Holiday news (belated as always)

We've just spent a glorious week at Carsington Water (Derbyshire), where we rented a cottage/barn with 4 other friends, and then proceeded to spend the week eating, drinking, playing games, reading and knitting. Some of us even went sailing on the reservoir while the rest watched and chuckled (for sailing read swimming - photos withheld due to embarrassment potential).

Oh, and the men went all prehistoric on us and spent the week plotting against the resident mice with modified mousetraps (score when we left: mice 2 (pieces of chocolate bait), humans 6 (rather messily it has to be said)).

On the crafty front, I finished my second BSJ, with modifications from the [knit wiki] making it look more symmetrical:

So now I have to find some buttons and the first mayou baby pressie will be finished.

I also finished one of these:
Fetching from knitty.com

Which turned into a pair over the weekend and are currently keeping my paws nice and cozy while I type.

Stash and thrift wise, we visited the amazing Cromford Mill, built by Arkwright (he of water powered cotton spinning mill fame). And totally by chance (honest!) this was the home of Quiltessential, a gorgeous quilt fabric shop run by a very friendly and helpful lady. We could have spent all day there (if it wasn't for the disapproving looks from all 3 other halves) but I satisfied myself with a selection of fat quarters for my stash:

And these beaties that may turn into a lap quilt now the nights are drawing in.
I'll drop in this photo too, for remembrance. These are stunning artisan cotton lawn fabrics, and the nice lady let me take a photo of them as I was dithering and couldn't really justify another expenditure at the time.
But with hindsight, I'm thinking handbag ...

Finally, a picture of the happy holidaymakers:
Dove Caves, Dovedale, after a trek through a jungle like ravine. We thought ahead and brought cake.

Guess what this is going to be?

Cryptic huh?

But it now looks like this ...



And once I have finished the quilting (I am just going to quilt the white bits - to highlight the lovely japanese indigo fabric) then it will look even better.

This little beauty, which appeared out of my own imagination I'm proud to say, will take pride of place in our library (which happens to be blue - cunning huh?)

Fabric from reprodepot

Here are pictures of the marvellous fabric I have just purchased from Reprodepot. I have a yard of each, and lots of plans for using it up...

This is the fabric from Westfalenstoffe - one with stars and moons, one with cute little sleepwalkers


Some mini paisles


I love this Noah's Ark fabric



And some slightly more grown up Japanese taupe fabric


Now just to finalise the plans for these ...

And another exciting thing

Oh dear, I should save these things up so that my blog looks more active, but my memory is terrible so I just have to enthuse about my latest foray into fabric collection. Last night I ordered 5 yards of fabric from reprodepot. And most of it was on sale, which makes it even more exciting!

I have a metre of Sternt fabric from Westfalenstoffe with a white background and blue sleepwalkers

A yard of Westfalenstoffe Sonne, Monde & Sterne fabric with navy background and white stars

A yard of some gorgeous Noah's ark fabric

A yard of blue Petit paisley, which has mini paisles in bright primary colours all over it.

And a yard of lovely japanese taupe fabric, called 'Blossoms on water'

Ok, so the last one doesn't really match the other 4, but those are primarily for the patchwork quilt I am contributing to for the new Mayou baby. Having said that, they almost look too beautiful for baby-use. At least reprotdepot have a minimum 1 yard order so I should have lots left over.

Unfortunately, there is a nasty tendency of some mail firms to charge huge fees for customs and excise matters, so I have to be a good girl and only buy up to £18 worth of stuff in one go, otherwise there are all sorts of hassle. I hope it makes it through ok.