Buttoned up

Time for another Endeavourers reveal. This quarter rather than all of us working to the same theme Janine and Catherine switched things up a bit. Each of us had to send something to inspire this quarter's piece to a partner, whose name was drawn from the proverbial hat.

My fellow Endeavourer, Gwen, who blogs at Textile Ranger, sent me this glorious array of buttons! What a great jumping off point for several flights of fancy :)

Penny Rugs, Suffolk puffs, Medallion quilts were all considered and discarded.

This is what I eventually created. I am calling it a "Memory Keeper" as every single element of it invokes a memory for me of a place, person or time, just in the same way rifling through my mother's and grandmother's collections of buttons recalled the outfits they were from or the uses they were intended for.

The base fabric for my Memory Keeper is pale yellow linen purchased on our last trip to the linen factory in Lithuania before we moved back to the UK. The pocket fabric is from an early Imperial Collection line by Robert Kaufman and it was the first quilting cotton that I ever purchased! As you can see it formed the centrepiece for the cushion, made at an evening class, that was my first ever patchwork project too.

This clay button was the subject of a very early blog post and, I think, the first ever link party that I linked up to!

This modern Dorset button harks back to an earlier age when buttons were handmade and beautiful in their own right. If my memory serves me well (always debatable!) this particular Dorset button was made whilst we were sailing from Tallinn to St Petersburg on the ferry!(I checked and it was and I blogged about it here)

These buttons were purchased in markets in Riga, France, Tynemouth and Yorkshire respectively and instantly evoke happy memories of lovely days out and enjoyable rummaging at craft stalls and Flea Markets.

These yellow and red buttons, however, evoke a person rather than a place as they were in a box of buttons inherited from my mum when she passed away last year. The box was marked "buttons for baby cardigans" as my mum was a great knitter up until the day she went into hospital, and her speed at producing jumpers and cardigans for her great-grandchildren was an amazement to me. So, these particular buttons have a special resonance.

As I am sure most of you do, spare buttons for clothes purchases are added to my button tin and kept even when the original garment has long since been discarded. This button, from a jacket long since given away, is from that pile of buttons that will surely come in useful one day :) One button is rarely needed though, but this one has finally found a use!

Of course it would hardly be right to ignore those lovely buttons that arrived in the post in the middle of the craziest time the world has seen for a long time. These sweet buttons will remind me of the inspiration for my Memory Keeper and my fellow Endeavourer who took the time to put the button sheet together and send it off across the world to me. Thanks Gwen!

Head on over to The Endeavourers blog to see the amazing pieces that the rest of the Endeavourers have produced for this challenge.

Cheesy blocks

Although we are about to move and I should not be taking on any new commitments, I couldn't resist the lure of Quiet Play's Say Cheese! Polaroid Block Swap especially when I was allowed to be an 'honorary Aussie' as well!

The blocks have 2.5" fussy-cut centres and are bordered on all four sides with plain white, hence the Polaroid in the title. Sign-ups were in multiples of 5 with a top limit of 50 blocks.

Well I really only meant to make a few blocks but they were going together so quickly :)

I had never used Kona cotton before and it was such a joy to use that it seemed a shame to stop. So this is what I ended up with.

I can now understand why Kristy set a top limit of 50 blocks!

I actually made 51 blocks by accident, but as it happened it was a happy accident. When I was giving the blocks a final press I noticed a small flaw in one of the white strips.

Can you see the pink mark? I have no idea how I didn't notice it when I was putting the block together, but I am really pleased that I noticed it before parcelling up the blocks and putting them in the post this morning. I am hoping that the mark was picked up whilst I was working on the blocks and wasn't a flaw in the fabric.

We visited a collectors' fair over the weekend and I will post some of the photos later, but I thought you might like this one.

I thought these were an interesting combination and not a pair you often see so closely together!

We are off to Lithuania tomorrow for my last linen spree before the move, should be fun. Hope you all had a great weekend.





Linking up to BOM's Away , Manic Monday and Building Blocks Tuesday.

Bee blocks and Brocantes

Although I planned to get my Star of Africa Bee block for August finished before I headed off on holiday, life got in the way so I ended up taking it with me. May, whose month it was, had asked for a pink or pastel block based upon architecture. Now whilst I don't have a lot of pink fabrics in my stash, I am surrounded by some wonderful architecture so there was no shortage of inspiration.

Our apartment is in the middle of the Art Nouveau district of Riga so that was my starting point for the block. I doodled all sorts of Art Nouveau motifs before finally settling upon a fairly simple tulip, both because it seemed achievable but also because this motif is painted all the way up our stairwell! I did entertain fond notions of trying out stained glass applique for the block, but as I knew that I would only have one chance at getting it right decided to save that for another day :)

So here it is, instead of a signature I added a tiny embroidered map of Latvia so there would be no question of where the block came from! This Bee is really pushing me to try things, which is nerve-wracking but enjoyable too. The request for this month's block is for a block based upon animals, my thinking cap is still on for that one :)

Whilst on holiday we visited a couple of Brocantes (Flea Markets) and Vide-Greniers (empty-attics), where we thoroughly enjoyed nosing around. The biggest Brocantes we visited was in a town called Riberac, where the market takes over most of the town for the day. I don't know about you but I haven't seen too many fleas with access to notions like these

or linens like these

There were so many fabulous linens at Riberac but fortunately (or unfortunately) none with appropriate initials otherwise I would have been very tempted, for which my wallet and my bank manager were both relieved. I did buy some fabric remnants (coupons in French!) but forgot to take photos so you will just have to take my word for it that they were worth buying.

Upon our return to Riga yesterday I discovered that other Bees had been busy as there were two lots of blocks from the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee waiting in the postbox. 

I also won Grammie Q's scrap giveaway whilst I was on holiday so I am hoping that the parcel I need to collect from the PO later is a whole pile of scrappy goodness destined for my stash.

Don't forget to link up your paper-pieced projects at Quiet Play's Practically Paper Piecing Linky Party Kristy has some great prizes lined up.

From Antiques to Zakka

Having polished off the backlog in my BOM's this week was also a chance to cross off at least some of my outstanding projects in the Zakka-style SAL. In my enthusiasm I had visions of completing at least 3 of my outstanding projects but, alas, the pesky Itty Bitty magnets put a spanner in those works! Who would have thought that such tiny little things could be such trouble, and I was only attempting three of them not the full six that are in the book?

Wendy did warn me that whilst the piecing was fairly straightforward, if rather hard on the eyes, the real fun came with the last step to turn in and stitch closed the opening left for inserting the magnets, and so it proved. I can understand the desire to have nice, handmade things around you and it does lift the spirits to see patchwork every time I go to the fridge, but I am seriously doubting whether the trouble involved is worth the end result. My colourful peg fridge magnets are just as cheering and a lot less trouble. The problem lies with the tiny (to me at any rate) 1/8th" seam that is available to work with when trying to turn the last edge under, you are only talking about a few threads between you and a frayed edge - madness! I know that some quilters enjoy working on a miniature scale and produce the most breathtaking work, but having just attempted these magnets I am beginning to doubt their sanity :) Let's just say that I will not be attempting any miniature quilts anytime soon.

The trouble did not end when the seams were finally, if rather messily, tamed as despite having the same number of magnetic layers one of the magnets did not live up to its name and refused to stay put on the fridge door. I had, I thought, tested them all before sewing but I am now thinking that I might have put the sheets in the wrong way round on this one magnet, needless to say ripping out the seam to turn the magnet round was not even considered as an option! Instead, I attached another piece of the magnetic sheet to the back of the magnet and it now sticks beautifully.

Fortunately the second of my catch-up Zakka-style projects was much more enjoyable. When we were in Tallinn last week I bought some blue linen to make the Cloud Mug Rug from the book. I had already received the perfect umbrella fabric for the backing in Hilacha's Novelty and Solid's Layer Cake Swap. The mug rug project particularly appealed as it involved needle-turn applique, which was a new technique for me and also some hand and machine embroidery.

As it turned out I used hand embroidery for both the embroidered sections. The needle-turn applique was quite fiddly to do, but I am glad that I have had a chance to at least have a go at it. Indeed I found the whole applique and embroidery so relaxing to do that I have cut out linen squares for a whole set of mug rugs, which I am hoping to base on the weather symbols in a local newspaper. The third project I had planned, the organiser, I will hopefully get around to over the weekend.

I thought you might like to see another market from Latvia. Last weekend we visited a bi-annual Flea Market some distance outside Riga that one of my husband's colleagues had told him about. The stalls ranged from carefully laid-out antiques and paintings to rugs on the ground with a motley selection of household goods. I had wondered whilst we were walking to the venue why most of the other visitors seemed to be male, but wondered no longer when I saw the stalls below!

The variety of car and motorbike parts available in various states was fascinating to see, as was the strange assortment of purchases being carried out of the market. The men didn't have it all their own way though as these beauties were also for sale

It certainly made me appreciate the speed and power of my modern Singer machine if not the rather bland looks compared to these ornate machines :)

Linking up to TGIFF