Vintage-Style, Stripy Scrap Patchwork Quilt

This colourful lap quilt or throw is made from 1090 individual pieces of fabric. I aimed to achieve a 'scrappy' vintage look with the eclectic mix of fabrics used.

Included are precious snippets of 1970s Summer dresses, vegetable-dyed fabrics, fabrics dyed by me, repurposed clothing, right up to modern day batiks and Kaffe Fasset shot cottons and colourful flower fabrics.

 The colour scheme goes from light to dark in the columns and from red to orange/yellow, green, brown, blue, purples/lilacs to pinks across the rows.

 The quilt is made in a freely adapted rail fence pattern, with stripes of differing widths, (each stripe may be made from one to three different fabrics), and these are made into 144 five inch squares, and finished off with a yellow and mint binding, inspired by an antique quilt.

 The quilting is machine sewn at 2.5 inch intervals using a cream to beige shaded thread. The wadding is 80% cotton/20% polyester and gives a good combination of warmth and drape to the piece.

 The finished size is approximately:-
5 feet square
(60 inches square)
(152.5 cm square)

 The quilt has been pre-laundered to give it the softness and puckering cherished in vintage quilts.

This quilt is currently for sale in my Fire Horse Textiles on Folksy shop, priced at £300.

Blossom - a Folksy Gift Guide

Inspired by all the beautiful blossom about at the moment, I made a Pinterest board featuring items from the designers and makers at Folksy.com.

Blossom - 9ct Gold Bezel Set of Stacking Rings £170 from DML Jewellery Design

100g of Recycled Sari Silk Ribbon £5.99 from Yarn Yarn

Blossom Bowl £18 from Jo Lucksted Ceramics

Cherry Blossom Ceramic Soap Dish £14 from damsontreepottery

Blue Blossom Cluster Earrings £14 from Bijoux Boo

The complete board with 16 items on it can be found here.

Ennerdale Water Walk

Rob, Brock and I headed to the most Westerly lake in the Lake District yesterday: Ennerdale Water.

You can walk all around the Lake (7 miles), but we just did a two mile section and then walked back, giving about four miles in total.

It is an easy walk, with beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and isolated houses and farms.

Afterwards, we headed into Cockermouth (a 20 minute drive from Ennerdale Water) for lunch.

We went to The Coffee Kitchen, a small coffee shop and bakery. Dogs can be taken to the two tables available on the ground floor. (There is a much larger seating area upstairs). The coffee is excellent, as are the cakes and bread, baked on the premises.

Since I require gluten free, vegetarian food, the choices are often limited, and so it was here. I could only eat the cheese salad (£6), and a coconut traybake. Both of which were tasty and good quality. The lunch menu items are pretty tiny portions, though, - more of a snack - but the cakes are a generous size. Rob ate the 'hummus platter' (£5): a small ramekin of hummus with a handful each of salad and crackers, followed by a seeded flapjack. We also had an Americano, a Macchiato and a small bottle of sparkling spring water. Rob bought two small loaves of bread and two packs of crisps to take away and the bill came to £26.20.

In summary, I would highly recommend the coffee and cakes, but would eat lunch elsewhere if you expect a generous portion, especially if you need gluten free food.

Blossom, Wildflowers and Other Plants

Here are some of the plants, blossom and wildflowers in our garden today. We have encouraged lots of wildflowers to set up home and we make a few small areas to grow fruit and veg in the wildness.

(Please click on the collage to see a full-size version.)

Flowers in a Vase - Punch Needle Wall Hanging

Here is my latest wall hanging: 'Flowers in a Vase'.

This wall hanging, is made using a punch needle technique, where each loop is hand punched through the monks cloth backing fabric. It is like painting with fabric and yarn! The fabrics used include re-purposed tweedy wool skirt lengths, and blanket fabric, together with some modern, multi-coloured yarns.

The piece measures approximately 16 1/2 inches in width by 15 3/4 inches high (42 cm in width by 40 cm high).

There is a hanging sleeve on the reverse, together with a hanging dowel.

This piece is available from my Folksy Shop, priced at £100, plus shipping.