Maltese Stitching

In case you think this has just become a travel blog I thought I'd share some stitching today - for the first time for ages!
This is what I'm working on while I'm in Malta.  It's a woven cloth I started after doing an online class with Jude Hill and those of you who have been with me for a while will have seen it in the early stages and also know that I've found it's not really my "thing".  However, I decided I would bring it with me to finish here, if I'm not motivated in the place that inspired the project then there is no hope.
I wove the cloth first and tacked it to a muslin backing.  Now I am stitching and adding various embellishments, all aspects of the island.

  Detail:

I was actually very encouraged this morning when I showed it to DH, his comment? 
"That completely says "Malta" to me."

A Strange Day

It's a very strange day today.  The weather is awful and I can't seem to get going properly although I have done a little sewing.
Earlier, between downpours, I went for a walk in the garden and found this:

It's a Pasque Flower.  Since when has Easter been at the end of September?  Things are pretty confused, it's not just me!
This is the finished quilt top from Jane Bottamley's class using Snowball and Framed Square blocks.  I'm not sure why it looks as if it has a vertical seam down the middle, it hasn't, maybe it needs a better press.  Isn't it strange how you sometimes can't see things until you look at them in a photograph?

As well as finishing assembling these blocks I've done some Cloth to Cloth today.  I wove a base cloth:

and as the technique we're learning is called "Double Weave" each warp and weft strip was two layers of fabric.  The idea is that we can use delicate fabrics, which wouldn't be strong enough for simple weaving, within the cloth and then expose them.  You can see some chiffon and lace peeking out.  So the next step was to start cutting.

I still can't resist being in control - I've created a Snowball block within my cloth!  It was interesting to anchor weave into the weaving, I enjoyed that although it was fiddly.  I will need to decide how to fix it all down, at the moment I've just machined a grid but it doesn't look right.

I'm going to make a nice cup of tea and start reading "The Patchwork Quilt" by Rose Boucheron which I found on the mobile library yesterday and maybe the day will become more ordinary.

Hesitation, then a Decision

I'm about to do something rather different for me and have been thinking about it for a while and then decided to jump in, all needles and scissors blazing.
I'm going to do an online course with Jude Hill at Spirit Cloth.  The course begins in September and runs for four weeks, it is called Cloth to Cloth and is a re-run of the over-subscribed course Jude ran earlier in the year.
Her courses are unusual, challenging and interesting, have a look at Jacky's blog to see what she's been doing on two other Spirit Cloth workshops and get a teasing view of the original Cloth to Cloth in the second part of this post by Nat.  I think these classes will take me out of my comfort zone, I like to be in control and Jude seems to do a lot of "what iffing".  I'll share my experiences here and I believe there are a couple of places left for the Cloth to Cloth course if you are tempted, plus other things coming along in the future.
If you get Quilting Arts magazine you'll find an article by Jude Hill in the current (August/September) issue.