I've been fabric-shopping....

Last week I visited one of my favourite fabric shops, the Shipley Shuttle. It was love at first sight for this gorgeous cotton - I adore pink and yellow or orange together.

I spent a portion of my weekend making this large tote bag.

I cut out a couple of flowers from the fabric and backed them with interfacing and felt and then stitched around them.

I sewed them to yellow spotted ribbon ( a perfect match for the elephant ears featured on the fabric ) and then I tied the decoration around one of the bag handles.

I had enough fabric left over to make this purse. Not bad for a long and lazy Bank Holiday weekend...

A new quilt takes shape....

Despite having two fairly large-scale patchwork projects already on the go, I decided last month that I would start another quilt. I am a recent convert to the combination of blue and white - I love the crispness and cleanliness of the two colours together. I thought that a little pink in places would be a nice way to warm up the work. The blocks are 7 inches square, and a relief to work with alongside the 1 inch square patchwork which is still ongoing. I am, as usual, stitching this by hand and using the English paper-piecing method. The quilt will probably end up as a lap-quilt to use in my sewing room in the winter months.

The fabrics will be a mix of floral, stripes, plain and some checks.

Here are my first six blocks. They are randomly placed together - I will not decide how they all fit together until all blocks are completed.

Experiments with seedheads.

Since I began to garden a number of years ago, I have been captivated by seedheads. I photograph them outdoors and some I then collect to keep them in vases and jars. I decided to have a go at recreating some seedheads in thread and fabric and here is my first attempt. I'm sure there will be more experiments as I particularly enjoyed this way of working.

Try as I might, I cannot photographically capture the true colours of this piece! I tried outdoors but even that didn't look right, so this will have to suffice.

Close-ups give better results and a more accurate depiction of the subtle colour scheme.

I like the piece in its round embroidery hoop, so I'm going to leave it as it is and hang it upon the wall like this - so, looks like I'll be needing new hoops....