Bramble Patch

Last week I had a trip to Bramble Patch, my local Quilt shop, which is in the village of Weedon Bec in Northamptonshire. I've been visiting this lovely shop for years and there's always something interesting to see. This time, it was the Summer Showcase, featuring quilts made from their various clubs.

Gypsy Wife Quilts

Take a Bow Mystery Club Quilts

I was very taken with these little rainbow quilts as I only make small quilts (although mine are bigger than these).

I was also pleased to see this quilt kit, inspired by Lucy Boston's Keyboard Quilt. Lucy Boston is the author of the wonderful Green Knowe books; you can read more about her in my post from last year here.

This next quilt is called Interlocking Triads. Bramble Patch will be running workshops on this one in the coming months. I love the colours and shapes in this one - very much my sort of thing.

After seeing the exhibition I had a wander round the shop. I had a £20 fabric voucher to spend, courtesy of my loyalty card so was looking for something special.

I'm always very taken by the Batik section - aren't all those rich colours gorgeous?

And there were several more Lucy Boston kits to admire. This Kaleidoscope Cushion Kit uses Liberty prints from the new Liberty patchwork cotton collection.

But I was drawn, as I often am, to the Moda charm packs where you get 42 5" squares from a fabric collection. I love using reproduction fabrics so these are the two packs I chose.

The one on the left is 'New Hope' by Jo Morton, author of one of my favourite quilt books Jo's Little Favorites. There are two more volumes of this book but I've so far resisted the temptation to buy them too. Anyway ... the second charm pack is called 'Evelyn's Homestead 1880 - 1900' by Betsey Chutchian. Would you like to see all the fabrics? Of course you would.

Jo Morton

Betsey Chutchian

Aren't they beautiful? I think the two packs go together well; I'm planning to use them to make some quilts from my new book by Kathleen Tracy that I bought at the Festival of Quilts. First though, I've got to finish quilting this one ...

This is my little Snowball quilt that I hand pieced ages ago and then put away when the quilting wasn't going well. I always hand quilt but, this time, my quilting left a lot to be desired - lumps and bumps all over the place. When this happens the answer is always more quilting; in this case I added the little quilted squares in the middle of the blocks and now it's starting to look quite nice. As you can see, I've just got to finish quilting the border and bind it and it will be done. Then I can start a new quilt ...

Festival of Quilts

I had a lovely day at the Quilt Show last week. As ever, there wasn't really enough time in one day to see all the quilts and the trading stands. One year I'm going to go for two days. I thought the quality of the stands was much better this year - there were some really interesting things on sale - and (very important this) there was more seating than in previous years.

The highlight of the day for me was seeing 1718 Coverlet.

This was bought by the Quilters' Guild in 2000 and is the earliest British dated patchwork. It's called a coverlet because it wasn't quilted. All the blocks were pieced over paper and these papers are still in place, giving more information about how the maker worked. She folded paper to make the shapes and then cut along the folds. There are also balance marks that she made to help her line up the shapes.

Some of the blocks are pieced shapes that we still use today, many others are figurative and feature animals, flowers and even people dressed in the clothes of the time.

A modern quilter would probably use applique to make these sort of blocks but they were still worked over paper in the original. One block bears the initials EH and the date 1718 but no more has been discovered about EH, whoever she was.

There was something of a craze for patchwork in the early 18th Century among affluent women. You would need to be rich enough to be able to 'waste' fabric like this and also to have access to sufficient paper at a time when paper was still very costly. 

The Quilter's Guild made a reproduction of the coverlet and decided to use the bright colours of the original, traces of which can be seen in seam allowances. Although the coverlet is still surprisingly colourful, it would have been much brighter when new.

That's the original on the left and the replica next to it.

Most of the fabrics used were silks which would have been of a much higher thread count in 1718 than now. Modern silks are very hard to work with as they tend to fray easily. We tend to assume that we have much higher quality materials to use in our crafts now than in the past but that's not always the case.

Due to its fragile condition, the coverlet has to be kept in the dark and only exhibited rarely so I was very lucky to have got the chance to see such a special piece of quilting history. I bought this book to learn more about the coverlet and I'm very pleased with it.

As well as lots of information about the coverlet and the work that went into reproducing it, the book also has photos of each of the blocks with information on how to make them, either using the original technique or modern methods.

Would you like to see the other things I bought at the show? Obviously I had to buy some fabric and I chose these two lengths of hand-dyed cotton.

I'm using these to make Quilt As You Go Hexagons which are basically tiny mini quilts. I'll show you what I mean when I've started putting them together. So far, I've just cut out all the pieces with the help of my trusty Sizzix Big Shot die cutting machine. The Sizzix was a purchase at the same show a few years ago - I was very pleased I had my daughter with me to carry it!

I always buy something from Sue Hawkins; her kits are lovely and lots of fun to make. I do tend to go for the same colourway, as you can see ...

 ... a needlebook, two scissor keepers and a bookmark. Those lovely scissors were bought from Sue too. So, I thought I'd be daring this year and try a different colour scheme.

I was feeling very smug about trying new colours until Sue pointed out that these pastels are just paler shades of my favourites.

Ah yes, I see what you mean Sue. That's the thread from the new kit on the right.

I bought another book too. By the way, the best place for patchwork and quilting books is Kaleidoscope. They're the stall that's always packed with people at shows but they have a good website too and ship worldwide. My new book is the latest from Kathleen Tracy, one of my favourite authors. I have quite a collection of her books.

What I like about them is the blend of history and straightforward quilt projects. All the quilts are small and everything is beautifully photographed. The new book is called A Prairie Journey and is just as lovely as the others.

I'd like to make every single quilt in this book. Look at this blue log cabin with the big squares in the middle ...

... or how about a Wagon Wheel quilt? I really love the colours in this one.

If you'd like to see more of Kathleen's work, I can highly recommend her blog A Sentimental Quilter. She writes very interesting posts and is good at practical advice on choosing fabric and planning a project. She's also making her own Dear Jane quilt. Now there's another wonderful historical quilt ...

On My Needles

At any one time I have about a dozen design projects in progress. Some will be at the pencil and paper stage but most are 'on my needles', even if I haven't worked on them for a while. I thought you might like a look at the things I'm flitting between at the moment.

This is my Mini Marshmallow crochet blanket. It's lovely but rather heavy to be working on during a heatwave. Also ... why do I have to turn everything into a blanket? At the start of a project when I'm full of enthusiasm, I always think "Yes! Blanket!" then, at about this stage, I realise just how long it's going to take me to make something big enough to qualify as a blanket. This is when I start thinking "A bag would have been just as nice".

I think I might use this stitch again to make a shoulder bag one day. It would be an opportunity to try a different colour scheme too (I'm loving my Stylecraft yarn pegs - can you tell?) I'd also like to see if I can work out a circular version of this stitch and use it to make a round cushion, perhaps in pastel colours. I don't use pastels enough and they're nice colours too.

Speaking of pastel shades, look at the colours I've used here ...

These shapes are waiting to be turned into two little purses, inspired by an Origami design. I was looking at these this morning and thought it would be nice to knit a patchwork blanket using these shapes. I know - another blanket. These are in moss stitch but I think I'd do the blanket in garter stitch. I'm wondering about using a variegated yarn and a few co-ordinating plain colours - maybe from the Stylecraft Batik range. I could use one of the Batik Elements for the variegated yarn.

Here's another blanket I'm working on at the moment and this one isn't making me wish I hadn't started it.

This is going to be my 'Secret Garden' baby blanket and I'm absolutely loving it. Each square takes quite a while to knit but the knitting is interesting and varied. I think of this as an heirloom project; something to be worked on in unhurried times so that the knitting process is as beautiful as the finished blanket. It's not going to be very big - this is one third of the blocks - and then there will be a border. At the moment the blocks are all wavy and irregular but that will be sorted out by the final blocking.

I've still only done three of my watermelon coloured log cabin blocks but, luckily, these are in fact going to be a bag so I only need to do twelve all together.

When I've knitted a few more of these I shall be able to play around with arranging them. Do I put them all the same way up or put all the red edges together, or something different?

The next thing is off, rather than on my needles. After working on my Tunisian Crochet waistcoat for a while, I've realised that the bottom is wider than the top.

So ... I've either got to start again and make that grey band narrower or work the main part on a bigger hook (which I don't have). I think I need to fish out my original plan to see which measurement is right and then go from there.

The last two 'on my needles' projects are secrets so I can only show  you bits of them now. The first one is the big Christmas pattern for this year.

I have spent months cutting lots of bits of plastic canvas and then covering them with knitting. This is very boring work and I'm at that stage when I'm wondering if anyone else will want to knit this. The designing has got a little bit more interesting in the last week or so but still ... 

One of the worst things about these big patterns is that I have to make them (and take photographs) without any clear idea of how many individual patterns there will be and what order I shall publish them in. This means I can't do much construction until near the end, so I have no idea of how well the whole thing is going to work. I shall just have to plod on and keep my fingers crossed.

The other secret project is my latest Ten Stitch pattern. It's so exciting to have worked out a new variation and this one is such fun to knit. There's just enough variation to stop it becoming boring and I'm absolutely loving it. Really, I would be happy just knitting this and reading all day.

I can't wait to be able to share this one but there's quite a way to go yet so back to the knitting ...

Edgehill

What comes to mind when you hear the name Edgehill? If you're English it may well make you think of the first battle of the English Civil War, fought in October 1642. Often considered to be something of a shambles which ended in stalemate, the Battle of Edgehill actually gave the Royalists something of an advantage as the Parliamentary forces retreated to Warwick, leaving the way to London open.

The battle took place in open fields around the villages of Kineton and Radway but much of it is inaccessible to the public now as it's owned by the Ministry of Defence. Appropriately enough, there is a huge MOD Ammunition Depot on part of the site.

You can, however, still look out over what would have been the battlefield from this spot ...

... but I'm getting ahead of myself here. This was the place I was aiming for on my walk, taking in quite a few steps, a wood and some open countryside on the way.

I started at Upton House, a National Trust property near the top of Sun Rising Hill (more about that later) and headed off across the fields towards the village of Ratley. This Summer's heatwave has left our green and pleasant land looking dry and brown.

It was a hot and tiring walk across hilly fields before I could even spot Ratley in the distance.

I walked up through the village (yes, another hill), heading for the woods that line the top of Edge Hill.

You get down into the woods by several flights of steps which are known as Jacob's Ladder.

It was cooler amongst the trees and I enjoyed plodding along the path that runs along the top of the hill.

About half way, I made a slight diversion to show you this ...

... not a Castle, but a pub. This is the Castle, said to be built on the site where King Charles surveyed the land on the evening before the battle.

After quite a lot more walking, I finally emerged from the trees at the top of Sun Rising Hill. This is the spot where the road goes down the hill; it's very steep and twisty, quite challenging for drivers. I once got behind a dustbin lorry coming up Sun Rising - that was fun.

The weather can be very different at the top of the hill to the bottom. I've driven from snow into sunshine and there can be thick fog at the top and none in the valley.

There was still quite a bit more walking to do before I finally emerged into the clear space on the ridge of the hill. This is the view I had been aiming for.

And there was a breeze at last! I sat down, took my boots off to cool my feet down and got out the picnic. I come from a family of serious picnickers and take a flask of tea with me whenever possible. I really enjoyed sitting at the top of the hill, gazing out across the country and eating my well-earned lunch.

Can you see the field with the dark patch in it, about halfway up the picture on the right? That was being harvested; by the time I'd finished my picnic it had all been cut. I love this place - the view is always amazing and its history makes its special too.

I'll leave you with a picture of one of my favourite wild flowers, taken earlier on the walk. This is Rosebay Willowherb. Isn't that the most wonderful name?