Winter Craft Fayre

So this is what I've been busying myself with at the moment... Alongside tackling knitted sock patterns and watching Adventure Time!

Baskets

I'm completely in love with willow basketry and have mainly been working with green willow (which is really flexible) and buff willow (which doesn't take too long to soak). Brown willow is extremely flexible and black willow is really slick-looking.

Natural Colour Willow Selection from World of Willow 

Although I primarily went on a course at Martineau Gardens, I have now made a few different types of baskets! I've learnt to make some hedgerow baskets and flat-bottom baskets. I even made some from de-thorned brambles, ivy, ash and willow...

Today I received my natural colour selection from World of Willow! I've just set up the paddling pool with warm water so I can soak it for a few days - The bath gets a bit grubby so this should work better for soaking dried willow (maybe with a tarp over it). 

I also received this infosheet which is really helpful and tells me all about the different varieties.

Fab fat quarters!

Fab fat quarters from the festival of quilts. I'm still pondering a little project for these 100% cotton beauties!

Autumn sewing events

Well, it's getting to that time of year when the nights are drawing in and I'm thinking of ways to get out there and get out of the house before it's gloomy and all that you can do to keep your spirits up is to drink hot chocolate under a cosy quilt, in front of a log fire and get ready for Christmas!

Here's an event that I'm particularly excited about for Crafter/Bloggers in Birmingham (UK) ...

Sew Brum Blogger Meet Up - Saturday 31st October 2015

http://englishgirlathome.com/sewbrum/ 

St Clements quilt

I completely re-did the wadding because I got some brilliant Doughty's wadding at The Festival of Quilts, which is only 1mm thick and doesn't break my sewing machine on a walking foot!

I've sewn the chevrons and the edges so now all that it needs is for me to find the bias binding I bought months ago (or did I just imagine buying it? - probably a good excuse to sort out my craft shelves either way!).

Fair Isle kids hat project

Seems like most of my projects get finished deep into the night so I'm off to sleepy town now.

I'm happy to say I pretty much finished a little fair isle knit hat in a day! So excited as it looks pretty finished. The pattern matches all around, just as I planned and the little hearts are just lovely. I think the next one I do will be more contrasting... Like yellow and a shade of dark blue; or mulberry and yellow; or orange and green, as it's nearly October!

And pompoms... Many pompoms...

It even got my niece's approval

Festival of Quilts

I went to the Festival of Quilts this year and barely managed not to touch the quilts: The textures were so exciting, though!

Here are some images from the competition they ran. I'll also upload a blog about my chevron quilt. Only the bias binding to go and I got some great wadding tips from the festival too. Thank goodness for Doughty's!

Look closely at this image of a bicycle. It's a lovely example of strip quilting and what you can do with quilts when a group of people comes together!