Baking with fabric

I'm really enjoying the baking-themed applique quilt that I'm working on, even though I haven't had nearly as much time to work on it as I would have liked.  I think I like it because the colours are so cheerful and the shapes are simplistic and charming like a colouring book.  This is how far I've gotten so far, having completed the red mixer block, the rolling pin and the egg beaters this week.  Several of these blocks will be embellished with buttons but I can't sew those on until after  the top is quilted.    It may not look like much progress but the blocks are time-consuming to construct.  Also I had to do the power cord of the mixer twice, because the first time I used wider ric-rac and it didn't look right.

On the topic of ric-rac, rather annoyingly, having just been taken to the wonderful Peterborough store last Sunday where I could have bought all sorts of ric-rac but didn't think of it at the time, I belatedly realised on Monday that I would need ric-rac for the power cord of the mixer and subsequently for several other blocks.  So on Tuesday I diverted from my path to the office to hang about in front of the Button Boutique in Leicester until it opened some time after 9 o'clock, so that I could rush in and buy a yard or two of ric-rac in several colours and widths.  The rest of the day as I toiled (after my rather late start), I had a happy feeling that I had at least accomplished something worthwhile that morning. 

I've also been enjoying reading through some of the books and magazines I bought last weekend, and spent a happy couple of hours sorting through the box of cross-stitch kits while I was watching telly.  That experience was a bit like playing the childhood card game of Snap! because there were duplicates and even triplicates of kits, instructions with no kits, kits with no instructions, and it was a job to marry them all up as best as possible.  There were a few of each (instructions and kits) left over as orphans that got thrown out, but in the end I had two piles:  a pretty large 'keep' pile and a smaller but still substantial 'give away' pile.  I'll let my friends pick over the 'give away' pile and then what's left can go to the charity shop.

Today I was at a Lace Day, a relatively small one with about 30 people attending.  I got quite a lot done on my new Bucks Point butterfly mat and it's going ok.  The light wasn't great and conditions were fairly cramped, so I was glad to come home.  But it was still worth going because I just wouldn't sit and do five hours of lace at home, I would get bored and/or distracted by something else.  I've got a couple of lace events next weekend as well so will get more done then.

I've started a new knitting project which is the five-mini-skein kit for fingerless mitts that I bought from the farm shop in Cumbria.  It's nice 'woolly' yarn and satisfying to knit with.  It was this kit if you remember:




I'm still knitting on the Victorian leaf lace shawl border, now and then on the train and a bit today at the end of the Lace Day when my eyes were tired.  And I've finished quilting diagonal lines on the first row of blocks of the 25-block applique quilt, only four more rows to go. That's going to take forever because I can only hand quilt when I'm not too tired and preferably in the daytime when it's light.The rest of my time has been spent on video games and learning Japanese.  Oh, and work.

Have you put your heat on yet?  We have in the evenings, it's been quite chilly at times.  The plants in the garden are gradually losing their leaves or being cut down by the frosts.  I planted three tubs of tulips and irises in hopes that we will have a nice show next spring, although last year's were a bit of a literal flop with only one tub flowering properly and we missed most of its show when we were in Japan.  Don't know what happened to the other three tubs, I don't have a lot of luck with bulbs.