All I did was stroll past the Salvation Army shop while out shopping, and this teapot was sitting in the window screaming at me to come in and buy it. How could I resist?
Whichever way you look at it, it is fascinating. And there isn't a single chip or crack on it anywhere. Neither is there a manufacturer's mark on the underneath, which is a bit puzzling. I am sure I have seen that lupin design somewhere before.
As if I really need an excuse to make another tea cosy... now I'm bursting to make one in a colour scheme to match this pot.
This the quilt that I have received from Terry, my October partner in the Doll Quilters' Monthly swap.
The theme was to show where we live, so Terry chose covered bridges because she lives in an area where there are many to be seen.
The central panel is a section showing the entrance to a bridge. Although we don't have covered wooden bridges over rivers in this country, this detail does remind me of the bridges at old railway stations. They had to be covered, otherwise the passengers would have been enveloped in smoke from the steam engines.
Terry tells me that they have many craft fairs in the autumn in the areas where the bridges are. The bridges must be a lovely sight when they are surrounded by all the colours of autumn.
I love the combination of the dark greens and bold red - it definitely gives the feeling of Christmas being on the way!
Thank you Terry! You have been a lovely partner.
Welcome to Melanie Varela, the latest follower - thank you for joining!
It's a weed, really, with big bristly leaves and tiny flowers. There is something slightly hypnotic about the shade of blue which prevents me from digging up the plants.
This panel might look slightly familiar. I have used exactly the same fabrics as for the tea cosy, but this time the quilted panel is big enough to make two large cosies. Last time I thought the leaves looked slightly like hawthorn leaves.
This time I did my best to make them look more realistic, with the irregular outline.
Having been on the receiving end of a hawthorn's thorns in the past, I couldn't add in these thorns without memories flooding back of how they feel when they get you under the thumbnail.
At the moment the hawthorns are practically bare of leaves, but have a rich crop of dark red berries, so I have added in a little cluster of berries here and there.
Welcome to Lana Litster, the latest follower - thank you for joining!
Joining up again to Leah Day's blog for Free Motion Friday
and Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
so there are plenty of other bogs for you to visit...
It has just got cold enough to add the extra layer to the bedding, so we now have this quilt on the bed. I made it about four and a half years ago, doing all the piecing on the machine I inherited from my mum, an 1897 Singer 28K, the star of the first two Youtube videos my husband I made.
This quilt was the first one I had made for years, and I had not yet worked on quilting at home - lack of time and space had a lot to do with it. I had the long arm quilting and binding done by Midsomer Quilting. They did a fabulous job. It's not such a brilliant idea to have the quilting cutting through the appliqué design, but I wanted the quilt finished, so I didn't care.
This interesting length of fabric was bundled up in the corner of a charity shop. Here it is slung over the clothes rack. It is 58 inches wide and the pattern is huge. The large flower is eight and a half inches across. It has a beautiful silky flow to it, and my first thought was that it was a length of vintage rayon. The pattern is on a scale that would be ideal on curtains in a large room, but this is definitely material for dressmaking or shawls. It drapes beautifully.
I haven't washed or ironed it yet. Fortunately the whole length was clean and unfaded, so I can live with the creases for the time being.
At first sight these are not my favourite colours, but the sheen and drape is so beautiful that the colours become quite fascinating. The lime green in the leaves and buds really brings it to life.
The only use I can think for it would be to make shawls, but it almost seems a shame to cut into it.
This is part of a small fragment of ancient Roman floor mosaic mounted on the wall of the porch of a church in Rome.
