Double Trouble for your waistline

This Saturday I went to to the Masterchef Live fair, formally known as the Good Food Fair, it was a great day out, tasted all sorts of different foods met lots of people with small businesses trying to break into the market and best of all they have a wine section where you can sample hundred of wines for free!

I made two purchases on the day one was a Peruvian chilli and black mint marinade which I am yet to try out the second... well it is all gone, it was the most delish thing I have ever put in my mouth

Double Trouble Chocolate Fudge

The guys were very friendly letting me try some of the flavors and so I took home a slice of the Double Trouble and the Toffee, all of which is gone...

How can I justify buying myself a box ? ?

Deck the halls...

with strings of bunting...

Been hard at the mine face producing lots of things for the Christmas craft fairs and markets, so one thing I have done a lot of is bunting, really easy to knock up with the rotary cutter and a grids.

and if it does not sell by Dec 24th guess what everyone in my family will be getting from Santa!! ha ha they do not know how lucky they are, I cannot imagine the look on my teenage nephews faces when they get some pink/floral bunting for their rooms... JOY

Which design do you prefer

Had a kilo of dried lavender arrive at the weekend and so I set about finding things to stuff, thinking of making some things to sell for under £5 that would do well for gifts for Christmas. I have now booked into at least six craft markets between now and the middle of December.

Having reached button saturation level in my sewing room I wanted to just make something that would showcase the buttons, a simple pillow with a felt circle resulted.

Question is, which of the designs do you think works the best?? Be great to get some feedback before my next market on the 29th.

Single Large Button

Four Button

Random

P.S. My whole house smells of Lavender which is wonderful!

Can you take a couple of mins to vote for me??

lavender filled pillows, with buttons of course!

Hello All

Just a quick request for help in a FaceBook poll that Thing British are running for today only, they are asking people to vote for the favorite from 3 British designers/crafters, you can go on and look at the links to the other 2 lovely people

THINGS BRITISH

But if you could take a couple of moments to vote for me that would be FAB!!!!

xx Alice xx

Quilts from north of the border... och aye the noo

On the 23rd I made my merry way up to Edinburgh on the Transpennine Express from Calisle to attend the Scottish National Quilt Championships exhibition.

I have never been to this exhibition before so was very interested to see how big it was and if they had a good variation of quilts on show, also if they had plenty of SHOPS...

It definitely could be done in a day, we arrived just after 10am and had pretty much done the show by mid afternoon. They have a canteen serving coffees, cakes and lunch. The hot food choice was either jacked potato's or.. or the carb on carb action of a very Scottish dish of Macaroni Cheese served with Chips (fries to my American readers), I am not sure how this became a Scottish dish but it something you will see on pub menus all across the very north of England and in Scotland. I have to say I was very tempted but opted for a far healthier option with more food groups than carbohydrate and fat.

I was pleased to see more tree quilts to feed my new obsession



Woodland Seasons - Claire Tinsley



close up of the applique ferns

 

Here are some more of the highlights:

Penelope - Amelia Leigh

Heliconia - Kate Dowty

Cathedral - Terry Donaldson

The Victorian Lady
Andrea Beck and Kay Bell

Knots and Crosses - Margaret Boe





Finally here is me with my lovely bag from Suzee at Applehead Threads it was very useful for toting all my purchases!

Weekend fun and the purse goes to.....

UPDATE: The dark tomatos below are called Black Cherry

I have had a wonderful long weekend up with my parents in Cumbria  summed up by these three pictures. Eating lovely home-grown food from my parents garden and spending time with my nephew as well as some treats thrown in for good measure. The weather was wonderful in the Lake District for the time of year, is great to get out of London for a few days and take in some fresh air!

What made me smile the most this weekend???

home-grown tomatos

afternoon tea in Keswick

hanging out on Derwent Water

It would have to be when my nephew asked me if I wee like a girl or standing up like a boy, he tried to follow me to the bathroom to check!

So I am now back at the mine face, my first task is to pick a winner for a purse.. yay

Comment 8 which is Anita so I will be sending her a purse of her choice and then starting on my mission to make some new products for my stall this weekend.

THANKYOU all for entering and I hope to have another giveaway up soon

one last thought

Rosemary infused meringue with a chocolate mousse and white chocolate ice cream

Sunday Sewing - win win win

I had spent this morning making a new batch of purses in advance of a market I am doing in a week or so and so set up a production line, was rather amused by the look of them after the zips were put in, they looked like stingrays on the move... rather colourful stingrays

All the colourful linings on display, at this stage it had just started raining outside and so was glad of the brightness

Job done, can relax about the stall now, I am heading up to Cumbria this week to visit my parents and spend time with my sister and my 3 year old nephew :) yay. Of course I will be taking some sewing with me, cannot decide what to take, should probably take a UFO so that I cannot avoid it or start a new project!

So would you like to own one of my block printed purses??? If you do then comment below and tell me something that happened to you this week that made you smile. If you want extra entries then tweet this entry or Facebook it and commet to tell me about it.

I will randomly pick a winner for this giveaway on the 27th Sept when I am back from Cumbria and full of things that would have made me smile

Aunty Alice will you not take photos of me when i am eating

International entries welcome

GOOD LUCK

Queens Park Day Craftastic

Headed down to my local park on Sunday for the annual fair, it was busier than ever this year with plenty going on, and although it was windy, it remained sunny for most of the day which was great, and only rained later on. I walked around and snapped some of the cool things they had there... enjoy

These are some fantastic vegetable creations made by local children in the Queens Park area, wonder if they made soup with all of them at the end of the day?

Calico and African materials quilt...

Loved these funky little felt hearts with all sorts of beads and embellishments

 Met a lovely young lady called Hannah who makes her own jewellery and accessories, lots of buttons everywhere which appealed to me of course go check out her Facebook page to see more of her lovely creations...

 

time for tea

 Great printed plates here, have seen a few of these online with different designs, it makes me lust after getting a welsh dresser to display a set, the only question would be what I would like my plates to say?



Pictoral Wonderfulness

is wonderfulness a word, probably not... ahh well

these we my two favorites from the Festival of Quilts this year in the pictorial category, I have never tried this technique before and to tell the truth it is probably because it must take meticulous planning

The first is by a Norwegian quilter called Bente Kultorp Andresen, she was not at the festival but a friend of hers was and was talking to me briefly about how Bente works

rubbish camera skills, this is blurry the close ups show a better level of detail

she starts with a photograph and section by section she cuts and sews down the layers of fabric to match the photograph then over quilts the whole picture

she dyes her own materials to match the colours

the second is by Jane Appelbee who again byes her won fabrics and raw edge appliques to achieve this stunningly realistic picture