Red and White String Hearts.

I love scraps! I just can't help it - often the leftovers from a project excite me more than the original project.

Recently I have been playing with red and white scraps left over from one of my classes.

I started by making rectangular string blocks or 'bricks' as they are sometimes known. I then made these into hearts by adding white triangles.

 This produced lots of 'bonus triangles' which were just asking to be made into scrappy flying geese. These are 1.5 x 3 inches and will make great borders.

 Anthea has asked me to do a workshop on these string hearts at Quilting Antics in Settle. She has given me scraps to work with - here are some of the string bricks I have made.

Don't they look lovely when they are all trimmed and ready to turn into rainbow hearts!

Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee

I know this post is a little late as it is nearly a week since the official Jubilee celebrations. Yesterday I was reading Barbara Brackman's blog and she had devoted a post to the Jubilee. She was talking about panels to make Jubilee quilts and I suddenly remembered the Cath Kidston bag I had been given for my birthday. This bag is double sided and made of quite lightweight calico so it could be easily unpicked and the panel used as the centre for a quilt.

On the subject of Corgis Barbara has designed a superb Jubilee panel that you can find in her special Jubilee post  here. If you are not a regular reader of her blog I can highly recommend it, it is one of the most interesting quilting blogs in my opinion. 

I also have a Jubilee pin given to me as a birthday gift from my eldest son. This is also from CK and was much admired when I wore it over the weekend.

For those of you in the UK you will know how disappointing the weather was over the Jubilee weekend - in fact our whole summer so far has been a wash out. But we did get the bunting out in the garden. Cilla is posing in her favourite garden chair and in case you are wondering - yes that is the insides of an old washing machine made into a wood burner.