Birthday Blues - Part 1

Not quite the birthday I had planned for today - it was to have been a day at the coast, but , unfortunately, it hasn't happened!! Our weather the last week or so has been rather changeable but in the main dry, and the last couple of days have been virtually summery with temperatures in the low 20s. Today however we are back in winter with howling winds and very heavy showers, so a day on the beach didn't seem like a good idea somehow !!


All is not lost however, there's a bottle of champagne cooling for this evening and tomorrow evening we'll be having a dozen or so friends over to help me celebrate again!


No pictures of the lovely Brittany coast I'm afraid, but I can show you my birthday present !




I have been considering a back-up machine for sometime now , as when the Bernina goes in for a service etc I am lost, so I took advantage of being in the UK last month and convinced DH he should buy this for me as an early birthday present !



It is a different animal to my Bernina, but I 've had lots of fun getting to know it and it has played nicely with me (so far!) . I decided that, instead of just trying it out on 'scraps' I would make a small quilt from scratch, reasoning that this way I would probably cover all the things I'd need to know before tackling anything bigger so, remember this book ? Well this is what I made from it






A small replica of the Pembroke chintz quilt c1820 and currently in the private collection of Jen Jones. You can see the original here in the bottom right hand corner! Mine is a lot smaller at only 26 inches square, but I think it is lovely ! I also got to be very brave and tried some motif quilting for the first time !

Now all I have to do is learn to do the same thing on my bigger quilts ! The hanging sleeve wasn't stitched down when this was taken, but it is finished now!!

Just in case you are wondering about the post title, watch this space as I have certainly got a Birthday Blues Part 2 to share very soon !