Note to self: Hand woven Indian cotton may look and feel beautiful, and bring back happy memories of that trip to London, but even after a pre-wash in the washing machine it will still bleed purple dye all over your quilt. Don't use it in a quilt back again! (Unless trees with blotchy pink backgrounds are what you are after...)


A baby chick picture to remind me there are more important things in life. Anyone got any good tips for fixing it when the colours run in the wash?!

more folding

folding...

and thinking...




Hmmmm.

(There's a big thunder storm outside, water running in sheets down the window. I opened the door just to peek and it was like someone chucking a bucket of water at me. Its good to be snuggled up inside though. Hope you're safe and warm.)

more trees

I've been working on this quilt for a while now, a tree here, a tree there. And today the top is finished!


And I've been thinking about what the back should be like... perhaps solid white, with the quilting in colour so the stitching makes a pattern on its own, or patchwork in different shades of white, or maybe random patchwork of all the colours of the trees (a bit like this). It's hard to decide.


As for the quilting... follow the patterns of the tree outlines like last time? Or maybe an all over pattern. I like the idea of something more compact, maybe just straight lines, straight across. Or a grid. Would that spoil the trees, or would they speak for themselves anyway. And green quilting thread? White? What about red?? I saw some really beautiful quilts at the V&A exhibition, just lines of varying thickness of stitches on a flat background. Perhaps I'm getting mixed up, trying to put too many ideas into one thing, perhaps that's quilt number three instead...


And. I've decided to try and hand quilt it. I don't think it will fit through my old machine and I don't have a quilting foot, and I think I quite like the idea of sitting with it on my knee in the evenings. We'll see how I feel a few thousand stitches later...

drum roll...

As much as I would like to send everybody a book... (I always forget when I do give aways that having to pick a winner is hard indeed!) I left it to atmospheric noise and came out with comment number 15, which is... Beata! Congratulations Beata, I hope you like the book.


And to everyone who commented, thank you for all your reading recommendations, so many! I love hearing about what people like to read. Someone I knew once asked that for his birthday, instead of any old present, that people buy him their favourite book. Lots of interesting new books and perhaps a little insight into friends and family too. I thought that was a great idea. So I've written down all your recommendations and I'm off to the library tomorrow :) You all made my day.