Books to go on your Wish List for Christmas

And I have finally sorted out the border.

It hasn't been stitched down and I am still prepping the pieces but I am on the home stretch.

My Bernina 710 got a present, a 97D foot.

This foot is a quarter inch on the right hand side at the front and gives the same one eighth inch inside the foot like the 37 and the 37D feet, the difference is the foot makes contact with those extra wide feed dogs. I have just noticed I haven't engaged the dual feed in this photo. It also has a little guide you can screw on at the front to feed in your fabric. I am not using that here because I shall trim the bottom fabric later. I really really like this foot but I really really don't like the price. It was £45 here in the UK. When you can buy a whole sewing machine for £49 in John Lewis, it really cannot be justified. OK the sewing machine is not built to  Bernina standards but the difference is extreme to say the least.

Two glorious but expensive books to drool over. They are both big and heavy. I wish they would print books like this in paperback. I don't want to display books on a coffee table nor do I wish to have to sit at a table to read them, but nonetheless they are highly desirable.

I opened at  random pages. This book has no patterns but it has the most glorious quilts to drool over and get inspiration from.

 

The other book is all about prints, wonderful prints. 

 I so wish these prints were reproduced in the same detail and colours.

Both of these books are treasures.

A mishmash. Old blocks put together in the 1980's?

 I didn't have high expectations of this when I ordered it, but I didn't pay much so it matters not.

 I am fairly confident the stars surrounding the hexagons are from the 1940s and earlier. The hexagons measure 1 1/2" on the edge.

 It has been pieced over papers but the papers no longer are present.

 My guess is someone bought or inherited the stars and finished it in the 1980s. The plain terracotta is very much an 80s colour. And the terracotta stripe diamonds with the flowers look like an 80s Laura Ashley print to me.

 The other fabrics all are late 40's, 30's and 20's to my eye, but I am no expert.

There is no quilting, it is backed with loosely woven cotton. It has a poly-cotton beige valance sewn on by machine. (very 80s)