A little bit of shopping and yet more temptation!

Another week over and I am afraid to say I still have not been able to complete my second block of the Beyond the Cherry Trees album quilt, although I did get the second stem and four centres stitched on last night, so there is light at the end of the tunnel!

I decided to give myself a day off yesterday from the marking and went... shopping! Regional 2 of the Quilter's Guild of the British Isles were holding a day in Sevenoaks, so I decided to go along, not to the presentations or workshops, they were out of my interest field but to see what the traders had. It was a very small selection to choose from, but look what I found...

The purples and blues will be used for the grapes in the centre of the Beyond the Cherry Trees album quilt and I will add a dark brown that I have been saving for the project. I think it will all go well together although for me the batiks and Fossil Fern fabrics are a bit of a shock to the system! The threads will be used for stems and the tendrils on the centre grape block and I just bought the red thread for... just in case it's needed. If not, I will add it to my collection of embroidery threads.

More temptation...

Do you remember at the beginning of the year I wrote a list of all my projects currently underway? I have so many more projects that I want to do sitting in drawers and project boxes and now there are three more to add to them - Barbara Brackman's Civil War BOM in remembrance of the sesquicentennial year of the US Civil War, Rosemary Young's Detroit News Applique Flower Garden series and now Margaret Mews' Maltaville 1847 Quilt BOM.

Made for Mary Hill by the ladies of the Presbyterian Church at Maltaville, New York 1847.

I saw the Maltaville Quilt on a trip to Washington DC in November, 2008. It was on display in a glass cabinet on the ground floor of the Smithsonian Museum of American History. I wasn't in a particularly good mood that day - another story, but this quilt lifted my spirits considerably and the securty guards were very obliging as I took photograph, after photograph. Unfortunately, though from whatever angle I tried I still got the reflection from the lighting and the vertical line is from the glass panels, so I do not have the best of photographs :-(

Each block is signed by a member of the Presbyterian Church of Maltaville, New York and some have a verse. The block above was signed by Almira E Ohnstrad. The brown fabric in the tulip centre has unfortunately oxidised, but the rest of the quilt is in a very good state.

Oh dear, these blocks are really quite simple and I have so many of the fabrics already in my collection, so they wouldn't take me that long to applique each month... surely?