Taking the water

A couple of weeks ago we spent a weekend in Derbyshire. I had never visited this part of the UK, so it has been on my list of places to see for a long time. Despite a rather dismal weather forecast for the weekend, our stay in Buxton did not disappoint.

Since Roman Times, visitors have been coming to take the waters at Buxton and modern-day visitors can still do the same.

This is St Ann's well, where the famous Buxton water still runs freely, indeed a local filled several bottles from the well just after I had taken this photo. Naturally, bottled Buxton water is also available at a price, although, surprisingly (to us anyway) the bottled water in the hotel was from further north in Harrogate!

The Crescent where the wealthy Georgians and Edwardians "took the waters" is currently under renovation but the Opera House and Pavilion are in great shape.

The Pavilion was hosting an Antiques Fair whilst we were there, so we popped in for a browse and popped back out again fairly quickly, having seen the prices! Silver tankards at £18,000 were just not on our shopping list that day :)

Despite the weather forecast the Pavilion Gardens were wreathed in sunshine for our visit and looked at their best.

Even this fellow, who is described as "big and rather ugly" in the guide book, was looking good!

But not as good as these little cuties :)

Mother Duck had her work cut out with this brood!


I had hoped to visit Hardwick Hall on this trip, as I had read that Bess of Hardwick, who had the Hall built in the 1500's was a fantastic needlewoman and there were samples of her work in the Hall, but alas the House was closed on the only day we could get there. Still, that means we will have to take another trip to Derbyshire, so I am not complaining :)

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Live A Colorful Life

Seam ripping and Chevrons

You would think wouldn't you that when making blocks that require a seam ripper for every strip i.e. the Scrappy Trip Around the World blocks from Quiltville, I would try not to have to use the seam ripper on any other part of the block? You would think that, but you would be wrong!

Quiltville's method for putting together Trip Around the World blocks involves sewing strips together in a loop then cutting them to the square size and ripping out a seam in each strip to make graduated strips.

So, for each 6 strip block you have to rip out 6 seams, which means in a 25 square quilt I am ripping out 150 times, more than sufficient for anyone.

Apparently not! The two aqua/black blocks in the bottom rows should be at the other end of the row. Unfortunately, this wasn't the only occasion I did this :(



And you would not believe (well, maybe given the above you would!) the amount of times this is the way these urns were facing when I looked at the finished block.

Perhaps my subconscious enjoys seam ripping more than I realised, or maybe it is because I would really like to have this finished before my son comes home for the weekend in a week's time.

Despite all the seam ripping going on I am more than halfway with this quilt top, which is kind of a minor miracle at this stage.

Two more rows to go, and goodness knows how much seam ripping and I will have a quilt top! I am not following the Trip Around the World pattern exactly as I have gone for a 5 x 5 arrangement I thought it would look a bit odd, so have gone for chevrons instead.

If you haven't already check out the free patterns at Quiltville you should there are loads, all aimed at using up your scraps :)

So here is how my list is looking

• In Color Order HST BOM - quilting started!
• Sunday Morning Quilt Bee blocks received 
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee 10 sets of blocks received
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee blocks sent (on schedule)
• Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (3 months behind schedule)
• Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee -  COMPLETED AND SENT
• And And Sew On BOM - four blocks completed (one behind schedule)
• Crafty Cooks Apron and Recipe Swap  - COMPLETED AND SENT
• Son's quilt - 3 rows sewn, 2 rows to be added
• Paris Cushion - fabric received
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted  
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks 
• 18 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (only 2 more to go!) 

So that's my progress looking forward to seeing yours.

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Scrappy Tripping

Having promised myself that I would not sign up for anything else, what did I go and do? You guessed it - signed up for another Bee! The Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee to be precise.

So I have been making blocks like this over the weekend.

The Bee requirements are not that onerous, which was one of my reasons for signing up :) There are 6 Bees in each Hive, and we will be sending out one Scrappy Trip Around the World block to each Bee member every quarter. That doesn't sound so bad now does it.

The blocks are made using the tutorial from Quiltville and they are really quick to put together, so once I had made one in next to no time I had made all 5.

Bright modern fabrics for this one

 

Low volume for these two

Aqua's and green's for this one.

I would have said that I had very little in the way of low-volume fabric in my stash, so I was surprised to find that I could come up with two low-volume blocks with ease.

The blocks were so straightforward to put together, that I kept going after I had finished the Bee blocks. Having rejected several ideas for a quilt for my son and his new fiancee that is one of my Q2 finishes (hopefully!) I decided that a Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt would fit the bill perfectly.

 

So, now have this large pile of strips to get to grips with. It is progress but that is about all I can say for it at the moment :)

 It has been a while since I looked at my WIP list, so here is how it is looking now

• In Color Order HST BOM - quilting started!
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 18 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (only 2 more to go!)
• Sunday Morning Quilt Bee blocks received
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee blocks sent (on schedule)
• Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (3 months behind schedule)
• Scrappy Trip Around the World Bee - First round blocks completed 
• And And Sew On BOM - four blocks completed (one behind schedule)
• Crafty Cooks Apron and Recipe Swap  - COMPLETED AND SENT
• Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition entry    COMPLETED - VOTING ENDS TODAY
• Son's quilt - pattern decided, fabric cut
• Paris Cushion - extra fabric ordered

So that's my progress looking forward to seeing yours.

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