House-Elf Doings 

Hi- thanks for popping in. I had to take a pic of these little pentagons on a chocolate cake.

Grab a cuppa and a slice of cake if you have one and I will share the week.

 We’ve started having odd sunny days so the canal has been calling. 

Above are water ripples reflected on the underside of a bridge.

Diamond encrusted water- magic!

Squeak had a dip. She at least can swim. We did have a greyhound who was clueless like that!

I had to take this pic- No fishing because of overhead powerlines. And what do you see but 3 Scouse fishermen. Fluff is waiting for Squeak and I to catch up with the others. 

 This is the 1st week I’ve been seeing bees- buff bottoms and orange bottoms. 

It must be because things are flowering for them to feed on.

Craft News:

Now for some Craft Olympic news. Above is Betsy’s Closet wallhanging all finished.
If you want to make it yourself, cut 120 squares not the 90 in the pattern. 30 charm squares works well. 

The pattern only had Cosmo thread instructions, 

which aren’t common in the UK,

so I picked the DMC colours I thought would suit the outfits.

I think they worked well

with the Trade Winds charm pack.

and a little plain lilac for the 4x 9 patch squares. 

The squares are 2″ cut size, so you can imagine how tiny the 9 patch pieces are.

I like it because it reminds me of those paper cut out dolls and their outfits with the tabs which never stayed on.

This dress was mainly sewed in Finland with Ulla, so it will bring back happy memories when I look at it.

The back is a tiny cerise star on a pink brushed cotton. It is the sort of fabric you would make a nightie in for a child, so it worked well. The binding is the same lilac as the 9 patches.

My UFO Pumpkinville is getting some progress. The pic above shows blocks 2 and 3 finished apart from buttons which I will put on after the blocks are sewn together. 

I ought to be enjoying it and am doing it as a BOM to get better at needle turning, however I think I would make faster progress if it was all on heat and bond and I just could pick it up in a spare moment and put it down without worrying about bits falling off or moving, or thread getting tangled in the pins. 

It could be just that I am feeling brain dead and need to give myself a good kick and talking to.

 I was working on this Kaffe’s Kaleidoscope (my name for the quilt as I am using Kaffe’s Spot On collection mainly) over the weekend.

 I made myself a prototype to test the shapes I had drawn. Not wanting to waste it, it became a little teapot mat. Cute cherries!

 I based it on this paper pieced Kaleidoscope quilt by Lucy M. Boston. It was my fav by the Greenknowe (children’s books) author when I saw them in the real life Greenknowe: The Manor House Hemingford Grey in Cambridgeshire. 

I’m not yet sure if the machine sewing is good enough for the white squares between the octagons. I think hand sewing would be more accurate but time consuming.

This is the full Lucy Boston quilt. I like how the kaleidoscope is allowed to lap over the border striped fabric so the flow isn’t interrupted.