Too much pink !!!

Thankyou all for your lovely compliments on my stitcheries. I would say to anyone thinking of having a try to go for it. So relaxing and such fun to see the picture emerging as you stitch. I have another couple prepared and will do them soon. A few of you have asked for the name of the website where I got the pattern for the rainy day picture. It is www.homeberries.com . I found other sites but this was the best I came across so far. It has loads of pictures all divided up into sections - seasons etc. There are some really good ones - cute snowmen, angels and especially of interest to many quilters - cats !!! I can see me making plenty of these from here.

On the back of my fabric there was a piece of calico ( muslin ) basted together at the edges. This was a tip given to me by Linda and it worked a treat - thanks Linda. She said it hides stray threads and gives the fabric a bit of body and stops puckers.

Anyway, under Patricks instructions I am doing some work on a WIP - namely my Carolina Crossroads quilt. You probably all know by now this is a mystery quilt. I have never done one before and was a little dubious about my colour choices. Once the blocks were all done I knew I wanted to add sashing as there was - you guessed it - too much pink !!! Now I like pink - as all the fabrics I used were from my stash it is clear that I have a lot of pink fabrics. BUT it needs something else to give it a bit of oomph and take away some of the pinkness. Here are a few of the blocks - see what I mean ?? The dark colours are not as prominent in real life. They all seem to blend together more.

I spent some time at the weekend going through my fabrics and picking out a few that I thought would work. I am doing this quilt-as-you-go and with the method I use you only see a half inch of the joining strips which have the sashing effect. I cut several little strips and put them in place amongst the blocks. I kept walking away and coming back to them and eventually I had a winner. I asked Jason to pick one too and amazingly he picked the same one. He was very pleased with himself about this - lol !

We both decided on the middle one - the green stripe. The only problem was I knew I did not have enough. I bought this weeks ago at the fabric warehouse I go to. The problem with this place is they only have fabrics once and never usually on the bolt. They are all pre-cut lengths stacked in metal baskets and you pay for them by weight. You need to have a good rummage too. Sometimes they are seconds and have flaws in them and you have to be careful what you're buying. I found the fabric I needed on the internet in a shop in Tennessee so I knew I could get more if I needed to. But Tennessee is a long way from Wales and I would have had to wait a while before I got it. I decided to go back to my warehouse on the off-chance that they would have more of the fabric. As we walked up the stairs to the craft section I looked over to the baskets and guess what I saw.......Yippee - ONE piece only of my fabric. Bigger than what I needed and when I unfolded it to check it - it was perfect. Lucky or what ?? I was chuffed - some things are just meant to be. I have started using it and will do a bit more before I show you pictures. My friend says I am brave using a stripe in a completely different colour but I THINK it will work and I like to add a surprise in amongst the mix now and again.

Linda asked how I do quilt-as-you-go and it so happens I've took a few photos along the way so next time I will show you my version.

Happy quilting !!