Steps, Snowballs and Felt

I found some lovely teal fabrics recently in the sale section at Embsay Crafts and had to buy them - they are perfect for our living room colour scheme. I bought half  a yard of each of 3 fabrics, plenty of a toning background plus another half of the darkest fabric for binding. I didn't know what I wanted to do with them but inspiration struck when I started thinking about my quilt group theme for June: Log Cabins.
 
I played around in EQ6 and came up with Courthouse Steps blocks. I've steadily been making  blocks every couple of days and now have quite a few. I'm going to keep on til I run out of fabric then add sashing cut from the background fabric. I'm loving this colour scheme. I showed them to my quilt group and they were horrified when I said the quilt would go on the sofa and the dogs would snuggle up on it!!

I've also been making up snowball blocks every Monday. I had to miss a few weeks for my holiday but I've managed 18 complete blocks so far. That's not bad really and as there's no deadline I'll carry on for a while longer.

At the weekend I went up to the Dales for a meeting with my former classmates from  City and Guilds. Only Sally and I made it to Charmians and we spent far too long talking, drinking coffee and eating cake to get any real work done! After lunch we decided to go and visit Charmian's daughter Kirsty in her studio/workshop at Pateley Bridge. She is textile artist specialising in felt making and runs workshops for small groups. Her studio is close to the Nidderdale Museum and several other craft studios, the King Street Workshops. It's a lovely studio filled with her art and beautiful little items which make great gifts. She also sells second hand craft books which people give her and other recycled supplies such as lace and buttons as well as wool for felting. Of course it would have been very rude not to buy something! I got a lovely bag of mixed wool for felting and some pieces of beautiful cotton lace. I'm planning to dye the lace but don't quite know what I'll use it for!

Here are Charmain and Sally pretending to be busy in Kirsty's studio!

Kirsty stitching surrounded by her lovely felted items.

 If you get the chance you really should visit Kirsty and say 'Hi' - tell her I sent you! Pateley Bridge is one of my favourite places to visit in the dales. You can walk by the river, browse in the shops and have great Yorkshire fish and chips!

The trouble with leaving a whole week between posts is that I have sooo much to write about! I'll have to make an effort to post more often.