little retail therapy at Bustle and Bows in Surrey Hills. I spied with my little eye these lovelies - Cottage Garden Threads. I am a sucker for anything over dyed or variegated I might add, and because I was in a weakened state I succumbed to these... I love them all but I am especially taken with the one right at the bottom called Iris - when you see it close up you can see all the colours of a blue iris - from internal yellows to the external blues and all those shades in between... Just love it!!!! What am I going to use them for - lol - you know me - who knows... Of course I had to have a Brenda Ryan pattern to go along with them...

Delight...

... is finally finished... My french knots are terrible - I seemed to have lost my magic touch there... Overall I think the block looks reasonable and I keep reassuring myself that once it is a whole quilt those sorts of little details won't seem so BIG... I sense that I may need to do something completely different next - just to give me a break from this stitcheries...

We're back....

Well, G and I went - we saw - we spent and then looked and looked again... So many gorgeous, stunning, mind shattering, unbelievable quilts... After a while looking at them all became sensory overload... G and I wandered around and for a change I was quite conservative with my money... I did buy some material, a button and and six preprinted stitcheries... G abd I both commented on the abundance of Japanese material considering a few years ago you were lucky to see one stall selling it let alone the the amount of stalls we saw yesterday... G went off to do a workshop on tumbling blocks and I just wandered for the hour... One thing that did capture my interest was the 'Roses from the Heart' display - the link will give you the general idea of what is all about... You could look through lists of convict women and chose a name - I chose Mary Corbett who was 36 and sent to Australia for stealing a quilt... She was a widow with 2 children when she was sent out here... I am looking forward to creating the bonnet a connection between the present to the past... Stay tuned...
Here a just a few quilts which caught my camera lens...

Bye, bye....

G and I are off to the Quilt Convention for the day...

Here I go, here I go again...

...I seem to have lost my stitching mojo again lately... I started back on the Gail Pan's free BOM from last year... I managed to do two more of the blocks fairly quickly then I stalled again on 'delight'... I have done quite a bit of back stitching lately and I think I need some other type stitching to break the cycle... Yesterday P took me down to The Needlepoint in East Malvern as I heard that they are having a sale... I was restrained as I was there on a mission looking fro some fabric - unfortunately they didn't have what I wanted, so they sent me up to Patchwork on Central Park -which is only a block further away - to see that they might have more what I was looking for... What a hardship that was!!! LOL - P came well prepared for these visits with his book so he sat in the car while I 'ferreted away' in both shops...

Did you buy anything you ask??? LOL - Does the Sun come up each morning??? Yes of course I did.. See following photos... I love the Pairie Schooler range of cross stitch patterns so I bought two of those... The alphabet one I have always loved since I did 'M is for Mermaid' which I changed into 'M is for Melanie' for my eldest daughter whose name is coincidentally Melanie... I couldn't quite decide which alphabet pattern to start with and I thought why not just start with A.B.C - I have a feeling I shall bump it up the 'to do' list... The other one as you can see has a Christmas theme to it - lol I don't know when I think I am going to do all these but one can dream... The two other items I bought was the pale pink Perle cotton and the fabric I needed at the patchwork shop - but I could have been so bad if I had really wanted to...

I have decided to work on this little chap again - he sits looking mournfully at me every time I go into my stitching tub... He was such a small project which got tossed into my stitching tub when something else took my eye...

Well that is enough from me... Happy stitching

Sharon xx

Chloe's Place

Today I was delighted to see an 'old face' has returned to blogging after quite an absence... L was one of my first contacts in the blogging world and in fact she came for a visit and patiently helped me construct my first 'crazy' block... LOL - As you can see L - it has advanced somewhat but I wouldn't say that it was completed...

So if you want to see some wonderful embroidery take yourself over to Chloe's Place and give yourself a visual feast...