Festival of quilts and some shopping!

On Sunday myself and a friend visited the Festivalof Quilts at the Birmingham NEC. We had a fabulous day admiring the quilts and shopping (!). We felt that there seemed to be a trend amongst the professional quilters and also with some of the "amateurs" to use what we saw as dull, murky colours. Many of the prize winners had also used those colours. I'm more of a cheerful colour kind of girl and don't think I'll be following that trend.

My friend could bearly contain her exitement as we entered the hall and said she wanted to run around looking at everything. Our sewing group has decided that next year we'll stay overnight and visit for two days and probably do a workshop.


I managed to be fairly restrained with my buying. Here are some pics of my purchases.

I bought two gorgeous skeins of hand dyed fabric from Oliver Twists and some anchor perle thread, these threads may appear in my bag swap bag which I really must get on with.

The fabric is has already been cut up and used in the quilt I showed on my previous post.





I also bought this necklace which I thought was a bargain. You chose your pendant which was £2 and matched it with the ribbon of your choice which was £1. I haven't been brave enough to include my face in any photos so far!

The picture above is a preview of the bag I'm making for my secret partner in Linda's bag swap. "What?", I hear you say, "that's a bag?", yes I know it doesn't look much like a bag at the moment but it will when I eventually finish it.

We are off on holiday tomorrow to south west France so I must get on with some more packing. I hope the weather is better than here, I really need some sun. I plan to do some hand sewing on the bag and will take it with me. You need something to do when it rains!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bye for now, Maria.

Title...what title?....I can't think of one.

I've been working on this quilt top for a while now. It's been quite slow progress as I'll do some and then go onto something else for a while. Saying that I have enjoyed doing it but I like to have a change and have a few things on the go at once.

I have used a quilt from a kaffe Fassett book for inspiration, this being my interpritation of the one in the book. I can't remember which of his books it was as it's gone back to the library now.

I love the colours he uses and how he is not concerned about light, medium and dark fabrics but how they look together.

The colours are brighter than in the pictures. I took some yesterday afternoon and even with the flash they were too dark and these were taken in the sun this morning and they are too light, I can't seem to get it right.

I've been lucky enough to recieve these awards from two lovely ladies. This one from the lovely sarah

And this one from the lovely Oge.

I am supposed to nominate other blogs for the awards but please accept the blogs in my bloglist in the side bar as my nominations without me actually nominating them. I love reading them all. I hope this is Ok and that I haven't been a spoil sport!

Thanks again girls - I've called you ladies once and that's enough !!!!

Lucy requested I share the runner bean chutney recipe. It's not a secret family recipe, I don't know where Grandma and Grandpa got it from. You need a lot of runner beans so of course the recipe can be halved if needed. It made about 4 jam jars and a large coffee jar full.

RUNNER BEAN CHUTNEY

2 lbs runner beans (when trimmed and sliced)
1½ lbs onions (when chopped)
1 heaped tablespoon of cornflour
1 tablespoon of turmeric
1 heaped tablespoon of dry mustard
1 lb Demerara sugar
1 lb soft brown sugar
1½ pints of vinegar (white or malt - I used white, they use malt)


Cook sliced beans in well-salted water until tender.
Cook chopped onions in ½pint of the vinegar.
Mix dry ingredients to smooth paste with a little of the vinegar.
Strain cooked beans, then add rest of vinegar and cook for 10 minutes.
Add the sugar and the rest of the ingredients.
Boil until until the chutney starts to thicken. ( mine wasn't quite thick enough so I added more corn flour).

Bye for now, Maria.