A Busy Weekend–Part 2

Well I might have spent Saturday sewing, but Sunday was spent shopping and drinking tea.  I’ve heard many times how wonderful Snape Maltings in Suffolk is, so when I heard they were having a ‘Cool Yule Christmas Market’ my friend Miss H and I decided we should investigate.

Our first ‘laughter event’ of the day happened as we drove into the car park.  In the row behind us was a silver BMW (private number plate and lots of chrome) with it’s hazard warning lights flashing.  Curious we took a closer look once parked in case someone needed help or something.  And that’s when a discovered what was going on….  The owners had obviously arrived and wandered off for a little shopping leaving their dog in the car.  This dog had then turned on the lights (probably by standing on the button which is quite easy in some cars) and was now sitting in the front looking annoyed.  It didn’t take much imagination to add speech bubbles above his head.

“Leave me in the car will they…  I’ll show them what it feels like to be stuck in the car park… Lets see how they like a flat battery when the get back…  Hehe that’ll teach them to go swanning off and leave me in the car…”

We laughed about the little dogs expression all the way to the stewards, we did feel a responsibility to inform someone of the impending flat battery, only to have them burst out laughing at our recounting of the situation.

The market itself was a delight to walk around apart from being on gravel which isn’t good when you’re in heals.  As a result there are no photos of that part, between the crowds, shopping opportunities and balancing act, I didn’t really feel like getting my camera out.  I did however take some photos in the main part of the Maltings.

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One of the tea shops is on a balcony overlooking the home wares section.  This provided a wonderful opportunity to drink tea and people watch.

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The other cafe area had the most wonderful red lampshades which I just had to take a photo of.  Yes, I did get some funny looks for that.

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There are also galleries, boutiques and antiques. 

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Unfortunately I spent a lot of the time weighed down with shopping bags hence the lack of photos from the latter half of the day.

Then we found a lovely little Farm shop with a Tea Room on the way home for yet another cup of tea, this time accompanied by a cheese scone.

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Once again I couldn’t help but look up and get my camera out.  Fortunately I didn’t get any strange looks this time….

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All in all a lovely day out, and yes, I’m still chuckling about that dog…

Happy Birthday Quilters Haven

Thursday was the 18th Birthday of Quilters Haven, a lovely little fabric shop not to far from here in beautiful Suffolk.  So I just had to pop along for some birthday cake.  That I could also do some shopping wasn’t an incentive – honest!

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Here are a few shots of their ‘teaching room’ where some beautiful quilts were on display.  This first one was my favourite.  Why?  Well when I looked closely most of the fabrics were ones that I probably wouldn’t buy.  Yet when combined I just loved them.  I’m still new to quilting and it’s taking some time to ‘get my eye in’ on how fabrics looks so different when combined like this.  So for no other reason than the feeling this quilt helped me on that journey of understanding, it was my favourite.

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Of course it wasn’t the only one on display and all were really beautiful.  I did manage to clock the lady behind this ones name – Mary Wolley.  I wonder what sort of machine she used?  I really don’t see how I could get something that size through my sewing machine to do the actual quilting bit…

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Here’s a more general view of the teaching room.  As part of my retail therapy I signed up for a course in a few months which I’m already looking forward to.  What else did I buy?  Well some wadding to finish my mams quilt and some beautiful red rose fabric to make some new cushions for the sofa.  Of course with the summer being nearly over it’s anyone’s guess when they’ll get finished, but at least I now have the materials.

Hope you have a good weekend and anyone heading back to school doesn’t get to stressed out…

Mara…

Squeeeeee………

Yesterday I went shopping with Maytheweed and we had a ‘squee’ moment.  We popped into a reasonably local fabric shop that also stocks some yarn.  Now this shop is not known for ‘high end’ or ‘luxury’ yarns, so imagine our surprise when we found some of this…

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Six 100g lots of this gorgeous squishy kettle dyed merino, AND IT WAS REDUCED! Now I should point out that I don’t mean 5% or 50p off, I mean seriously reduced.  No, I’m not going to tell you by how much because you’ll hate us as a result.

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There were three lots of this stunning blue and three of a similar colour way but in purples.  All were swiftly paid for and put into bags before we even considered looking round the rest of the shop (no way were they getting the chance to change their mind on the price).

It was interesting to note (which we did later over a cup of tea) that I instinctively went for the blues and she went immediately for the purples.  There was no humming, debating or envious looks at the others skeins, just a quick grab and pay.  That probably says something deep and revealing about our personalities but I’ve not had enough tea yet this morning to speculate, instead I’m going to admire my new yarn and dream of the yummy things I can make with it…