moving up in the world

I haven't got any power upstairs in my 'studio' space yet (mostly because I can't decide which light fittings to have!) but we've finished all the painting and moved most things up there. It's so great to have everything in one place - though I still do a lot of to-ing and fro-ing! (Good excercise I say to myself the fourth time I climb the stairs).
I'm still trying to work out how to use the space, there isn't a lot of head room except in the centre so while I thought I'd have everything around the sides I will need to have some in middle so I don't bump my head. I've been trying different layouts.
I've also been doing all my sewing up there and its really great to be able to leave my sewing machine out and come back to it. A great luxury.
There's something very calming about the space, I can't put my finger on it exactly but I immediately feel very peaceful when I go up there. I feel my shoulders relax.
I promised pictures when it was finished, but until its organised a bit more this sneak peek will have to do! Honestly, you don't want to see the mess, and it's not really ready till I get those lights :-)

quilting progress

On the weekend I cleared the sitting room floor rug and laid out my quilt sandwich. Backing, batting and quilt top. Using advice gleaned from many sources I first laid out and cut my batting. I then smoothed the ironed quilt top over it and rolled the whole thing up. Then I laid out the joined, washed and ironed backing. Again I smoothed this out without stretching it and secured the edges with masking tape. I rolled the batting and quilt back over this and carefully pinned it from the centre out.

I take back everything I said about the expensive quilt pins :-) I love them and they made it easy to join my three layers. As you can see I pinned each white square. When I turned the sandwich at the end it looked pretty neat.

I've started sewing the horizontal quilting lines, using my walking foot and (fingers crossed) things are looking good. I love the way it has suddenly transformed into a quilt.

Next step is finishing the vertical quilting. I've had some hiccups on a couple of seams with puckering so I'm going to unpick and try again. And then I need to think about a border...

apricot pastries

I think I mentioned that I had a second batch of brioche dough in the fridge. Here's what I made. Recipe here. They were lovely.
I won't be making them again though. The pastry cream was a lot of work and then some of the {fussy} people round here decided they don't like apricots. Harrumph!
Still, it did mean more for me and J. Next time I think maybe something with cooked apples and brown sugar might be nice... mmm.