A bit homesick and another finish

It was a good day to work on almost finishes...not a lot of energy and a bit homesick.

So as promised Goldie presents my finished Twist and Turn quilt top! This is another one of Bonnie's pattern from quiltville.com. I made this one extra long for my very tall brother. I have a few blocks left over so I may make some pillows or something to go with it. That is if I can get it away from Goldie!
When I was growing up Good Friday was always a family day. My Dad would take us all into Boston's North End to do the Easter shopping. My Dad was the assistant principal at the middle school there so lots of folks in the shops knew him. We had to be on best behavior. Now this was before the yuppies took over the area so there were all Italian bakeries displaying bread rings with eggs baked on the top and cakes in the shape of lambs, butchers with whole butchered lambs hanging in the windows, fish markets where Dad would buy some fish for my Mom to make chowder that night, the flower stands packed with lillies and tuplips always took a long time to get agreement on what to bring home. There were all sorts of wonderful things for a girl from the suburbs to look at! Just before noon we would stop in at St. Anthony's Church and then go for pizza.

So today, feeling a bit homesick I called one of my sisters. No answer. Called another (I have 4.) No answer. Finally I dug out a cell phone number and would you believe they and my nieces were in the North End having lunch! They wanted to know if my ears were burning!

My Dh took pity on me and brought home some tulips and a large lavendar plant. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some lillies too! Instead of pizza we had pieorgies with carmalized onions that I served on my Polish pottery...reminded me of my trip to Poland last spring. I may just try baking one of those lamb cakes if I can find my lamb cake pan....

Have a wonderul Easter!

What a Sunday

Yesterday I made the most of being in the Cotswolds. First I went on a long hill walk with McBeth and my DH. The weather was wonderful. They both went home to rest and I went on to a 21st birthday celebration for a local pottery! Toff Milway is the potter at Conderton Pottery. He used a salt glaze and makes gorgeous pots. His talk was very interesting. On one table he displayed pottery he has purchased over the past 20 years. On the other table were post he has made during the same time span. He then talked about how what he has purchased - which generally looks nothing like what he makes - has influenced either directly or indirectly what he creates. None of them were copies. It was more like - he bought an icecream dish with a fish on it. The fish idea stayed with him (and he loves fish pie...lots of food references in his talk) so he made a fish plate and a dish for fish pie using a - you got it - fish. (I think you can just make out a fish dish and a fish candle-holder in the photo.) It was a very informative talk without being too academic. I started to think differently of my own quilt and pottery collection.

All and all a great morning...but, there's more!

On my way home I ran into one of my neighbors who owns a flock of sheep. They (my neighbors) have been very patient with my lamb-paparazzi tendencies. To my amazement she asked if I would like to come over to the barn where her husband was shearing sheep. How cool is that! Another thing to cross off my "what I'd like to do while in England list!." I was amazed at the different personalities among the flock. One the ewe fought like crazy and jumped the gate! The next was so mellow she looked like she was going to fall asleep. Isn't it great to have neighbors like this.

I have been spending a lot of time playing with Picassa. Tonya put it on my computer while she was visiting but with company in town I only just started playing with it...what a blast! I've done lots of wild things with my Stonehenge photos. By the way the National Geographic channel has a special on Stonehenge that I watched this weekend. I highly recommend it. Not that I agree with everything they said but they do present some new ideas on the site and have some wonderful cinematography (but hey, it is National Geographic after all....)

So what does this mean for quilting. Uhmmm...I haven't done much with a needle this week. Lot sof ideas though....

Polish Pottery Trip

I've been off-line a for the past week because I went to visit Poland and Prague. It was a very interesting trip...

It started when I was unpacking my car at the hotel in Fairford. A woman walked up to me and asked, "Do you blog?" How weird is that?! She is a quilter who enjoys reading the Maverick blog ring.

The next morning we left at 0500 in a 16 passenger van with lots of space for shopping...we used every inch of it! Seventeen hours and countless bags of junk food later we were in Poland. Our main purpose of the trip was to visit the potteries. There are a lot of potteries there. In our first day we visited at least a dozen stores - I lost count. I lost count of a lot of things - like how many cups I bought, how many boxes of pottery the driver loaded in the van with my name on it, and just how much I spent. I'm calling it pottery amnesia.


In some ways it was a lot like fabric shopping. There are so many beautiful patterns and so many of them mix that putting them together was similar to pulling pieces for a quilt. My favorite purchase is the 6 mugs each with a different design to use on a mug tree.

I also really liked our visit to a tiny pottery workshop where they had many unique pieces. They also were very nice about letting me take photos in their work areas. I love to see how things are made! The photo below shows one of the drying racks stacked with pots. After they air dry they go to the painting room.
Here are some waiting to be glazed/painted.
Below are some items that have been painted and are waiting to go into the kiln. It is interesting to see how different the glaze is prior to being fired. They look very pale and dull...
After the firing they are very vibrant! I can't wait to make some soup for this tureen!


Last trip they found a store that sold fabric that went with the pottery but we couldn't find it this trip. Guess I will have to get creative when I make my table runners.

I'll post some of my photos of Prague tomorrow. Need to finish unpacking an do laundry! (don't you hate that part of traveling?!)

Craft Trail

Growing up the Adams house, which was built by John and Abigal, was only a couple miles from our house. Everytime we drove by my sisters and I would say, "some weekend we should go tour the house." To date I still have not visited it. Now this comes to mind because this is a bank holiday weekend and my friends are all talking of going to Holland, Poland, Italy, Turkey, Spain....my DH and I are going 10 miles down the road to a food festival then are going to do the craft trail around Breedon Hill which you can see from our front door. We've decided to be local tourists.

The photo at the top is of a local potter's shop, Toff Milway's Conderton Pottery. His work is beautiful and he and his wife are two of the nicest people I've met in England. His workshop is one of four that make up the Breedon hill craft trail. My DH hasn't been to any of them so this weekend we will make the curcuit and find a anniversary present for us!

Today I have to focus and get some blocks and directions made up for the Fairford group. Tomorrow we are doing baskets. Below is the Harvest Basket. We will also so the Scrap Basket and the Stamp Basket. Of course I have the directions written up for the last two which I haven't made a sample yet. The Harvest BAsket I have made a sample but have not written up the directions....focus, focus, focus! (it is a great day for a walk though.....)