St Ives Quilt

 It's been the brightest and sunniest bank holiday monday ever here today......and here i am at last to share more pictures of my st ives quilt......

 ............st ives is filled with magical memories for me....from childhood times, family times, to romance and a love of art and history st ives has always had a special place in my heart and my imagination.....so i decided after our visit in 2016 to begin a quilt to capture the feeling and memories for me..........(in the picture below the little heart was made by the ceramics designer maggi gooding).....

 ..............i was inspired by antique quilts but with a modern touch.....i'd been planning to make a quilt inspired by the quilts i saw at the V&A 2010 exhibition and had looked at the book i brought back with me many times as i chose design elements that i wanted to use one day.....when i was an art student in the 70's we studied historic textiles and i've always had a love of old as well as new designs.....

 ...........i made a medallion for the centre like many old english quilts had.....

 ...........and i added 8 inch square blocks around the centre, each with an applique design....birds, boats, cottages, stars, fish, anchors and some geometric motifs from the old quilts.....all the colours were kept soft and neutral as i wanted it to feel older and less bright than a lot of my work is .......

 .........i did add some subtle reds to give the design a bit of zest though.....

 ...........i had some lovely number printed fabric by tim holz that i wanted to use...my husband sails as a hobby so i put his boat number onto the quilt, and then his previous boat number....and then i liked the numbers very much so added a few more....

 .......in the collage above is one of the inspiring antique quilts from the 2010 exhibition book....the star from my quilt centre.....postcards from st ives......and the sweet banner from a quilt show held in the church at zennor (close to st ives) that we saw in 2016.........my family used to stay in zennor in a lovely old cottage every year and it was there that i sewed my first hexagon patchwork one summer in my teens.....

 ............here is the bedroom of this year's little house in st ives (i showed you a different view of it in my last post)........i love staying in different houses and taking pictures of the interiors (especially with my quilts in them), looking out at the views and enjoying different atmospheres...........

 ...........lots of tiny stars twinkle around the border of my quilt.................the clamshell design was so beautifully quilted for me by debbie holland of longarm quilting.......

 ...........my quilt is all done now and i am happy it has captured lots of memories for us.....here is a print called the st ives typographic heart which you can find here and below another little view of the harbour..........

 ...........one last picture of the waves at porthmeor beach.........

............thank you for dropping by dear readers, and thank you for the lovely comments you leave me...it is such a pleasure to hear from you........wishing you a happy week filled with crafty inspirations................back soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

St Ives

 Back again from a lovely break in one of our most favourite places.........here's a view across the harbour from just outside the little house we stayed in......

 .............and here is a sight i always love...waves crashing on porthmeor beach.....

 ...........we had lovely views over porthminster beach and it was so lovely to stitch a bit of my hexie quilt in the sunny window with that view to look at too ......

 .............so peaceful and beautiful......we have loved st ives since childhood visits and it still has a special magic for us......

 .............a little while ago i finished my st ives quilt which i began after our last visit......it was quilted for me by the talented long arm quilter debbie holland.....i decided to take the quilt with us and to take some outdoor pictures of it in situ.....

 ..............this was not an easy thing to do what with the sea breezes and bright sunshine but we managed a couple :) .......

 ..............the one above was taken in the pretty little bedroom of the holiday house with its cute little green rocking chair........and the one below was on the soft golden sand of porthminster beach.....i will be writing about making this quilt which is a kind of memory quilt in a post soon....

 ..............there were spring flowers everywhere and i loved seeing them against the sea views...the flowers below are called three cornered leeks or snowflowers.....

 ............and on a walk up the coastal path we kept spying pretty views through the blossom....

 ...........one day we went to penzance so i could call at the sew and quilt shop there, run by jessie and robin.............i've known lovely jessie through blogging for years and it was so nice to meet her in person.....their shop is a pleasure to visit and of course i bought some fabric which i will show you soon.....their online shop is also full of beautiful fabrics, block of the month clubs, quilting and sewing tools and of course their famous and fabulous english paper pieces.......

 ..............love the little bundles of liberty and other quilting fabrics that jessie curates....

 ..........we had a lovely time wandering the tiny streets of st ives and we saw the exhibition of art inspired by virginia woolf's writing at tate st ives.......lots of smaller galleries to visit as well...

 ...........i love that cornish blue and the light here really is amazing which is why so many painters came here to work......

..............thank you for dropping by dear readers, it is always lovely to have your visits and to hear from you too.......wishing you all a happy, crafty week ahead..........back soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Spring Time

 It's been a chilly spring so far this year here...but we have had a few really lovely days lately with warm sunshine, birdsong and the smell of cut grass and spring flowers in the air.....

 .............i love all the seasons for their different qualities....but spring is special.....we have been gardening, clearing up, weeding, planting, mowing and sometimes just sitting and enjoying the sun and the birds and the new buds and blossoms......

 .............besides lots of garden activities over the past week i have finished this little cot quilt top....

 ...........lots of little random scrappy squares stitched together........and some little appliques added....a bunny......

 ............a star...........

 ...........and a heart or two...........now i am beginning to hand quilt this design and looking forward to it......

 ..........my new pincushion made with some of the tiny white floral prints from the first romance collection...just so pretty............

 ...........i've enjoyed reading this book very much....

 ................here is grandma's chair which i painted and had recovered a few years ago...it is very comfortable for reading, sewing and cuddling babies............i remember it when it was in the bay window of my husband's grandma's home, next to a pretty octagonal table which we also have here.....so nice to have things from the past with happy memories.....the book above 'the sewing machine' by natalie fergie explores these themes so well and made me feel very nostalgic..........

 ...........i have some of my favourite bellis daisies.........i love their cheery little button flowers..........

 .........another picture from our garden.....the tulips shown here are some we got at dunham massey gardens last year....the gardeners were lifting the finished bulbs and encouraged visitors to take some for their own gardens and to give a donation to charity.....so here is our own little bit of dunham massey .........

.............thank you for visiting me here dear readers and for those of you who leave me kind comments an extra special thank you ..........next week i am taking a blog and facebook break as we will be on a little holiday......so i will be back the week after that.......wishing everyone happy sunny crafty days in the meantime...............back soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bright Stars: A Quilt in Progress

 Here is the bright stars quilt top..........i've been working on this (at the same time as many other projects) for quite a while........it is hand stitched using english paper pieced diamonds...........

 ..............the six point stars are turned into hexagons using the same diamond shape........the stars are made from many scrappy fabrics and the hexagons are created using bright shades of kona cotton solids............

 ............some of the stars were fussy cut like this one using gorgeous lecien fabric....

 ...............this star is one of the first i made for the quilt and i photographed it at the time with some of my sweetpeas from the garden............

 ..........the colours are exciting now that the hexagon blocks are pieced together.....

 ...........as you can see i also appliqued little circles in the star centres..........

 ............it's been a pleasure making this and i do love slow sewing and epp......so i am just beginning a new epp project now :).....more about that one soon....

 ............i also love to stitch my cross stitch designs too and recently worked on another secret stitch along with sew and so....this time it is a right royal stitchalong ....here are some little sneak peeks....

 ............if you sign up to the stitchalong here you will receive all the materials needed and then each week for six weeks you will be sent a piece of the chart to stitch and can watch your regal design take shape....

 ...........love this little chippy corgi which belonged to my mother in law who always had a (real) corgi.....

 ...............we had some very cold and grey weather last week and then a couple of lovely sunny days which we made the most of...we visited gardens and worked in our own too...........spring really is here now and here is a blossom against blue sky picture...my favourite thing :) ............

............thanks for dropping by dear readers and for the kind comments you leave me......it is always nice to hear from my lovely blog friends around the world xx..............wishing you a happy sunny week with plenty of crafty inspiration.............back soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Easter Time

 We have had such a lovely easter weekend with all our dearies here...........

 ..........we had time to play with the little ones, cuddle the baby (a lot) and eat plenty of chocolate...

 ...............even though the weather was not at all spring like most of the time we could still see the spring flowers braving the cold............

............and enjoy the colourful easter decorations......as a designer spring colours have always appealed to me and easter decorations are probably my favourite to create....... my goosey pattern is in the latest issue of crafts beautiful magazine......

 ................lolly the bunny put on her easter dress again............

 .............and posed next to the pretty daffodils on easter day.............

 ..............the teeny tiny bunny was tucked up in a seed tray beneath a teeny tiny postage stamp quilt which was made from first romance fabrics from moda  designed by my blog friend kristyne of the blog pretty by hand.........people often ask about the very tiny bunny pattern....it is the same sugar bunny pattern as the one in my book pretty patchwork gifts, just without enlarging the pattern....you can enlarge or reduce the pattern in a photocopier and make bunnies of any size you like............

 ............the rain held off for our egg hunt and it was so much fun to see the children searching for them after my daughters hid them all around the garden..........

 ...........lots of chocolate was then consumed, and a buffet tea for us all......

 ..........with homemade cakes and easter bunny toppers of course......love my little vintage easter mug below which was such a sweet gift x.............

..............thank you for dropping in to my little blog space dear readers and thank you so much for the kind comments you leave......wishing you a wonderful week ahead.......back soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxx