Mariner's Compass block and my new room (164)

Yesterday was the first day of the Intermediate Patchwork and Quilting course that I'm taking - it lasts for one full day and five half days, every fortnight or so. And the first day was quite a challenge, and pretty tiring, making the mariner's compass block for the centre of the quilt. I wasn't very happy with it in the end, neither the construction or the choice of colours, so I remade it today. It was helpful having had a first attempt yesterday as I knew where I needed to take more care. It hadn't helped yesterday that my needle position was a bit out and so my quarter inch seams weren't accurate. I took it to be serviced and sorted this morning, and sewed on my old machine. It's worked pretty well. The slightly mismatched seam in the middle won't matter as it's still to have a circle appliqued over it!

Well, my sewing and craft room is nearly there. The window still needs painting, as do some shelves, and there's still a bit of sorting out to do, but it's useable now and lovely to have everything together in one place. I've ordered some inserts for the sewing table, so that I can lower the machine and have it sitting flush with the table, and another which fills the hole up, so that I can use it as a desk or cutting table.This is the door going out into the corridor, with my fabric stash to one side, and some cork tiles on the wall with some of my stitcheries on. As you can see, my fabric stash is still fairly minimal, most of those pieces are fat quarters or smaller, with just a few half yards hidden in there somewhere ready for the Angel's Story quilt.Woops, just noticed the bits of paper on the floor, waiting to be read. The bag in front of the fabric is full of scraps waiting to be cut and sorted.This is the trolley we found, the top is exactly the same size as my cutting mat and just the right height for standing at. It just squeezes in between the open door and the end of the bed base. I've got to make an ironing pad to go on it so that I don't have to keep running up to the second floor bedroom all the time. You can just see the side of the bag of scraps on the right there.This book shelf fits neatly between the radiator and the airing cupboard, and houses all of my craft and sewing stuff. You can see the wall with the stitcheries on there on the left, so that finishes the tour of my little room. It's pretty small as you can see, in fact I've had to press back as far as I can to take each photograph, so there's no room for many more purchases, either fabric or craft goodies. I need to get hold of a chair for the sewing machine though, and I may squeeze a Lloyd Loom wickerwork armchair in there too. No room to swing a cat once that's all in there! Not that I could even lift Rosie to swing here if I wanted to (which I don't of course) she's so fat.

 And just to finish off this post, here is Rosie - can you spot her? She must have thought it was cold yesterday, as I found her not only under the quilt, but under the duvet as well!