Africa? China? No, just sunshine in Norfolk, England

The African Fabric Shop came on safari to deepest Norfolk today and so DH took me to visit them and I treated him to a delicious piece of cake to say thank you.  I wonder why quilting, fabric buying and yummy cake are such a good combination?
Also on safari was Sally Chang's Chinese textiles.  There was a wonderful selection of Chinese brocades and lots of indigo dyed pieces using both shibori style tying and stitching and a batik style resist dyeing using bean paste.  My purse just flew open of course and I got straight to work on this little runner when I got back this afternoon.  Here it is in situ

and here's a flat shot.  Sally doesn't seem to have a website but her email address is sally.warb at yahoo.co.uk

Once the sewing machine was warmed up I got going on this piece which is for the Brit Quilt Swap.  The colours are right out of my usual choices but I'm enjoying working with them.  I started with just the limes and purples but then I found the Amy Butler for Rowan "Peacock Feathers" fabric and it seems to bring everything together.  So far I've used foundation piecing to create this striped background cloth for the quilt.

I'm going to be adding this batik and also some handquilting and possibly some beady madness too, I'll see how it pans out but I just have a message for my secret swap partner who I hope is reading this:

After this weekend it will be too late to tell me you hate lime and purple!  Shout now if you don't like what I'm doing.
I hope that wherever you are you're having a great weekend - we have amazing sunshine here, I was actually out in my cossie yesterday, covered in high factor cream and feeling as if I had been mysteriously transported overseas, bliss.