The more old school, the better!

Autumn has most definitely arrived. I've been picking the very last of the tomatoes, and although there is plenty of fruit left on the raspberry canes, there are no flowers left to be pollinated. That's almost it for another year.

I can't say that I mind, I love this time of year most of all, the colours and smells, foggy mornings that smell like woodland, sharp star glittery evenings, and the food!  Salad takes more of a backseat and is replaced with soups and casseroles, cooking with thyme, rosemary and all those gloriously earthy and resinous herbs. Spiced fruit breads proving every week along with the normal loaves, comfort foods. I came across a recipe for Amish baked oatmeal which sounds like the most amazing winter breakfast now that the fresh berries are on the way out, have a look here. I'm going to have a go tomorrow and will report the results!!

I finished this quilt top last weekend, it felt like an amazing feat for me to cut and stitch in two and a half days - then I realised that I did not have any wadding left. I ordered some immediately but felt deflated that my on a roll had come to such an abrupt halt. Rather than give in to the slump, I decided to start a project that I could pick up and put down in between others, so that I would always have some mindless sewing to do. Looking through my stash recently I had realised that I had a lot of green fabrics that I had held on to for a long time, often because they just didn't fit in with the modern projects I had been doing. So, I decided to make a log cabin quilt in Christmas reds and greens - the more old school the better!

But what really happened, was that as soon as I started using these fabrics, I fell for them all over again, and could suddenly see why I'd had the urge to buy them in the first place.

I'm really glad that I didn't destash these prints, and I'm quite excited about seeing how these blocks turn out. I need to push for a log burner before winter properly sets in, so I can sit in front of it wrapped up in my old school quilt.

Blocks in progress - each has three strips at each side of the centre block.

I'm even contemplating tying this quilt rather than quilting, with perhaps a wooden button in the centre of each block? I've never tied a quilt before so it would be interesting to see how it turns out.

I had to add this last shot - one of our gerbils, Benny. He's a boy after my own heart - while eating chocolate, always keep your second chocolate drop very safe and very close until you're ready for it. From now on, I'm going to keep all my best chocolate on my head.