London baby

At the being of June we went for a long weekend in London. We jumped on the train after work on Thursday and 2 and a half hours later we were in the capital.

Considering I found the apartment I thought we were staying north of the river, but we stayed a couple of minutes walk away from the beautiful Tower Bridge.

It was nice to have a little home away from home for a few days even if the design was a bit strange. The building has offices on the first 3 floors and accommodation on the rest but that's not the strange bit. Look at the 2nd photo blow, the bedrooms face the inside of the building and have floor to ceiling windows, outside the windows there's glass on the walkway floors, the window blinds did not hang properly and with the walkway lights shine through, lets just say if someone wanted to he/she could watch the inhabitants!

The next day we visited the Tower of London, did you know that people still live there? I didn't. The crown jewels are amazing (sorry no photos), the guide said they belonged to the country's citizens, that includes me then, and I want to borrow them - even if it's only for a day.

Front of a house at the Tower of London, I want my house to look like this

In the evening we watched Blur in concert in Hyde Park.

On Saturday we walked through London, past the Houses of Parliament, by Westminster Abbey, through Regents Park to Buckingham Palace to watch the change of guards and finally headed to the Victoria & Albert museum. Did you know the museum have a collection of quilts? Unfortunately they were in storage, but next year from the 20 March to 4 July they are exhibiting quilts dating from 1700-2010. Anyone want to go?

In the evening we watched Wicked. The singing was amazing and the show was funny, I would definitely watch it again. Photos are not allowed during the show so this is the only one I could get.

On Sunday we met the boy's brother and his girlfriend and headed to the second-hand markets and shops around Brick Lane.

I searched the shops for a pre-loved tablecloth to make into a blind but this time I was not in luck. Instead I found this cat in a suitcase and a stall selling tops with pieced hexagons.

We had a great time.

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One last thing, the designer behind Don't Look Now! is giving away a beautiful quilt to celebrate her 100th post. I love it. You will have to be quick, the giveaway closes on the 2nd September.

Head on over...

to Trends and Traditions, quilt and fabric designer Heather Patterson's giving away two beautiful quilts and charm packs to celebrate her one year blogiversay. If you have not visited her blog before spend some time reading her posts, not only are her quilts beautiful but her home is stunning, I am jealous.

Good luck,

Gx

The Festival of Quilts

Yesterday I headed to Birmingham with my mum and aunt Megan to The Festival of Quilts. Here are my favourite quilts from the show.

Hundreds of hexagons

This is the back of a quilt, I love the quilting

The lady in this was painted onto the fabric and the contours stitched on top

A group project

One day I want to make a quilt like this (unfortunately half the quilt was in the shade)

And this (the quilt was so big I could not get all of it in one shot without loosing the detail)

And this (the dark fabric is actually blue)

Miniture quilts

The stitches on this quilt are minute

I loved this one, the the pieces were tiny

I was good and only bought a few fat quarters, some backing fabric and quilt wadding.

My mum hits the big 6-0 this November and is retiring, she's still going to work two days a week, look after my nieces a couple of days a week when my sister is working... and with the (little) time she has left she's going to learn to sew. My dad's mum sewed all the time and jokes he was happy when he found a wife that did not sew, now she's going to buy a sewing machine, it was his birthday on Thursday - I should have bought him ear plugs LOL. Happy birthday dad.

It took a while, but I have finally read all 500+ posts - phew.

I'm back

Wow, I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted. Well actually I can.

Remember this?

It became this:

It's a present for my friend Alison and her husband Guy, they had a little boy called Rory in December last year and I thought it was about time I made them a quilt for a cot bed. It's called the 'Descendants Quilt' and I designed it so the parents can record the birth of each new child and pass it down through their family. In each white patch they can sew or write the names of their children, the birth dates and the mother and father's names. Each patch has 2 boy and 2 girl colours so it will work for both sexes.

I frantically finished the quilt before I met up with Alison and my other not-so-old university flat mates in the Peak District for a weekend. It was tight but I finished the quilt on the drive to Laura's house, thanks for driving Lauren! On Saturday we celebrated Alison's 31st and on Sunday, Laura's 30th birthday. It was a great weekend, Laura and her mum really looked after us. Here's some photos of Sheen:

We don't get together as often as we used to as Laura now lives in Dubai and Michelle in the Australian outback, thank goodness Lauren, Fiona and Alison still live in England.

When I'm sewing I like to have noise in the background and whilst finishing this quilt I watched Twilight for the first, second and third time... plus the commentary, and all in one week! Lets just say I got slightly obsessed and read all four books in the Twilight series in the next two weeks, missing lunch with friends, leaving work as early as possible, you get the picture. I've now read practically everything on Stephanie Meyer's website and can't wait to see the next film. Thankfully I have a friend who also likes the film as much as I do and we're going to the cinema together and hopefully we won't look like two strange women in their 30s surrounded by hundreds of teenage girls.

Right now I have over 500 posts to catch up on, you have been busy.

- - - - - 101 in 1001 - - - - -

35. Spend a weekend with the girls.

37. Go away for the weekend with the boy.