Castles In The Air

Castles Quilt Pattern

 

Purchase Castles Pattern Set

 

A couple of years ago, Ruth invited me to a wonky house swap on Flickr.  I was at a loss what to make because Ruth, Sil and Sandy are expert wonky house designers.  After a short while of thinking over many ideas, I decided to make 12 castles.  I have loved castles since I was a little child, reading about the brave men and women defending the stronghold.  I have quite often arranged our travel plans around cities with castles in them.  So it was an easy choice for me and my swap-mates loved the idea.  Along with the 4″ blocks that I made for them, I also made these 10″ blocks.

 

 

Castle Quilt Pattern

 

 

I found these three fabrics of different colours with foliage prints on them. I used the same white for the sashing and the binding, and other two for the two borders.  I was reading a short story at the time which may have influenced my choice of putting foliage around the castles.

I quilted the main part with a yellow variegated thread and the outer border with a teal variegated thread.  I didn’t want to add extra colour to the inner border, so I used a white thread for that one.

 

 

Castles Quilt Pattern

 

back of the quilt

 

Last weekend we drove up Napa Valley to the Culinary Institute Of America.  The college is in a magnificent stone building surrounded by lichen and moss-covered stone walls.  I knew I had to take my castle quilt there for a photo since the day I first clapped eyes on it.

 

 

 

Purchase Castles Pattern Set

 

Once we found a quiet spot my poor husband crouched down behind the quilt while holding it up for me.  I took at least 10-12 shots with a manual focus lens (a lengthy process) before I decided I didn’t like any of them.  So he found a way to anchor the quilt on the wall.  Although I said I didn’t like the photo, I decided to show the photo anyway!

 

 

Pink Magnolia

 

 

The campus of the Culinary Institue of America has many magnolia trees and all of them were in full bloom.  We walked around the campus for a little while, admiring these gorgeous flowers before driving to Calistoga, the neighbouring city nearby, for some pastry and coffee.  It was a perfect day!

 

Links to individual castle quilt patterns  –

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March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

 

-Soma

 

 

 

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Sunday Puttering

Taffy In The Morning

 

 

The Sun is deciding on a daily basis lately if it wants to show its face or not.  Today is cloudy – it won’t rain but it is keeping it cool around here.   My favourite kitchen store is now at least an hour away from our new place instead of fifteen minutes away as it was in the city.  Since we decided to make a day of it and drive there through the beautiful wine country yesterday, puttering around the house today felt like the best thing to do on a cloudy, cool Sunday.   This boy of mine is very skittish, so it was also very nice to have him around in the morning during breakfast!

 

 

Homemade soap

 

 

This is the first batch of soap I made from scratch in this house and it was time to take them out of their moulds.  They spent the night in the freezer so I could pop them out very easily.  I am desperately in need of essential oils for the soaps since we decided to buy them after the move.  I better get on with it!  I used jojoba oil and tea tree oil for these.  I love home-made soap.

 

 

Potato Leek Soup

 

 

After taking care of yesterday’s shopping and the soap in the kitchen, I made a light potato-garlic-leek soup for lunch.  I love putting fresh thyme in this soup.  However, since my new thyme plant unfortunately didn’t make it,  I had to used dried ones this time.  The soup was very tasty nevertheless.

 

 

Castle Quilt Top

 

 

I have been working on finishing a few quilts too.  I finished putting the wonky castle quilt top together – I’ll quilt it with an Argyle pattern very soon.

 

 

Flowers Of The United Kingdom Quilt Top

 

 

Before I work on the castle quilt though, I want to finish this mini first.  The top is ready and I finally have an idea on how to quilt this one – lots and lots of overlapping concentric circles.

So that’s my Sunday so far.  Now I am off to play a video game with my hubby and later on make a chocolate pear pudding for desert.  He is making dinner tonight. Woohoo!

Wish all Sundays were this quiet!
-Soma

 

 

 

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