Sunny days and crafty ways

What's that? I hear you say.  Two posts in the space of a few days, it must be the school holidays!  Indeed it is and I'm already thinking that they are speeding through much too quickly. 

The new quilt is nearing completion, and I am loving these binding clips that were free in my quilting magazine a couple of months ago, far easier than pins and less likely to be lost on the floor and end up in a dog's paw!  There was a moment this afternoon where I was sitting in the garden, new quilt on my lap, hand sewing the binding, dog snoring gently beside me on the settee, sun shining down, bees buzzing in the daffodils, a couple of geese flew overheard calling to each other and I thought 'why on earth don't I spend all days doing this?'  Well, basically the good old British weather doesn't always co-operate, and going to work gets in the way.  I can tell you though, if I could have bottled that moment to open up and experience again and again, I would have!

A couple of days ago I saw that my nephew's wife had 'liked' a Facebook page for a local shop which I had never heard of before. Sew Contemporary.  It sounded like my kind of shop!  So this morning I set out on a mission to find it.  It was at an end of town I don't normally venture into, but now I've found it I can tell you that I will be returning.  There's fabrics and threads, wools and zips, patterns and gadgets.  I spoke to the owner as I went around looking longingly and stroking the fabrics and she is planning to start doing workshops either to learn a specific item or practice something that you haven't tried before.  There may even be a quilting class.  Oh my. 

Of course I was tempted to buy something there and then and I saw the pattern that Abi has just made but I thought I would ease myself back into dressmaking with something simple and something that I had actually been thinking about buying.  I thought I would make a shell top for work.  Our old building can get mighty warm in the summer and it's hard to find something that is cool to wear yet smart enough for an office environment.  T Shirts are not allowed!  Sadly there were no patterns of that type there but the owner told me about a good website where you could download free patterns and she happened to know that there was a nice shell top pattern there.  Can you guess what I did as soon as I got home?  Here's a clue ...

 

I nearly fell at the first hurdle though, it's an American website and obviously American sizes are VERY different to English ones!  It's going to seem weird making something in a size 6! 

Am I enjoying my Easter break so far?  I don't think I need to tell you the answer to that do I?