Summer is over

Here's the third quilt of the Colorplay scraps series...

Today, I spent a couple of hours printing fabric with dye paste. Most of the results are just an ugly mess... Well, I had no real plan in mind, and I started with ugly fabric in the first place. But I did have fun and I got some new ideas for the next printing session. And a few prints, like this one, might even be usable.

Back from Alsace

We spent a lovely week in Alsace.  The wuilt show was lovely and we did a bit of sighseeing.  The weather was good which was a bonus.

I bought a lovely souffle dish and just need to find time to  make something with it.

I also found a lovely mould to make a traditional bread/cake. 

Nice additional to my cookery collection.  

Asian Pickles Japan

This little book had some lovely recipes both traditional and Karen Solomon's own recipes.  I liked the fact that there were no poreservatives or artificial colourings or flavourings in the recipes which so many shop bought pickes have in them.

Karen explains how to make and serve the pickes.  I now have a  better understanding of the techniques used to pickle and the various marinades.  I look forward to reading the others in the series.

The Trial of Dr Kate

I started reading this book immediately after reading Little Joe.  I was glad I did because there were characters in this book that appeared in Little Joe as well.

Shenandoah Coleman, a newspaper reporter, who used to like in Round Rock as a child returns to cover the trial of a childhood friend Dr Kate Marlow. Dr Kate was charged with the murder of Lillian Johnson who was found slumped in her wheelchair with a syringe lying close by.

Although Kate and Shenandoah come from different backgrounds they became firm friends.  It is a murder mystery and an intriguing one at that.  The story whilst covering the murder also follows Shenandoeh's love story as she becomes involved with Glassock, a widow with a young son.   I wasn't prepared for the outcome of the trial  and subsequent reveal which was surprising.  A good read which kept me interested in the characters it introduced.

Little Joe

I just finished reading Little Joe.  It is a story of a little boy who survived a fatal car crash where both his parents were killed.   He was taken to live with his grandparents on their farm in Round Rock.  It was a difficult transition for little Joe as life on a farm was new to him.  It was a harsh life set in the 1940s.  The harsh realities of racism and bullying are things Joe is learning to understand.

It was a good story and one I enjoyed reading.

A new series?

I made another quilt with my Colorplay Twelve by Twelve scraps, using the same free piecing techniques as for this one.
Then I chose the colours for the next one, inspired by the pictures of water in my previous blog post. Here they are...

And here's the WIP...

My design wall looks like this today...

I'm not so sure there will be more than three quilts in this series. Or at least, I'm going to take a break from it, and start printing and painting my fabric scraps. I've had some new design ideas for  thermal screens and I need to try them out.
On the weaving front, I've got nothing new to show. Weaving is a very slow process, even compared with quilting.
And when I'm not in the studio, I'm spending a lot of time studying Japanese again.

In other news, summer is definitely over. The sky is grey and we lost more than 10°C in a few days. Never mind. I like autumn.

The Double Wedding Ring is the 5^th of the Someday Quilt series.   I have to say it is my first time reading Clare O’Donohue.   

 Nell moved to a small town and met and fell in love with a local police chief called Jesse who has a young daughter.  Nell, an artist, works in her grandmother’s quilt shop.  Everything seems to be going fine for Nell until one evening a former colleague of Jesse is found shot dead in his car outside Jesse’s house.   And so the turns and twists of this murder mystery starts to take shape.  I never expected the ending, what a turn of events.   A good read and makes me want to read the rest in the series.  The mystery intertwined with the happenings at the quilt shop was very interesting for me as a quilter myself.

Visit to the Allotment

Just went up to the allotment to check how things were doing and ended up staying there all day.  The weather was good although a little windy.

Picked some potatoes.  Red Rooster, Shetland Black and Winston which are huge.

I also picked some mixed beans.  Love the colours of these.  There are some Asparagus Peas in there too.

Norman's cabbages are growing well.  I love making coleslaw with them at this time of the year although they are also lovely steamed with other veg.

I am in need of a rest now.  Plenty exercise and fresh air. 




I also picked the remainder of the raspberries.  Just enough to make a raspberry roulade.  That should go down well.  It is lovely a sunny and I am thinking I might get the BBQ on the go. I will see if I have enough energy left.