Catch up, Mad Hatter, Alice, Creative Morning and Scrapstore Haul

So it's about time for a proper catch up - what has been going on here?  Well I have been busy. This post is a bit photo heavy and is not necessarily in the correct order :-)
This morning a friend was meant to visit but as she was unable to come I spent a happy couple of hours making bread (not in the machine as that is broken, but by hand).  Here are the results from the right: two small rye loaves with caraway seed, cheese and chive soda bread.  Front left is the best loaf - multi grain and behind it is also multi grain but with olives and it sank a little!  However, they all taste lovely.

Last Saturday I gave a talk about the Mid Summer Night's Dream Fairy costumes to the Spinners, Weavers and Dyers Guild, Wiltshire branch - the fairies enjoyed their outing....

Then on Monday I went off to Kingcombe, to spend three great days with my textile friends. My daughter calls it 'Going to your made up Harry Potter place' - becuause of the name of the village we go through... Toller Pocorum - it is real, and although I have never read or seen any Harry Potter I do think it is a magical place :-)

 

Whilst there I visited the chickens (who are very friendly) and watched this magnificent pheasant, so close to the door.

I did a lot of creative work and have nearly finished the Mad Hatter's jacket - and continued work on Alice's skirt......

Today after lunch I fancied a trip out to the local Scrap store to see if they had anything new in.  This is my very wonderful haul..... - the lady only asked for a donation of just £8 !!! I have used my phone to give you an indication of the size of the fabric sample books.  They are Anna French fabrics - which are either obsolete or the shop selling them has closed and given the books to the scrap store. 

The designs are just lovely - here are are few examples....

I also picked up a whole heap of small samples from the scrap bins and a couple of small sample books

 and found the cutest tassel samples - so had to have a handful of those  -

 there were threads too

and a lovely, small book of wallpaper samples which are really pretty...

This is how the bag covered my dining room table - loads to sort out.

I feel some patchwork Kindle or IPad covers are itching to be created.  Having said that though - the large Anna French pieces would make lovely quilted wall hangings - lots of stitching and some wadding etc - Must get on with some ideas, - No - I must get back to the Mad Hatter and Alice first :-)