This was a win, it would look good rotated or mirrored.

And then I thought I would have a go at a tree, this looked promising...

And it looked promising.....

But the time has come to abandon it and try another day.

It seems I am not alone in this difficulty, this 1933 quilt had similar problems.

Grrr, blogger has turned this upside down. I cannot tell you how happy I am with this, it's a WIN!

Border design

Grrr. Blogger in it's wisdom is showing this border swag for the quilt design in the previous post upside down. I must do more designing I enjoy it so much. It's a very calming thing to do. The bow on the right is how it will look on the corners and on the left how it does between the swags.

 It is St Swithin's Day today and tradition has whatever the weather today, it will remain like this for 40 days.

'St. Swithin's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St. Swithin's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain nae mair.'

It is now 8.45pm and we have had no rain....... Fingers crossed for the London Olympics. I wonder if events have had to be delayed because of unseasonal weather?

My favourite bit of quilting-Designing!

This is half of what will be the centre block and it will be on point. The block size is large 21 1/2". I might add a flower in the centre....

And this is half of one of the four blocks which will surround it. (note the Dogue de Bordeaux slobber on the paper!)

Then there will be these four half square triangles, one on each side.

And the four corners.

It is based loosely on an 1883 quilt in the book Nebraska Quilts and Quiltmakers called Love Apples and Tulips, though I have neither Love Apples nor Tulips in mine. What attracted me to this quilt was it's use of colour. It could so easily have been another red and green quilt but the maker used quite a lot of blue in hers in the pots and the flowers. It literally took my breathe away.

I am tempted to make this in the colours shown in the book including using a tan/khaki which the green has faded to, but I would also like to use red and green on a blue background, or use impossibly bright prints and make it zing! (or if I don't bite off more than I can chew perhaps more than one version?),

The original quilt has a plain white border and binding. I am thinking swags and bows..... Back to my sketchbook. And I have discovered the joys of a battery powered eraser, who knew removing lines could be so much fun?

Love it when things go to plan, hate it when they don't.

I have been over the moon with my new cutting table (see my last post). The joy of being able to work from all sides and so not have to move the fabric. It is little things like this which bring me huge pleasure. I spent some time today cutting out bias stripes for piping on some cushions I am making for the kitchen sofas.

I bought a lot of preshrunk piping cord for this very purpose whilst we were still at Toad Hall. I assumed quite wrongly I had put it in the box with all the kitchen fabrics. (and a couple of other curtain fabrics). So the box gets pulled out from under the table to the left of my machine. It wasn't there. So then the blue Ikea bag behind it gets pulled out and emptied. Not there either. I did find some un-shrunk cotton piping cord in my drawers from way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, varying thicknesses and I am not sure any of the lengths are long enough for the big cushions. But I boiled them to shrink them anyway.
At this point I needed to sleep. It didn't matter there was a guy on the staircase hammering down new carpet, I just had to sleep. So I did.
And I woke to find this....

 Tomorrow is another day.....
(My exhaustion was down to DH being stuck at the train station and not getting home until midnight as the RAC yet again claimed they were very busy last night. I also went to the supermarket and the butchers. I have limited energy and I had used it all)

I have done some stitching.

And I have my new sewing table.
It's my old Ikea glass table top which used to be on the trestles for my cutting table. I bought these two small chests of drawers from Ikea and it's perfect. I can still place a light on the floor between the two chests of drawers for a light box. Win.

I still have my old glass topped garden table which has now been moved over to the left so I have something to support my quilt whilst I stitch on it. You can see over to the right I have sorted out the upside down thread racks but haven't got all my threads up yet. Rome and my sewing room were not built in a day.

And my sewing? Well remember this footstool in the snug area of the kitchen? (and the sofa which was too large?)

Well I have recovered the footstool. (and we have a bright pink velvet small sofa, it is a real pink not the peachy pink the iphone has picked up) Both the footstool fabric and the sofa are Ikea again (do you think they will give me commission?)