Stash Sunday….

Tags

fabric, janome, patchwork, Sewing, Sewing machine

I have come to realise that I have a serious problem. I have an addiction. It is not one that there is a support group for. Indeed, any support group would only encourage my addiction. The time has come to admit it. My name is April and I’m a fabric addict.

I’m afraid to admit that I have been increasing my fabric stash this month. Firstly, I attended an open evening at my local fabric shop, The Fabric Place. There was wine, there were snacks and there was 20% off fabric. How could I resist? I intended to buy a small piece of fabric so that I could re-upholster the cushion of this chair:

I bought a metre of this:

However, I also saw this remnant:

Unfortunately, they also had a large basket stuffed with fat quarters. So I also bought these:

 I will be using some of this fabric to make pretty things to sell at a charity event in a couple of months.

Earlier this month, I spent a long weekend in Whitby with the husband and his family. It was lovely. We stayed in a beautiful house, ate quantities of delicious food, drank far too much wine and spent some time on the beach. As you can see, the sun was indeed shining over Yorkshire. It was glorious. My only slight disappointment was the discovery that cream teas ‘up north’ are served with whipped cream rather than clotted…

I may, ahem, also have found another fabric shop. Judith’s fabrics is a tiny, fabric-stuffed haven of delight for all fabric addicts. Ribbons and lace tumbled out of every nook and cranny, fat-quarters were stuffed into every available space and roll upon wonderful roll of lovely quilting cotton adorned the shelves that stretched up to the ceiling. It was barely 3 metres square but I could have stayed there all day. I limited myself to three lovely fat-quarters, which will eventually be part of a quilt for my bedroom:

 

I was just about to leave the shop when I came across this:

Thankfully, my sister-in-law took pity on me and purchased it as a slightly belated birthday present. I intend to use it to make an appliqué picture for the kitchen…

Well, all this fabric has to be stored somewhere! My little sewing space has been somewhat chaotic for the past month. Some serious sorting is needed. On Sunday, I attempted to impose a little order. A friend recently sent me a delicious present from Kiehl’s. If you’ve not purchased anything from Kiehl’s, I encourage you to do so. Or encourage your friends/husband/relatives to purchase them for you…. Anyway, I was delighted with my parcel, not least because the box is sturdy enough to be a very useful place to store my increasing stash of fat quarters:

 

It is good to be able to begin to group my fabrics by colour. As I’ve already said, I’m not brilliant at deciding how to put fabrics and different colours together. This makes it a little easier…

I am also delighted to introduce you to my beautiful new sewing machine. I was a little daunted when I removed it from the box but a few hours with the manual and we’re good friends. My favourite function so far is the automatic buttonhole. All crafty makes from now on will have copious amounts of buttons…

 

However, I think that my sewing machine could do with a name. Any ideas?

April x

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Quilts, cake and a vintage bus

Tags

Afternoon tea, cake, Festival of quilts, Patchwork quilt, Sewing machine, vintage bus

At the age of just eighteen, I went on my very first independent excursion to London with my extremely good friend Sally. It was the summer between finishing our A-levels and the start of university and, after all the stress of our exams, we just couldn’t wait to let our hair down and to finally have a little taste of independence. We spent those three days eating a great deal of cake, drinking quite a lot of tea, visiting the sights and having long chats about everything from setting up our own cake emporium to where we would likely be in ten year’s time.

Well, quite a lot has happened in the 14 years since but Sally and I have remained good friends and we have said many times that we should plan another excursion (albeit this time with a bit more of a budget and our own credit cards) and a couple of weeks ago, we finally found time to make it happen. I asked Sally to join me on the Afternoon Tea Bus Tour (run by BB Bakery) that had been a gift from my former colleagues. She was very happy to accept and, on a rather warm Saturday afternoon, we presented ourselves at the designated departure point near the London Eye to await the bus:

As you can see, it was a rather delightful, old-fashioned Routemaster bus that we were informed was over sixty years old. When we boarded, we were greeted by a very friendly member of staff and shown to our table on the bottom deck where a selection of sandwiches and cakes awaited us!

The tables had obviously been specially made as they also included a space to place your cup or glass so that it wouldn’t spill when the bus was in motion. Given my penchant for spilling drinks, I was quite glad about this! The tour took in most of the main sights of London and I realised that there are many landmarks in London that I have actually never seen (sadly, it was a little difficult to take photos as the bus kept moving and the cars just kept getting in the way!). After we had eaten all of the sandwiches and little cakes (including quite possibly the best brownie that I have ever eaten) the staff brought round scones followed by cupcakes and macarons. By the time we disembarked we were pleasantly full of tasty cakes and were ready for our first cocktail of the evening (well perhaps after another cup of tea and a little lie-down…)

I do like London but it is all rather too hectic for me and I do think that people are not always quite as polite (for example when boarding a tube train) as they might be. I did contemplate living there after university but I think I’m happier with a slightly slower (and more considerate) pace of life now in the midlands, where people are mostly friendly and usually don’t shove you off a train. Indeed, there is no friendlier place to be in the midlands than the annual Festival of Quilts, which takes place during the second weekend of August at the Birmingham NEC. Last year I went somewhat apprehensively on my own but I needn’t have worried as I met some lovely people, gazed at some beautiful quilts and had lots of quilty chats, all of course accompanied by copious amounts of tea and cake.

This year, I introduced my mother in law to the delights of the Festival of Quilts. Similar to last year, I was absolutely stunned by the quality of the many quilts that were on display. I prefer the traditional patchwork quilts:

My mother-in-law was drawn to those that were a bit more contemporary:

Regular readers of my blog will know just how much I like Suffolk-puffs, so I  particularly liked this beautiful quilt:

Attending the Festival of Quilts also gave me a chance to peruse the latest sewing machines and I was very happy to find one that is a bit more advanced than my current model but hopefully not too complicated to use. My new Janome QXL605 will shortly be delivered and I really can’t wait to start sewing with it.  I am hoping that this will encourage me to complete a couple of projects as I haven’t managed to do a great deal of sewing since starting my new job in late June (oh how I wish sometimes that I could spend my days piecing together lovely bits of fabric instead of sitting in front of a computer screen…)

Anyway, I shall leave today’s post with a picture of this beautiful tea-cosy:

Till next time 🙂