Like last month it’s been a mixed month for the arrivals in my craft room; there’s been some essentials, some bargains and quite a few bits from my mum’s ruler box, and a bit of a splurge - but it was worth it and totally gorgeous!
The essentials were replacement sewing machine needles after breaking two making the impromptu flying geese tote, and it’s good to have these to hand in case I suffer any more breakages, and actually I probably should get into the habit of changing my needle - both on my sewing machine and for my hand embroidery - more often.
After seeing my shabby chic rosettes mum was quite keen to have one herself and so I pulled various pinks from my stash and made her one. While I was doing that I thought I should probably get some more brooch backs and hair clips to finish this and the ones I’d started at the Newark Quilt Show, so that’s almost an essential purchase too right?!
Now most people would have bought a tote bag pattern before they actually made a tote bag, not me - clearly for me the right time was immediately after I finished my flying geese bag! In my defence I saw it on Instagram and was smitten, I searched for it online - it comes with options to make three different sized bags - and put it in my online basket. A few days later another site was offering 25% discounts on all patterns, and checking this one was included - so it would have been rude not to buy it, wouldn’t it?
The cheerful Union Flag fabric is a fat quarter I couldn’t resist from a stash rummage at my patchwork group, and it’s 50p well spent. The skein of wool is one of a kind dyed by Vicki Brown as part of her annual 100 skeins project. I’ve bought one of her 100 skeins for many years now, and they are all stunning - and each one is different. You get an option to state colours you like (and dislike) and I’m really pleased with my mustard, pink and orange request this year.
At a recent visit to mum’s I finally got to look through her ‘ruler’ box, and to help myself to the ones she no longer wants. So I’ve added some quilting stencils and a hole thing to my ‘to play with pile’ along with a ruler for Cathedral Windows and a Dresden Plates template - and yes the price ticket on it does say £4.15, mum’s clearly had it for a while (and it is open even though it looks as if it’s not).
Something using the Cathedral Window design has been on my long-term list for quite a while, though my idea was to use denim and I’ve had many raised eyebrows each time I moot the idea, so I’m guessing it’s not ideal because of the thickness and stiffness of denim, so I probably should take that advice when it actually makes it onto my list.
My splurge item is these Type/ography 10 inch layer cakes by Lori Holt of Bee in my Bonnet for Riley Blake, and you may recall seeing these before as they have immediately made it onto my list of quilt plans for this year as my Word Star quilt.
As I said in that post, it shouldn’t have made the list but it has - and I’m not sad about it.
There’s more than just the red/white and white/red varieties, and I think that together they could make a great ‘star’ quilt but I haven’t really looked at the how yet - I’m still in the admiration phase!
I’ve even had them out of the packet so I can admire them even more closely, but not for long! They’re stored away safely for now, while my thoughts percolate and research takes place on how I can make this happen.
So that’s another month in my craft room, check out my previous updates for earlier additions, and remember to let me know below what you’ve added to your craft supplies this month.