matroyshkas, mousehole and a travelling Laura Ashley curtain salesman
I had such fun making that little village of Thimbleberry-styled houses last night, I pulled out a drawer full of scraps this morning and began planning some more colourful houses. It was the perfect morning for such pleasure. The sun was shining, the house was quiet, there was French music tinkling through the kitchen and I could not be anywhere else ’cause I was baking bread.
(In her glorious collection of cooking essays, “Home Cooking”, Laurie Colwin provides a recipe for bread that can be squeezed into a busy day of running errands, dashing to the office and the chaos of small children - bah humbug! I LIKE being a slave to my bread - it means the day s-l-o-w-s- down just delightfully and don’t we all need a bit of that!)
So, I set up the cutting mat on the kitchen chopping block - such a good height, but I have to continually fight the temptation to flour it well! - and with the picture in my head of what I wanted, got chopping …
This is a seaside village, perhaps Mousehole in Cornwall - always wanted to live there! - and the cottages are beautifully colourful and tumble cheerily down to the harbour’s edge. Strangely enough, Mousehole has a large number of resident Matroyshkas (courtesy of a pair of pyjamas Little A has grown out of) and they have recently been seduced by the charms and samples of a travelling Laura Ashley curtain salesman. No blank windows for the Matroyshkas of Mousehole - there are florals and butterflies aplenty!
Here they are, popping their heads out the doors and windows, checking to see whether their family’s fishing trawler has made it safely back to harbour.
One of the Matroyshka families is slightly rebellious - they have eschewed the traditional geometric designs and chic paisley of their neighbours and smothered their cottage with ravishing roses - the travelling Laura Ashley curtain salesman was guaranteed of a good time here! Actually, these Matroyshkas are related to the Araboolies of Liberty Street and Jessica, if you’ve not read this book you must cross straight over to Amazon and order it NOW. It has your name on it!
Of course, planning the quilt in my head as I cut meant that there were a few pieces missing. Never mind, back to the chopping block ..
But alas, even the slowest rising bread is eventually cooked (except this photo is BEFORE it went into the oven - you know, forgot to take an after photo before we ate it!) , and it was time to down tools, and head off to Nanny and Grandad’s for lunch.
But this evening, instead of cooking dinner for Little A, I glued myself to the dining table and sewed, sewed, sewed - until Little A confiscated the quilt - she only returned it when food was delivered.
There are two more borders to go - a fence-y kind of one using more of the small florals from the windows - we can imagine it is the travelling Laura Ashley curtain salesman, laying his wares out upon the wharves hoping to catch a few more customers. And then some kind of frame.
I like this bubbly border - I randomly chopped bits of 2 inch wide blue and separated them with 2 inch squares of red - Wee Play of course - I’m going to buy a bolt of this I love it so much. I also love the palest pink frame between the bubbles and houses - I was in a bit of a quandary with my brain stuck in the border=dark, border=dark gear and then suddenly BING! I thought “No! Palest pink!”
And I am utterly addicted to these houses and am off to Peppermint Stitches tomorrow to deliver metres of colourful bunting for Stacey’s windows AND buy 10 gorgeous fat quarters to make a BIGGER village of houses. This will be my second “take 10 random fat quarters” quilt - definitely my favourite kind of patchwork.
Carolann will kill me because I told her on Wednesday I would not make another stitch or cut on the houses until next Wednesday when we would work on it together - and now I’ve made two lots. Oh dear! Hey and also, I thought last night’s houses were colourful but do you know, I think they’re actually a cluster of workhouses for Victorian orphans - I mean, next to the Matroyshkas they look sooooo gloomy!
p.s. I just stuck my finger in my eye and it had soap on it - ouch! Definitely time for bed.
17 July, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Love the houses with the Matroyshkas in them!
17 July, 2008 at 4:14 pm
They are so so cute. Darling houses. I’m working on my own house quilt (did I tell you that?) and I have fussy cut things in the windows and on the door and stuff, too. Good minds must think alike! Mine is very simlilar to yours. Seriously I did not copy. I was making mine for a sample quilt/pattern idea. Maybe I had better not now? There must be lots of these out there that I didn’t realize.
17 July, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Stop, please stop! Everything you make takes my breath away and I’m suffocating here!
17 July, 2008 at 4:51 pm
The matryoshkas look fantastic in their colorful houses! And I’m in love with that pale pink border too…
10 random fat quarters?! So you buy 10 fat quarters, but surely you don’t pick them totally at random? Or…?
17 July, 2008 at 5:19 pm
oh…I forgot…I gave you an award. Come over and claim it :-)
17 July, 2008 at 5:24 pm
your houses with matriochkas are so cute !
17 July, 2008 at 5:32 pm
wow, this is blumming amazing !! love it.
Sarah x
hope you eye is ok. xx
17 July, 2008 at 8:46 pm
What a lovely quilt.. so colourful and cute!
17 July, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Lily!!!
This is ABSOLUTELY darling!!! I love it!
18 July, 2008 at 5:20 am
Lily, this quilt is darling! It has elements of whimsy, carnival, little village and class. What could be better? I see little A getting busy on her stories, I better catch up. She is doing a great job, especially keeping me reading. I am a hard one to please :) I wish I had your momentum and creativity, you are one crafty gal. Glad the weathers a bit better. Talk soon, Love Stacy
18 July, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I love both your housequilts! The images this post conjured up of a little Mousehole-like village complete with peeping Matroyshka neighbours and the travelling Laura Ashley curtain salesman made me chuckle, and the quilt is perfect - no wonder little A confiscated it!
18 July, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Another cheerful and adorable quilt! Your talents are abundant and thank you for sharing them with us!!
18 August, 2008 at 6:09 pm
The site blockaday.com is excellent resource, respect, admin.
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20 August, 2008 at 7:40 pm
I am a VERY new quilter - my sister is giving me ‘lessons’ and after my first cutting lesson she wanted me to pick out a pattern I thought I’d like to make. I happened onto your blog through MDK somehow but I love the houses and would love to try my hand at it. Would it be possible to get the dimensions of the first one (pre-Matroyshka) and in particular the bottom left solid block - I think I can calculate the rest from that OR is it bad etiquette to ask?? I’m a very BAD blogger, knitter and knit blogs have been my fav reading for several years now but I’m getting drawn into this quilting thing and I think I have you to thank for it. So creative - my sister has lots of stash so I think my first shopping will be there!!
21 August, 2008 at 12:35 am
The site blockaday.com is cool resource, tnks, admin.
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2 September, 2008 at 9:39 am
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