vintage quilt

          I dropped into a little antique/vintage shop yesterday and saw this beautiful quilt hanging on a screen. The price was right so I bought it. The stitching is so small and neat that it looks like its matchined pieced and quilted  but on taking a closer look I can see that it is all done by hand, the only machine stitching is joining the strips of diamonds. It is beautifully made and mostly in very good condition, the grey patterned diamonds next to the pink are worn and could do with replacing. I'm guessing this fabric was thinner than the rest and has therefore worn.

I have washed and dried it and now it looks brighter and fresher, I will take it over to our cottage, I need to get hold of a quilt ladder to hng it on alongside some of the older quilts that I've made.

I'm delighted with my find!

                     

                     

I have been so neglectful of my blog in recent months, I can't use a busy life as an excuse because I know you all have busy lives but still seem able to keep up!

I've been considering my Etsy shop and what to do with it. I have enjoyed making baby and children's clothes to sell but I just don't seem to have the inclination to work on promoting it. 

Last week our church put on a Christmas Market to raise funds for the missionaries that we support, I decided to take along my Etsy products and my husband took lots of the pots he has made together with his potters wheel for people to have a go at throwing a pot. This was a huge success and especially the men and children enjoyed taking a turn. 

The market was great fun, lots of very talented people had stalls selling homemade soaps, candles, cakes, preserves, fudge and cookies to name just some of the produce that was for sale.

I sold quite a few of my items and I'm thinking of just winding down my shop and maybe concentrating on quilts and blankets. With a new grandchild on the way I have plenty of reason to make baby clothes. 

I've loved making blankets from the attic24 blog, I'm making cot size blankets at the moment, finished the cottage ripple blanket and am now using the rest of the yarn to make the cosy blanket

                                         

                                    

On Friday we went into visit our son in London, he asked if I would like some pieces of Irish linen he had used on a photo shoot and no longer needed, of course my answer was "Yes" and we swung by his studio to pick them up, this pile doesn't look that big but each piece of fabric measures from 4 to 8 metres long so plenty to keep me busy :) I am thinking that I will make some plain quilts, using the same colour linen top and back with wadding in between and then hand quilting through the layers with embroidery silks. 

I have washed all the pieces and although none shrunk, the darker colours did bleed so I couldn't mix colours in a quilt. I'm pretty excited about getting started with these beautiful colours.

                                      

Below is a Christmas photo of some of our grandchildren, they dressed up to go to see Elf 

at the theatre. Gilby isn't really into dressing up and usually will only wear a cowboy hat! I guess his Mummy and sisters managed to persuade him on this occasion :)

                        

 

Liberty Quilt

Back in 2012 I wrote this post http://finelinenandpurple.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Liberty

Well two years later I have finally finished my Liberty quilt. I will add, I haven't been making it all that time, I collected fabric and began making it earlier this year :)

I had also been given some pre cut squares, in two different sizes, so I joined those squares then made triangles and rectangles, backing the quilt with a sheet that my mother bought for my bed when I was 16 (obviously good quality to last all these years!) I hand quilted around each square, triangle etc and  then made bias binding from Liberty fabric, using one of those little gadgets which I had never used before but worked pretty well. All in all I am very happy with the outcome, I do love Liberty. 

We have just spent a few days over at our cottage in Wales and I took the quilt over to put on our bed there.

The weather was pretty chilly, the cottage is in Mid Wales and we are told that is the coldest area in Wales but with the heating on and the wood burner going we were pretty snug. 

And as you can see Molly enjoyed the quilt too