Happiness is.....

An Orla bag from TESCO:



Potatoes chitting on windowsills all over the house:



A Tag Square Bee block made and posted:



My first Project Linus quilt of the year complete:

Halloween and harvest

So I have finally gathered in all the pumpkin and squash from the allotment - don't they look pretty?



I made a table runner for Halloween. I am not a huge fan of orange and black, but adding the purple works really well! We don't go trick or treating but always light a fire, have a lantern and a special meal. (usually a Chinese - not very traditional I know but our favourite!) When I was growing up the lantern was always a swede picked from the field next to the house (my dad was a farmer). Boy oh boy they were hard to carve! I always kept the swede carving tradition going when I left home, but when I got an allotment I did decide that as long as I had grown the pumpkin myself I could use one! So the last couple of years we have had pumpkin lanterns, much to my relief :-)



Finally here is some vintage bunting I was lucky enough to find at a car boot sale in the summer. The youngest it can be is from the 1950's as one of the flags is an Australian flag with a red background instead of the blue we see today. Apparently the red background was used in Australia a fair bit during the first world war but by the 1950's the blue one had become the main flag. Fascinating stuff! I love to think that those little flags might have been used in a village hall to celebrate the end of the war, summer fairs, Christmas, the coronation.... the list goes on! The bunting was damp and covered in mildew when I got it, but after a very gentle hand wash it came up good. I am going to turn a number of the flags (some of them are damaged) into a patchwork cushion for my sister and brother in law. Watch this space!

fabric and flowers

Here are my latest purchases - they all arrived in the post together so I had a lovely 10 minutes opening my parcels and stroking my new fabric!

The plains are from a new online shop Simply Solids. Finally the UK has got somewhere to buy Kona solids from! I also splashed out on a swatch card - a bit pricey at £12 but so worth it. It will earn its keep as I will no longer be wasting money buying plain fabrics only to discover the colour is wrong when they arrive.

My patterned fabrics are from Saints and Pinners and Fabric Rehab - two UK stores always guaranteed to have lots of lovely things to choose from. All in all we are starting to do pretty well as far as shops go. Lily's quilts (another UK blogger) has compiled a list of UK online fabric shops on her blog that is well worth a look - she had a few on her list I had not come across before. Her blog is fab as well!

Finally I picked these flowers on my allotment at 6:30 this morning on an adventure and raspberry munching walk with my two boys (they are both early risers). Some sweet peas, a few sprigs of herbs and wild flowers from my asparagus bed (it really needs a good weed if there are flowers in it!!) Enjoy your weekend!

union jacks

Well after a couple of weeks of sewing I finally have completed my six blocks for the 3x6 mini bee over on Flickr. Sewing time has been squeezed in around hectic planting and weeding on the allotment. The first spring crops are starting to be harvested, with asparagus, pakchoi and salads now a regular on our table.

As the only Brit in my bee I decided to go with a Union Jack inspired block, using the colour choices my beehive peeps requested. They caused a great deal of head scratching, a bit of swearing and some taking out of wrong seams and re-sewing but I got there in the end!

not much sewing but lots of growing!

Now I am back at work full time after my maternity leave I am finding it really difficult to get any sewing done. A lack of time, motivation (I am shattered come 7 pm when the boys are in bed) and space are all adding to the problem. I don't have anywhere just for me to sew - I have to make do with the kitchen table which of course needs clearing for meals. So whilst I am itching to get on with my list of projects nothing much is actually happening. I am hoping that as work settles down a bit more and I get used to it again I will find some space to get going once more. I have to get a quilt made for the middle of October for a first birthday, followed by two more for twins by November. Eeek! I really need to get in the zone again!

On a much more satisfying note, here is my haul from the allotment this morning - we are having a roast for dinner with all the trimmings. The red potatoes are Roosters and make the best roasties ever. Tea today will be yummy!