Sewing this week because...

...I left my glass box at art school :-(
I could have cut up and played with glass but since I left my stuff to save carrying home I couldn't.

I planned to sew but my children took over and I left them to it. It was quite a pleasure to sit with my new magazine, which is lovely.

I got a lovely surprise in the post last week, I took part in Quilted Basket Swap. My bag went to Canada and I received this lovely bag from Belgium, so lovely!! Thank you Monica X
My mother was away on a quilting weekend at the lovely Fat Quarter shop run by Kim. And I got this

gorgeousness.. For obvious reasons the Layer cake is very appropriate and was bursting to be chopped.

It obliged beautifully and chop, sew, chop, sew - talk about happy patcher. I spent yesterday from midday sewing away. There was an Agatha Christie fest on the telly so I ploughed along whilst I absorbed Poirot (twice), Miss Marple and another mystery... 

and today I finished off the binding and put on a hanging sleeve. So it is now beautifully positioned on the wall in my old sewing room that was finally cleared up on saturday. It had become a dumping ground and anything needing sorting was thrown in, but it is actually a pleasant little room. Now as you come up the stair this lovely quilt smiles at you. WHich is good because it takes your eye from the grubby ancient carpet. 

Glass/Patchwork/Patchwork/Glass

I am finding myself drawn to stained glass... I am finding myself feeling a new thing taking over the house... I am finding myself joining a support group...
...My name is Polly and I am addicted to crafts!!
Oh dear.. it's only been a few weeks but I am stressing about splitting my time between the garden, which even though the weather hasn't been great I love to potter - the patchwork which I find a half an hour for then sneak another and before long it's midnight and plans that were thought have been shelved - and now glass work. Stained glass can be done at home, once you have cutters and a board, off you go.
Then last friday I went to the glass shop... which is like a fabric shop for patchers!! It is lovely neat wooden shelving with coloured glasses, some deliciously handmade (V expensive) all lined up waiting to be wrapped.
That's what they do, wrap everything up in brown paper packages, not quite tied up with string but you still end up skipping out of the shop singing with happiness!!

So, keeping it simple, I have only two weeks left, I am making a small square birdy branch panel.

It's amazing the similarities with patchwork, thinking about colour etc - and the frustration that unlike my fabric stash which is bulging, my glass stash is limited. This I am accepting and I am not a fool, I am aware of the slippery slope with stash-ing so I will keep a tight lid on the glass box!!

I did manage to attach the flying geese border to this courthouse step quilt. I have used 2 layer cakes to make this, building up the border with whatever was left. There is to be another cream border then - I think - a wider navy one, Minnick and Simpson. Bit of a blurry snap but it gives the idea.

Another work in progress is my crotcheting which started here on a journey. I have now just about completed my 4 quarters and will sew them together. It is VERY exciting as 2008 summer driving to the Loire was when I began, and this summer we are going back and ONLY 3 years later have I managed to get it together :-)

Think I will do a few turns around the whole thing using the colours, plenty there to use.

Flying Geese...

Flying geese completed...