Mushrooms

 The autumn days are warm and sunny here again at the moment and everywhere is looking colourful and beautiful...........as part of my autumn decorating i have hung up some little mushrooms....

 ...........i made these decorative mushrooms for my book pretty patchwork gifts here.........

 .........and here they are in the book.......there are full instructions for making them and a choice of templates......once i have designed a template, i often enlarge or reduce it in a photocopier to make different sized versions so now i have made mushrooms ranging from huge to tiny............

 ..........you can also use the templates for applique shapes like the mushroom cushion below................

..........i made this one with a mix of fabrics which i decided needed either to have spots in the design or to feature the colour red :).............. i backed the patchwork front with fusible wadding and quilted round each patch, adding red stitching round the mushroom ........and a red and white spotty button..

 ............some close ups of the project.........some cute buttons on a sewing theme too.......

 ............for the back of the cushion i used a fabric printed with tiny mushrooms.......i bought it in several colour ways and used the pink version for my toadstool cushion in last month's crafts beautiful magazine........

 ............i love the little prints and will be making some more patchwork gifts using them soon.....

 ............my elder daughter sarah and i went on a lovely big city centre shopping trip a couple of weekends ago, as she had birthday money to spend........ and i went foraging for mushrooms in cath kidston, as you can see..........love my new tea towels :)...........

...........i have now cut into my lovely old new 30's fabrics from sew and quilt and made a sixteen patch block..........i love these pretty florals so much..........not sure yet if this will be for a cushion or a whole quilt, as i think a set of cushions in these fabrics would be lovely for our spare bedroom....

 .........................the roses on blue reminded me of some of my china collection.............

 .............i've been busy finishing off some design projects and magazine work this week, as we are going on a little trip away to the countryside first thing tomorrow for a mid week break...............

 i've been packing my little case and selecting a quilt or two to take.......looking forward to long autumn walks in the country, staying in a cute little cottage, lighting log fires in the evening and having a nice rest for a few days.........and doing some crochet and quilting of course :)..................

.............i will leave you with some pretty hydrangeas from our garden........they have grown enormously this year, it must have been the perfect weather for them :).............thank you for visiting me here, lovely readers, and for your sweet comments and emails............i hope you have a happy sunny creative week..........back soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxoooooooooooxxxxxxxxxxx