The Chanteille Beauty

The Festival of Quilts is just round the corner (ahhh!) so me and the girls at the shop are busy making up quilts and kits ready for the show. This is my new quilt, made from the Chanteille range from John Louden, available of course from Doughty's. The fabrics are lovely to use, and I've always wanted to use my 60deg Creative Grids ruler, and it works really well, very happy with that purchase!

 

Its so clever how you sew the half-hexagons in rows which create the whole hexagons. The biggest surprise for me was the wadding, it Doughty's brand of an eco wadding - 70% recycled cotton, 30% recycled polyester - a bit fluffy to sew with, though it quilts nicely. But the finished product is so lush and comfy, very snuggly when used with Louden's gorgeous soft cottons!

Doughty's will be selling the fabric pack at the NEC and you'll get free instructions for the quilt when you buy the pack!

Right, now on the next project... mind you, we've got a weekend in Germany with some very dear friends to look forward to first!

Colour in the garden

I was so happy to see I hadn't missed my alliums blooming while I was away, I only had about 4 last year, so I'm very proud of my huge crop! A couple of pics complete with bumble bee! And I just love the red flower, though not sure what it is, verbena maybe??

Jet lagged but happy

Hubby and I have just returned from two weeks in the US, travelling around Boston and New England, with a week in Florida in the middle. We have had dreamy thoughts of moving out there and starting some sort of business, so we were also doing a recci. Florida, I'm sorry to say was just too big and too hot, I think my English bones are just not used to that heat, and this was only May!

So now, we've fallen in love with New England - the countryside, the people, the architecture - were just amazing, and very inspiring! Whether we ever move there or not, it's given us plenty of ideas to bring over here.

Anyway, back to reality, we did find a gorgeous quilt shop in West Barnstable, on Cape Cod, called Tumbleweed Quilts, where I spent an embarrassing amount on some lovely 1930s fabrics, can't wait to start using them, after I've stroked them for a while!

I also stocked up on US quilting mags, Generation Q is particularly inspiring for more modern designs, with loads of extras on their website, which means I can still read some of their articles, even though I can't get the mag here. 

I will post some of our holiday pics another day, we're struggling to keep awake at the moment!