Prince Charming in the house

 So I have to admit that I've been sitting on the letter box of late waiting for a package from Hawthorne Threads... well, not so much sitting on the letter box as checking it obsessively every day since I could reasonably expect that my package might arrive.

 Yesterday my package arrived.  The first three are a bit of a mixed bag, two prints from Sugar and Spice (Riley Blake), and one from Theory (Anthology).  The Sugar and Spice is to go with my growing collection of aqua and red fabrics, which I will hopefully get to cut into soon.  The Theory is because I really loved the colour combination and I'm picturing some kind of quilt of Kona Solids in the same colours.

 The main reason for my order was to get some Prince Charming by one of my all time favourite designers Tula Pink.  I did very seriously consider getting fat quarters of the whole range, but decided to focus on the colours that I really loved instead.  First up two colours from the "honey" colour range

Hawthorne Threads is one of those wonderful shops that does fat quarter bundles of some ranges, split into colour stories, so I got the "Coral" colour story in fat quarters

and finally - my absolute favourite - Indigo!  I actually got yards of some of the prints in this colour story, and half yards of all the rest.  LOVE THEM

This is one of those times that I bought fabric with no idea about what I'm going to do with them... but I'm sure it will come to me! :)

Baby it's Cold Outside!

There is has been a decided temperature drop around here lately.  It's got suddenly very cold last week and it's been a bit of a struggle to adjust.  I went from cardigans to winter coat and scarf in about a week!  On the bright side though, there has been a string of my very favourite kind of days, bright clear blue skies, with the sun shining. Perfect!

 The tree outside our windows is still holding on to the last of its leaves, and has turned a beautiful golden colour which is really nice to gaze out on.

 

Despite the cold weather my little plant experiment seems to be working quite well.  Everything is still alive, and they are all definitely growing - in fact it might even be time to start using the parsley before it completely smothers the thyme! I think that I am also doing well enough that I might be able to get some more plants... up next a dwarf lemon, and some mint.

Placemats in progress and a sneak peek

 Over the weekend I made a lot of progress with the placemats.  I've now sewn all the strips together into "placemats" and I've trimmed them down to size.  Well, kind of..... I actually managed to trim 3 of them SMALLER than what they are meant to be - I guess that's what happens when you're trying to watch Masterchef and trim at the same time!

 To add insult to injury I also managed to cut my finger on my rotary cutter!  I've never done that before, not in years and years of quilting! I'd (stupidly) locked the blade open while I repositioned something on my cutting board, and then as I went to pick it up, I pushed a finger against the open blade! whoops!  Anyway, Sir Pinkying got me a band aid and I finished cutting!

Moving on to my sneak peek - don't you love it when a squashy package arrives in the mail?  Even better if the package is really STUFFED full.  That's what happened to me today - and here are the spoils

 This is 'Far Far Away II' by Heather Ross for Kokka fabrics.  It's a beautiful blend of linen and cotton and features some gorgeous designs from all your favourite fairy tales

 Sleeping Beauty

 The Owl and the Pussycat

 Rapunzel - just gorgeous!  I can't wait to get started.  It's going to be used together with a pattern from this book - which also recently arrived by post!

I can't wait to get started, but I will finish the placemats first.  I need to try to focus on finishing one project before starting another!