Delighted we are still a United Kingdom and further update from the Craft Show

I am so pleased that Scotland voted to stay as part of the United Kingdom.   I was born and raised in England but consider my nationality to be British and like many English people part of my heritage (in my case a quarter) is Scottish.   Like many other Scots (and Irish) my grandfather left his native land for work in England but remained proud of his heritage his whole life including serving in the Royal Scots regiment in WW1.  So I changed the photo at the top of the blog to a floral Union flag in celebration.

Moving on to stitching matters - I have more updates from my spending spree at the Craft Show.

I enjoy doing needlepoint with wool occasionally and loved this London design which I had seen at a show earlier in the year and regretted not buying it then.  So it was my first purchase this time.

I had been reading on the Blackbird Designs blog about the set of 6 patterns Barb designed in celebration of the Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.   As I was a huge Beatles fan I couldn't resist 3 of the designs when I saw them at the show.  There is another one that has been published  (Blackbird);  the other 2 are caught up in copyright issues over the song titles!

Eleanor Rigby

Strawberry Fields Forever

The Long & Winding Road

I also love the quilt fabrics that Blackbird Designs produce for Moda fabrics and my large sampler quilt is made from one of their ranges.  

The Beatles theme designs aren't a uniform size so it wouldn't be easy but wouldn't they look wonderful as part of a quilt? -  using Blackbird Designs fabric of course.  If I am even vaguely considering this I need to use DMC not overdyes which as I know from painful experience run.

After buying 3 newly released patterns I spotted an older design I have loved for years so of course I had to have it.   It combines my 2 main passions - stitching and reading.

The Bookshelf by Little Hose Needleworks

I may change a couple of the names to better reflect my preferences.   I will probably stick with the theme of female writers so am thinking Eliot instead of Wilder and Gaskell instead of Burnett.

And last but by no means least from the same stand I bought:

Christmas Jumble by The Drawn Thread

Some goodies I bought at a recent Craft Show

Had a lovely day out at a Craft Show.  Met a few stitching/crafting buddies for lunch and at the end but most of the time we went our separate ways.

One of my favourite stands was a new cross stitch designer Itching to Stitch who had some lovely charts and kits, many of which could be personalised.  I loved that the kits came with linen and overdyed threads and I couldn't resist this gorgeous needlecase design.

The version I bought isn't on this picture but here is the kit showing the lovely blue linen

I would love to stitch this for myself and for friends.   Just need to locate those missing hours in the day.   "Eight Days a Week" always was one of my favourite Beatles songs and it's definitely what I need.

This Christmas Carol sampler also leapt into my hand - isn't it wonderful the way it can be personalised

Sew Enchanting from Devon always tempts me with their delightful range of fabrics and patterns for quilts and stitchery.   Lynette Anderson has a new range of fabric which I love called Pocketful of Daisies

Another stall selling Lynette Anderson goodies was Patchwork Chicks.  They had a wonderful advent stockings design which had sold out almost immediately.

I bought this pattern for a cushion

Also the pattern and the purse for this fabulous design

and this pattern with initials which I think will be very useful for small stitchy gifts

I am still in the process of going through and drooling over the goodies I bought so I will be updating this post later.