Archie The Wonder Dog

Thank you so much for all your well wishes and concern about Archie,  I passed them on and Archie waggled his ears in thanks!  He is definitely more interested in life since my last post and has renewed his interest in people walking on 'his' pavement, etc.  He's still restricted to very short walks, no stairs, etc. although he did sneak upstairs without me noticing at the weekend - he's very quiet and would make a great burglar!  I'm not sure if he's walking slightly oddly on one of his hind legs or whether I'm imagining it but I'll be sure to mention my concerns to the vet next week. I was going to share my newly stitched hexies but then I decided to copy Nicky and show you my sewing room - it's not very big but I think I've used every nook and cranny!  I've put numbers on some of the things and labels below as I love to know what other people keep in all their boxes and drawers... 1 = my scrap boxes (or most of them, some are sti...

It feels like such a long time since I lasted posted - I think it's only been a week but it feels much longer.  I wish I'd been off having a marvellous time while I wasn't posting but unfortunately it's been full of worry.  On Friday my dad commented that Archie wasn't his usual self on his evening walk and hadn't been the night before either - I'd noticed he'd been spending a lot of time in his bed but that isn't necessarily unusual.  By Saturday morning it became clear he really wasn't right and I was lucky enough to get a vet appointment the next morning.  I got myself in a right state as Archie was so unlike his usual cheery self - taking him out for a walk on Sunday morning was awful as he lagged behind the whole way with his tail down and only perked up when I put his lead on to come home.  It was then I noticed that occasionally one of his back paws dragged on the ground and I became convinced that this was a sign his 'back end was go...

I've been playing with fabrics (and searching online/through my stash!) for what feels like weeks but is only a couple of days and I think I've made a decision  - thanks for all your opinions and suggestions on arrangements of the blocks, I've considered them all (and exchanged many emails on the subject with some unfortunate souls) and have been playing with Paint...more of that in a bit... My initial thoughts were to use a narrow dark grey (when I looked at the grey available I soon realised I'd meant a medium grey as I think the darks are too dark for this) border around each 'square in a circle' block and then use various bright colours as a wider border on each.  I was struggling to decide between solids and tone on tones for the wider borders but decided on TOTs as I felt two solid borders would be too stark against the pattern of the blocks.  So I was left with the decision about what colours to look for and what sort of TOT I wanted - nothing too o...

I've had a productive few days since I last posted... I ordered some dot and stripe fabric on Friday evening (thanks for all your suggestions of where to look!) - I'm expecting them today * or tomorrow as I chose first class postage so I'll let you know what I got and where I got it from in my next post!  I also had a close shave with some 'Just Wing It' charm packs in the Cross Patch sale but I got an email this morning to say she'd sold out...probably best as I didn't need them, I just wanted them!! * I'm now expecting them tomorrow - the post has just been and no squishies to be seen (yes, I did check in case they were stuck inside the letter box!) I've also found a lovely range of dots at Laughing Hedgehog  - I haven't bought anything from them (yet!) but I know someone who has and she found their prices to be slightly better than some other shops...tempted?! This weekend my dad went to  Boots&Beer , a walking (and beer!) weeken...

As promised I'm back to show you what I bought at the show - I think I was quite restrained but that was mainly because I didn't see lots and lots that tempted me so it was very easy to stick to my budget.  One stall had a lovely range of fabrics but they were all in half metre lengths and whilst I may have bought a couple of fat quarters of ones I liked I didn't want half a metre of it - I like to get a variety of fabrics with my 'show budget'!  I'm sure they would have cut me a long quarter if I'd asked but the cutting table was very busy and time was getting short.  The other thing I noticed (and I'd be interested to find out whether other people that went felt the same) is that a lot of the stalls seemed to be offering the same fabrics and weren't very 'me'.  I went looking for stripes and dots (with permission to buy a fat quarter or two of owl fabric if I saw some) and I really struggled to find what I wanted.  It was lovely to walk rou...

I had a lovely time at the quilt show in Harrogate on Sunday (and even saw Katy from I'm a ginger monkey but didn't say hello...sorry about that and "Hello, Katy, lovely to meet you!") but before I tell you about it I'll just make a couple of mentions... Judith at Rags to Bags is holding a giveaway for  River Fabrics and you could win ten fat quarters of Momo Freebird and what's more you get to choose which two bundles of five you would like (choose from brown, green or blue/orange colourways) so please pop over and leave a comment by Friday 9th September - good luck! I'm a few days late but Rebecca has posted her weekly update on her Tumbling Blocks Challenge - she's had a tough week (one of her beloved Teacup Yorkies has gone missing) so she hasn't quite hit her target for this week but if you could pop over and encourage her I know she'll appreciate it. Right, back to the quilt show!  I'm assuming that this notice... .....