Harrogate, owls and a lovely package

I have been off to the Harrogate Trade Fair this week to do our buying for the next season. I had great plans to take a lot of photos and give you all a lovely visual tour. However I came down with a nasty cold not long after we arrived and it was all I could do to drag myself around and focus on the job at hand. My heavily pregnant colleague, Sarah, was more sprightly than me! So the best I could manage was the shot above of our Yorkshire Cream Tea at Betty's before we got the train home. They were the most amazing scones I have ever tasted and did cheer me up temporarily. We also hoped to revisit the fabulous Duttons for Buttons as featured in my Harrogate post last year, but alas, time, funds and energy were in too short supply.

Despite my major brain fog, we did manage to buy some lovely things, including gorgeous Liberty print notebooks and address books. Sarah was so excited (and impatient) to have these notebooks (she has a major notebook problem), that she talked the nice sales lady into giving us a sample there and then (no one argues with a pregnant woman, I have found this week!). Sarah chose the one below. The fabric is also in my collection and I used it recently in my Doll Quilt!

I hate being ill and I am a very pathetic and grumpy patient. Having worn myself out at the Trade Fair, I needed to spend all of Wednesday in bed. My eldest son, Felix (the chef) very sweetly made me soup for lunch, and dinner for the whole family, and carried everything up and down the stairs to me too. And because he is such a good chef it all tasted amazing (well you know what they say about feeding a cold...).

I couldn't bear to just lie there so I started work on some new mini owls. I am back at work today and just sewed the last of their eyes on. Here they are with what remains of their brothers and sisters. They look so sweet all together!!!

The other thing that cheered me up when I got back from Harrogate was a little package that had arrived in the post...

Lucy Ellen, who is one of the DQS9 swap mamas, had asked me about one of the fabrics in a stash photo of mine on Flickr. I told her that it was a Liberty fabric that I had bought half a metre of recently (for a good price in my local dress fabric shop) and offered to swap her a fat quarter of it for something from her stash. And look what I got!!
Not only lovely owl and retro fruit fabrics but also this big stash of buttons! Lucy had read on my blog of my love for buttons and sent me some from her collection. This certainly makes up for not visiting Duttons for Buttons!  I love that Alexander Henry owl fabric to the left, and had been trying to get some with a white background but it seems to be sold out  everywhere I look in the UK. So I think I have done very well out of this little swap - thanks so much Lucy!

I am back to my old self now and even started packing up some of my sewing room last night. Last weekend I had a last push to get some more bags and cushions made for the shop. These 4 patchwork cushions  are similar to the box ones I made a few weeks back but these are just throw cushions, about 15" squared. Each one has a piece of vintage embroidered linen too.

 Here are some tote bags I made to replace 2 that I have sold already in the shop.

That's it now. I am packing everything up and just leaving out my African Flower crochet, the Doll Quilt (just hand sewing to finish), and a new cot quilt project to start (some applique). Everything else will have to wait until I am installed in my NEW sewing room.
Life is going to be pure chaos for the next few weeks...