At the beginning of December I attended a 1 hour workshop to learn to create a fabric basket – as above.

The workshop was at Coast & Country Crafts (C&CC) in Perranarworthal nr Falmouth, UK.  They run a number of workshops and specialise in quilting.  The workshop was good fun and yes the basket was made within the hour.  I have now made a few of these for friends and family in different fabrics.  They are made with 4 x 10″ squares.  It would seem that 10″ is  a standard quilting size so at C&CC they have lots of pre-cut squares in the right size.  That’s great as I am not very good at cutting even with a rotary cutter.  Mind you the shop is downright dangerous in that I spent an hour one day just browsing and chatting to another customer.  I had only gone in for buttons and I knew which ones I wanted too.

They have a great range of fabrics and all the staff are really friendly and helpful.  The customer that I was chatting to on that day (I have been in many times) was just starting quilting and had picked her fabrics from the huge range of fat quarters they have ready cut.  For just a couple of £ the store was going to cut the fabric to the required quilting size.  A service I have not seen offered before but great particularly if you are not a good cutter (like me).

There is a pack of fabrics (40 pieces pre-cut to 10″) I have my eye on and will see if they are reduced any further in the sale which starts in January.  A Lynette Anderson design pack in muted shades of purples and greys.

Unfortunately I don’t think quilting and sailing will go well together as I have very little room – maybe dolls bed quilts.  C&CC have just started to list the workshops for 2015 so I will keep my eye out for another one I fancy.  You can see the list so far here.

Below is another of the baskets I have made although I forgot to take photos of most of those I made before I sent them!  Luckily Mum sent pics back.  I made my Mum a matching cushion cover in a fabric called “Gatsby”.  I bought it quite a while ago planning to make Mum a cushion for her sitting room as I felt it had a “Downton” feel to it.  I had enough fabric left to make a basket as well as the cover.  I picked this fabric up from The Sewing Studio in Redruth.  It was in the sale so a real bargain.  A huge shop with a nice selection of fabrics, wools and huge range of sewing machines.  They also run workshops although I have not been to one (yet).

As an aside, when I was up in Leamington last month I gave my Dad a big granny square blanket that I had crocheted for him over a month or so.

I’ve also got out my Christmas cushion cover which I made last year as part of our limited Christmas decorating (it’s covering the nautical cushion). I have put up 3 strings of tinsel in the galley side. I think it was Kirstie Allsopp who said a bit of tinsel makes anything look like it’s Christmas.