A short break in Prague

 I got back yesterday from a short solo break to Prague for 5 nights. It was my first visit, and I was really impressed with how beautiful the older parts of the city are, how clean it was, it felt safe, public transport is great and cheap, there was so much to see, it's all very walkable.  Downsides are that it's hugely popular and thus still crowded with tourists even in a term-time midweek, a lot of people are smoking in the streets (very rare now in my part of the UK) and prices for tourist related things like admission fees and eating out were pretty expensive.  I enjoyed it a lot, walked for hours every day, and was exposed to a lot of the complicated history of this part of Europe which makes English history look quite straightforward. The architecture in particular was just amazing, so many beautiful buildings from different eras, from OTT baroque church interiors to grand Art Nouveau hotels.  What I didn't see were any craft shops, hardly any shops selling artisanal products even, although it may be that I was just in the wrong part of the city.  Even at the National Museum, I didn't see much in the way of folk costume or needlecrafts, apart from some historic liturgical vestments and such like.  So I didn't come back with any crafty souvenirs this time.  I took several hundred photos, I won't make you look at all of them.

Before I went, I finished the colourful table runner I was weaving from handknitting yarn.  It's already packaged up for gifting, I sent a photo to a crafting friend who asked what I was up to and she absolutely loved it, so I offered it to her.  I already have the log cabin table runner to use.  Next I think I am going to tackle some placemats.

I've had no luck finding more of the blue background fabric for my Double Wedding Ring quilt.  I looked back through my emails and found just one order for blue solid fabric, so I ordered some more of that but it turned out to be the wrong colour so not the right order.  I think I must have pulled the background out of deep stash.  I looked through the scraps that I have left.  I had cut more binding strips than I needed so I can use four of the extras as a border, and I was able to piece together some rectangular and square scraps into a long enough piece to cut four more border strips.  Then I have sewn the extra strips into pairs, matching a plain strip with a pieced strip.  That gives me a strip about two inches wide, so will add an additional 1 3/4" all around the quilt so the rings can at least float.  It's the best I can do.  I considered using another blue fabric which is a close-but-no-cigar match but found the colour difference too annoying.