Happy Hallowe'en!

Our scary robot pumpkin

Bamboo cushions

also excited about our new Pottery Barn rug - it's made the living room so much cosier!

So here are the finished cushions I made from some of the fat quarters I bought at the workroom. If you're sad because you don't live near the workroom and can't buy fabric there (I would be), don't fret because you can order this print online. I found it recently at reprodepot but I'm sure there are other places that have it in stock.

It's called Maime Bamboo Thatch by Anna Griffin. I'm mentioning it in particular because I used the blue version for our kitchen door curtains and I've had some people ask what the fabric was for those. p.s. I've listed all the places that I buy fabric online in my sidebar to the right. The only other places I find fabric would be ebay (that's where I found the barkcloth for the floral couch cushions in the picture) and of course local finds.

These two cushions were made with 3 fat quarters. I did it by cutting a square each from two of the pieces for the fronts of the cushions. Then the backs are made up of two hemmed overlapping pieces so that you can get the cushion in and out. One half is from the leftover piece after cutting the front square, then I cut the 3rd fat quarter in half to make the other sides. Alternatively you could just buy a bigger piece of fabric and use a zipper! I ended up with a few small leftover pieces that will probably become pouches.
The piping is just some green cotton I had in my stash. That particular piece came from the Textile Museum sale that happens once a year in Toronto. The cord for inside the piping is actually a fat bootlace found at the dollar store. Then I added a snap to close the back.

I am still planning to show you some holiday pictures once I get them all sorted. I'm a bit obsessive about showing things in order. So for now, we're still at the beginning of the trip, with one of our other favourite finds in Glasgow (along with the fabric store) - the TARDIS!

Bradley lost his key and must wait for the Doctor to show up

The single girl update

The two purple floral prints are Liberty

So I've made lots of progress cutting out pieces for the single girl quilt and I have lots of fabric to spare. It's a great way to use up scraps as the main part of the quilt is just solid white. Although of course you can change that and I've seen some great versions with colour backgrounds.

The purple floral at the bottom of this picture is Liberty

I haven't decided for sure but I think my background is going to be a cream coloured muslin. It seems to harmonize better than white with several of the vintage fabrics I've used. Almost all the fabrics were odds and ends from my stash, but I did buy a few of my favourite pieces on holiday. They're all Liberty prints from a few different places.

The 3rd-from-left floral is Liberty fabric cut from a nightgown from the Gap that was too big.

Our trip began with a flight to Glasglow and I just happened across a great fabric store while we were looking for a bus stop. It's called Mandors, and it was a large shop with lots of variety, including a corner full of tartan wool fabric. They also had some great Liberty prints, even some large scrap pieces of Liberty fabric in a basket.

The 2nd from the top is Liberty fabric from the Glasgow shop

One of my other favourite fabrics was from etsy, a tiny set of 24 quilt squares made from vintage fabric. But they were too small! I liked them so much I seamed them together so that I could create the 12 pieces needed for the pattern piece. Extra work but the print was so perfect, with purple and orange, I just hope the seam doesn't show too much.

The orange and purple floral near the top is the one I seamed together from smaller pieces.

I'm liking the orange and purple together.
And finally of course there's also lots of prints from the workroom, including this adorable Matrushka doll print. I just picked up a big stack of fat quarters there at Quilt Sunday (where I did more chatting than cutting but had a great time). Next I'll show you the pillows I made with the green bamboo print!

Holiday

I'm back! We just had a really long holiday traveling all around Britain for the past two and a half weeks. Our first stop was Glasgow, then Edinburgh for 3 days and then we drove up north and over to the Isle of Skye. After that we visited the Lake District, a quick stop in Wales, then back to Dartmoor and finally London. Whew! I'm tired. It was a lot of driving and several places we had to find somewhere to stay for the night after driving all day. I don't drive, but I did do a lot of navigating and helped at the roundabouts and in mazes of small country roads.

My favourite aspects of the trip:
1. the scenery: so beautiful everywhere especially on the A and B roads
2. finally visiting Hill Top and seeing Beatrix Potter's lovely cottage and artwork
3. all the animals we saw: rabbits, birds, deer, cows, sheep, horses & ponies, peacocks, geese, hens and even miniature and wild ponies!
4. shopping: flea markets, Liberty, stylish clothing shops, Scottish welly and woolens shops.
5. lovely things to eat: Scottish porridge, cream teas and chocolates... why don't we have toffee yogurt here??
6. spending every day together (awww...)

I couldn't wait and ordered the "single girl" quilt pattern online. I've spent the day cutting out pieces... I'll show you my new purple prints from Liberty next!