Hexagon Heaven

At our quilt group meeting this afternoon Pat(with the pearl earring) brought in a huge box of bits and pieces.(We have two Pat's and when we did self portraits Pat Sumner gave her self a pearl earring - hence the name, the film Girl with the Pearl Earring was out at the time). The contents of this box belonged to a lady who had passed away and her husband didn't know what to do with it all. We are very good in our group of sharing and finding a new home for these sort of things. It is all quite sad really and I have given my family instructions as to what to do with my vast collection of goodies when the inevitable happens. We usually put some coins in a pot for whatever we have and that money then goes to a charity. This one is going to the Salvation Army. All these fantastic hexagons came home with me. It has a largish section made up and there were many more rosettes made up ready for stitching together. The fabric is of a good quality and quite pretty. On the back of the hexagons is newspaper with dates of December 1970. Now this is pre decimalisation as there was a snippet of something costing £11.11.0. and the shoe box containing some of the hexagons had a price tag of 59/6d. I have vowed to finish this quilt. I love it.



I have had a very poor week in the sewing department and have managed 5 Klosjes. That makes the total 55.



My daughter Sarah and I went to Bath for a spot of shoe shopping. Did we buy lots of shoes? NO. It was a bit wet and cold and not very conducive to shopping really but Bath is a fabulous city to go and visit even if you don't buy anything and it does have a wonderful patchwork shop called Country Threads.

Sarah suggested that this is the place for all those dead sewing machine's. I hope that clicking onto the photo will show you just how amazing this shop is. It is a trendy clothing shop and all the windows (and there were many) had row upon row of sewing machine. All makes and models, some very elaborate and beautiful.






Sunday saw our Wednedsay girls having a day out looking at the quilts and fabric shopping at Westpoint, Exeter. It is a lovely little venue, not too crowded which means you get to see things without too much of a wait to get to the front of stands and to photograph the quilts. These were a few of my favourites.

This quilt wasn't very big probably about 24" at the most and those hexagons are tiny. Beautifully made.



I haven't shown the whole of this quilt but this block was beautifully quilted. The whole quilt consisted of hand quilted blocks sewn together with sashing of a red print. It was very understated and I admired it very much. I wish I could have taken it home with me.



When the weather is cold this is exactly what you need to look at to make you remember what summer in this country is all about. We have been promised a hot summer again this year although no one believes it as we have had the coldest winter for 30 years after the weathermen telling us it would be mild and the barbecue summer last year was a washout.



This quilt really deserved it's rosette. It was fabulously machine quilted and consisted of little bits of fabric randomly placed for the tree tops. Again I could have brought this one home with me.



I am a fan of miniature quilts and this one had it all. The middle section was tiny squares of Liberty fabrics and with a border in a very pale duck egg blue. Exquisite quilting. I can only dream of doing something this wonderful.






Some of my purchases that I simply had to buy. When I was after campervan fabric for the back of a quilt for Penny (a 1963 split screen, pale blue and white vw camper van)there was none to be had. This fabric was from New Zealand. Sarah and Olly will love it. I did also buy a few books. One of them was to satisfy my obsession with Japanese bag books. I did buy a few other things, thread and a lovely charm pack in pinks. Now you wouldn't expect me to buy any other colour would you?!!!



I would just like to say that today my friend Sue won a giveaway of fabric from a uk patchwork magazine. She is so thrilled with it and I cannot think of a nicer person to win it. It has gone to a very good home. Thank you for bringing them in to show us Sue. Can't wait to see what you will make with them. Also apologies to Ann for not having been able to blog very much this last week. Husbands computer died and he commandeered my laptop for his work. Apologies also if I haven't replied to everyone this week. Will do better in future.

Happy stitching

Love Shirl.x