a few (mostly fabric) additions

One of the things I love about visiting a quilt shop is getting to see fabric collections you've seen online, in real life. I was teaching at Patchfinders the other day and, after ogling City Nights by Lewis and Irene on my laptop, some had to come home with me! It has lovely touches of metallic, just enough sparkle without being too much. I fell for, from left to right: Architectural Blender in copper on light and City Buildings in copper and copper on multi. The copper glistens so beautifully and the colours are totally my style.

While I was at the shop, a local quilting group was meeting in one of the rooms and they were selling Super Snips mini scissors to raise money for the charity Siblings Together. Of course I bought a pair and of course I chose pink. How dinky and cute are they?! Handy that it has an attached cover too. The whole thing measures less than 2".

It was a complete delight to receive some happy mail from my good friend Michelle @churridge. She knitted me this absolutely gorgeous bobble hat, the yarn is amazingly soft and I LOVE wearing it. She also sent me a Buffy sticker, now on my sewing machine, and some cool grid fabric to add to my stash. Thank you so so much Michelle! ♡

My lovely, thoughtful friend Nicky sent me this book and warned me to have tissues at the ready! I've started reading it and it's a beautifully told story. I also got this fantastic Manchester bee project pouch, that I ordered from Sarah Ashford. you can find pouches in her shop here - I suggest ordering more than one, I now have five and will probably collect more. They are great for storing projects and you can customise the text or chose from a selection. To prepare for next year I ordered my favourite planner inserts from Minted Sugar, I've used them for the past three years now and love the layout of them. I find it really helpful to have my to do list alongside my weekly calendar.

Next is this beautiful, musical themed collection Sonata, by Amy Sinibaldi. A lovely mix of dusky pink with blues and brighter deeper tones. It has pretty blooms, musical instruments, some simple and useful blender prints all in her delicate, wistful style. One not to miss, you can find UK stockists at Hantex, click here.

Finally I discovered these prints from Fat Quarter Shop while reading their newsletter. I actually think this fabric would have passed me by because honestly the whole collection isn't really my taste. These prints, however, totally are! In fact I think they are amazing. The very dark navy prints are a great way to add some depth without being too much and the loops are everything!!

clockwise from top left: Fancy in Night Sky, Loop de Loops in Night Sky, Loop de Loops in Peachy, Sunshine Day in Night Sky, all from Clover Hollow by Sherri & Chelsi for Moda Fabrics.

This print is so super cute!! And won't it make such a gorgeous binding fabric, just a little twist on the ever popular striped binding. I now wish I had bought this print in every colour, yes there are more colours! Click here to see the whole collection. Clover Hollow is a best seller so be quick if you want to add some to your stash.

What is your favourite quilt binding? 

Mine seems to be stripes, solids or ditsy florals. I would love to know what fabric you like for binding quilts, let me know in a comment below!