I cannot believe it has happened to me.

But it has. Like a lot of people I have become hooked on hexagons and English Paper Piecing. Forty years ago, the very first patchwork I made was hexagons. They weren't pieced over papers, although I had read about the method but it seemed a long way of doing things to me. (By the way, if you ever hear me call them hexies, please shoot me).

 These are considerably smaller, they measure a half inch on the side.

 I found this box to store the prepared ones in. It is good but not big enough for many more.

 And whilst I love Charbonnel et Walker Marc de Champagne Truffles, these Cremes Parisiennes didn't rock my boat so I will not be eating my way through more of them just to get the boxes. If anyone has found a better solution please let me know.

Fliss came up for the weekend and she had a crash refresher course on machine quilting and went away with a Bernina 1030. Perhaps there is something in the genes?

Tiptoe through the bluebells.

I read somewhere this week that we have more than half the bluebell woods in the world. I have no idea if this is true or not, but this year is a vintage year for them.  Frank is still with us and he is enjoying them too.

I have been spending time transplanting into my new raised flower bed. This is what it was like when I had only

a few bags left to go.

And now I have run out of energy but there is only the planting of the annuals left. Each of those bags was a 1/4 of a cubic metre and all the soil/compost had to be redistributed round the garden. Four or five wheel barrow loads per bag, and there were 14 of them. I have awarded myself a medal.

Another fabulous Antique quilt to my small collection. PHOTO HEAVY

 I cannot tell you how pleased I am with this beauty. I bought it taking a bit of a chance as the photo shown to me was not good. Even when it arrived I wasn't certain as the fabrics were so bright, they might have been printed yesterday. However the seller also was selling another quilt, a strippy which wasn't in wonderful condition but I bought it quite cheaply so was happy enough with it (photos of it are are at the bottom of this post). I am so pleased I got the strippy or would have doubted the age of this fabulous quilt. Both the strippy and this have the same quilting of chevrons and cross hatching and more importantly the same backing fabric which is quite heavy and stronger than what is on my other old quilts. They both came from the same house clearance in Dorset, England. I showed it to a group of other aficionados and their thoughts matched mine on the dates of the fabrics, about 1830. One of the prints is the same as one of the  quilts in the book Chintz Quilts from the Poos Collection by Xenia Cord and Kay Triplett.

The brighter photos are taken with flash, the others without. The colours are not quite as bright as the flash photos but much brighter than the ones without.