New to my craft room in January

The Newark Quilt Show takes place each January, and as I’ve said before it’s my local show so it’d be rude not to go! So I knew there would be the opportunity to top up my supplies, but I also knew that at the end of the month I was going along to a new-to-me quilting shop in Worksop, also new-to-me, and I didn’t really want to splurge at either.

But more of what I picked up in those two outings later, there’s been plenty new to my craft room in the first month of the year including our Christmas cards which I’ve already recycled into gift tags for use much later in the year.

Last month I shared the contents of my quilting advent calendar, one of the items was a replacement blade for a 45mm Olfa rotary cutter. The only thing was I didn’t have that size cutter, but I do now - and while I was at it I bought myself a replacement blade for my larger 60mm cutter, as I don’t think I’ve changed the blade in it ever, oops. While I was looking around the Morris Works site I also snagged a couple of fat quarters in the sale for my growing collection of greys, though the darker one is probably just about on the edge of what I’m after for my long-awaited and unlikely to be finished just yet Floral Fancy project.

At the Newark Quilt Show I felt almost restrained, I hadn’t taken my own advice and gone with a list of things to look out for and I managed to walk around the show without buying anything, but taking note of things I wanted to look at further. It is a relatively small show, but even so I was impressed with myself - but of course I did leave with a few things including this bundle of five V&A Indian Summer prints, and a pink and orange batik both because I just liked them. I’ve no plan for these yet, but I’m sure something will make itself known.

I also picked up several pieces of this hedgehog fabric in two colourways for a fiver - the pieces are fairly large, and I’m hoping that with some creative joining there’ll be enough for the backing for at least two more charity quilts. Cute aren’t they?

I keep finding myself attracted to Moda fabrics at the moment, and when I saw this Ruby Star Society fabric I knew I’d be taking some home - it’s the Daisy Stripe in the Catnap collection and it just makes me happy. For this one I do have a loose plan, and that’s to make it into the same style dress which I’ve already made, along with some denim - but that’s about as far as my plan has gone so far. And yes, I’ve a growing list of fabric that I want to remake this dress in, so I need to make time to get on with those (all of them!)

The labels were an impulse buy, and potentially a strange one for me as I mostly cut labels out of my clothes - but I’ve been a Sarah Hearts follower for a long time, even regularly changing my wallpapers when she released a new one. I stopped with the June 2020 wallpaper, which remains on my laptop to this day - it was the one I loved the most, and haven’t felt the need to change it yet!

But anyway, back to my purchases. As I’m no longer afraid of or scared by zips, and because some of the new style pouches I want to make have zips galore, and so I thought I’d have some funky zips for those. I opted for this metallic set by Sallie Tomato, and also added a metre of the gold and silver fold over elastic (the bundle on the right) - I’ve no idea what this will be like, or how it’ll work yet but I’m prepared and already have supplies.

I also signed up for one of the workshops at the show, and these are from the Shabby Chic Rosettes workshop which was led by the tutor from the bag making course I went on last year. I finished the green rosette on the day, and brought the materials for a larger version home with me - look out for a blog post to see how I got on soon.

The final things I left the show with were part of my Christmas present from MOH. A couple of the smaller items from the order were still out of stock, and so the supplier brought the items that were in stock to the show and I picked them up from there. There’s two patterns for the new style pouches I want to make, and a selection of accessories for those in apple green, including another funky zipper, some mesh (for pockets) and more of that fold over elastic.

I’m hoping the out of stock items will be back in stock soon, they’re more bag type accessories from a collaboration by Sallie Tomato and Tula Pink. They’re out of stock in the US, so it’s just a case of waiting - but at least I have most of the order, and my present, now.

I’m also finding that material has a way of finding me, case in point this green floral design fabric. I went along to my Saturday morning sewing group, and as we’re moving venues more of the group’s fabric was out to tempt those attending. I don’t normally look, but this almost Sanderson-like fabric caught my eye - and that was fatal.

There’s two large-ish pieces, and I now have them both for a donation to the sewing group’s funds. I’m planning to use these on one of the quilts I’m making for myself as backing, I’m not sure which yet - but I have a similar green, and another in pink that I have also earmarked so I’ll need to work out when I’m closer to finishing my Mystery Block of the Month quilt, which works best.

I’ve also been collecting various stuff which I can reuse: a nice box and elastic tie which is bound to come in useful, a binding tool which one of the patchwork group was giving away as she had more than one, some mesh from oranges and easy peelers and a much loved camisole top which needs to be retired. I’ve not tried the binding tool yet, but I expect I’ll give it a go when I finish my next quilt - assuming I remember, if not it’ll be the next one!

Which brings me to the last fabric shop outing of the month. The Patchwork Garden is based on Worksop railway station and opens on request, and it was stuffed full of the most amazing fabrics. I did well to leave with two more additions to my grey collection, a pink that I hoped would (and does) match the Spread the Word collection which I acquired last October!

And that ‘testcard’ multi-coloured fabric, well isn’t it great - again, no plans for it yet, but I love it. Until I find the perfect project, that’s the one I’ll be taking out and looking at and admiring for a little while!

I’m expecting February to be a quieter month craft supplies wise as I’m not planning to go to any shows, but who knows - hopefully I’ll find plenty of time to crack on and get sewing as I’ve not spent as much time in my craft room in the early part of the year so far, the days when our heating wasn’t working weren’t the ones to be sewing in there. Instead I dug out an old crochet project that is now almost sewn up and ready for the borders - it was just the thing to have on my knee in those chillier days!

So that’s another month in my craft room, check out my previous updates for earlier additions, and remember to let me know below what you’ve added to your craft supplies this month.

Essex Linen kisses, a colour wash picnic rug

When I shared my quilt plans for 2025 I said a quilt that wasn’t supposed to be there had crept onto my list, and it was these scraps in a random scrap box from Helen Steele that made their case very well!

When I ordered the scrap box I wasn’t sure what would arrive, or how much - I knew the weight of the pack but in real terms I was unsure of how much fabric that actually was. When it arrived I fell in love with the bright colours and quickly made a plan for using them, working out that if I cut them into 3 inch squares I’d make the most of what I had.

It wasn’t until June though that an idea started to form, and along with the gold specked charcoal Essex Linen that I’d ummed and ahhed about I started to lay out the crosses, or kisses as I prefer to call them.

Liking what I saw I started to sew my blocks, which are inspired by Quilty Love’s Plus Squared quilt, and I needed to do this while the design was fresh, or else who knows what I’d have sewn to what!

It wasn’t long before I had a series of blocks made from nine smaller squares, and that’s when I got a real idea of the size of the quilt - and it was smaller than I’d imagined.

But I knew with some sashing and borders I could extend that, a bit - but I didn’t want to lose too much colour, so I decided to break up the sashing between the blocks with a pop of colour, and it’s amazing how much difference this made even though I was still only visualising this part in my head.

By September, and with a narrow colour wash border which echoes the colours of the kisses closest to the edge now also added, the quilt top was completed.

And that’s how it stayed for a good few months. Having got it this far, and already falling in love with it the truth is, I didn’t want to mess it up. I knew that I wanted to straight line quilt this, but I wanted to practice my straight lines - in fact it wasn’t until January this year when I practiced using the adjustable guide on my Dresden Buttercup charity quilt, that I felt it was time to finish my picnic rug.

In the interim I’d deliberated about the colour of the backing, I’d bought some plain ochre cotton but that didn’t work even though I loved the colour. Feeling that it needed a brighter colour on the back I ordered some orange and apple green cotton, again I loved them both but chose to use the green, and for nothing more that it perfectly matched the greens on the top of the quilt, and also because I was hoping that any grass stains would show less! Well, you’ve got to be practical haven’t you?

Now when’s the picnic?

Using the guide, and having practiced using it, meant my quilting lines were straighter than they’ve ever been. I used a variegated Aurifil thread called Spring Prairie which matched perfectly, although at some points so much so that I couldn’t quite see where I’d sewn, but now that it’s done it was definitely the right way to go.

The metallic gold binding is from Frumble Fabrics and as soon as I saw it I knew it would be the perfect match and the perfect way to finish this quilt which will be our picnic rug.

I can’t wait for the weather to improve and give this its picnic debut!

Making my Mystery Block of the Month: November 2025

You’ll have seen that I plan to complete Sherri’s mystery block a month quilt and in my last post I shared the test blocks which I made into my thirteenth charity quilt, today - a little later than normal - I’m sharing the centre block I made for my own quilt.

Despite being pleased with how I’d previously conquered this block for my charity quilt, it wasn’t until yesterday that I cut out and made my own block. And then I quickly remembered that it wasn’t anywhere near as daunting as my mind would have me believe!

I’d been playing with the colour options for my blocks but in the end settled on these, though I did intentionally switch the placement at the last minute when I realised the cream fabric would look better framed with the darker fabric.

I was even more pleased to discover that previous me had already cut the interfacing for the quarter circle - that saved me some time, and once I got started the quarter Dresden block came together quickly.

For my test blocks, and subsequent charity quilt, I’d tested out various stitches to attach the petals to the backing square. And while these worked well, in the end I decided to stick with a plain stitch, but opted to stitch as close to the edge as I could. That turned out to be pretty close in the end with the sewing machine going oh so slowly!

I’m really pleased with how it turned out, though as I started to add the borders I remembered to check and decide which way I wanted the quadrant to face, and typically it wasn’t the way I’d set up in the photo above.

It’s been a while since I’ve used the original green fabrics for the borders so there was lots of checking and double checking to make sure I was adding them in the same way as before to avoid any unecessary unpicking.

Before I knew it the eleventh block of my mystery block quilt was completed, so there’s just one more block to go - and that final charity quilt of this series. I’ve not started it yet, but it is another star. After that there’ll be more decisions on how to finish the quilt - I’m looking forward to seeing it all laid out together, it’s been a long time coming!

Join me hopefully soon to see how I get on with the next mystery block, and check out my previous posts for my mystery block quilt or the charity quilts made from the test blocks.