First up was my first ever visit to the annual Festival of Quilts in Birmingham.
To do full justice to the show, we travelled down the night before and stayed at this wonderfully historic old hotel.
The atmosphere of Castle Bromwich Hall hotel and its' surrounding gardens were the ideal precursor to the inspiration overload that is the Festival of Quilts :)
Retail therapy at the FoQ was the impetus for my next New to Me. I have long struggled with the measuring and cutting of the last stretch of binding when finishing off quilts, so a binding ruler was high on my shopping list.
Why buy one though, when you can have three? These are the Binding Tool and Bias Rulers from TQM that caught me eye, and somehow found their way into my bag.
I can already report that they do just exactly what they say, as I used the 2.5" binding tool ruler to finish off the binding on my Word to the Wise quilt, and it worked a treat.
The location of the quilt shot above was my final New to Me for the month, as it was taken in Donegal, Ireland. Our visit there was part of a whistle stop tour of N. Ireland and Donegal, neither of which I have visited before.
So, that's my New to Me activities this month, now it is your turn.
As ever please help to spread the word by linking back to this post in your post and/or adding the blog button to your sidebar.
Check out the other links too and, maybe, leave an encouraging comment along the way. The emphasis of this link party is to celebrate the trying of something new, whether it works out exactly as planned or not, so a little encouragement here and there would not go amiss!
The link will remain open until 23.59GMT on August 31st, so you have some time to try something new and link up and join the party :) If your New to Me involves a Christmas or Holiday project then don't forget to link up to this month's Ho, Ho, Ho and on We Sew Link Party too, you could just win a £10 gift voucher from the Village Haberdashery for your efforts :)
You will find the Ho, Ho, Ho and On We Sew Link Party this month at Sunshine through the Rain
Looking forward to seeing what you have been up to this month!
the binding ruler looks interesting, must check that out as like you I have troubles with binding.
ReplyDeleteThe trip to Ireland sounds lovely, have been to Belfast and Dublin but only to work at the stitch shows so did not see anything whilst there, would love to do a trip to Southern Ireland one day
Spectacular cloud formation in the beach shot. Sounds like a great trip.
ReplyDeleteLovely photos and a trip to the Festival of Quilts sounds heavenly! Your Word to the Wise quilt is stunning and I love that the backing comes from Riga, it has a story to tell! xx
ReplyDeleteDid you cross the rope bridge? We did it last october and my heart was in my mouth - thankfully its a small bridge!
ReplyDeleteI have problems with lots of things, but funnily enough joining binding isn't one of them - hope the new gadget works!
ReplyDeleteI haven't been up to much - still can't settle down and get much of anything done :D I did finish sewing for a birthday gift today but it wasn't anything new. I've had a new-to-me pattern on my sewing table for a month now and just can't find the get up and go to get up and work on it! Hopefully I can get my mojo back soon :D
ReplyDeleteFoQ has long been on my 'to do' list but has never timed well with any of my trips back to the UK, I'm very envious you got to go. Visiting Canada was new to me, it was back in May but I blogged about it in August so I hope that counts and fabric coasters were new to me too in July I'm afraid, but hanging on the very end of July and I missed the July N2M as I was travelling again. Donegal looks fabulous, I love Ireland but haven't been there, somewhere else to add to the 'must see/do' list. Have a great month - Chris :D
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