Visit to Salts Mill, Bradford

 I went off on a jaunt to Salts Mill in Saltaire, Bradford with some friends yesterday and after a wrong turn or two we arrived in glorious sunshine (such a contrast to two days ago when it was snowing).  Salts Mill was built by Titus Salt in the 1853 to spin his alpaca and russian wools.  He built the whole village around it for the workers, including a church and a school, in response to the appalling living conditions in nearby Bradford.

 I can never go very far without finding a cat

 and another,

 and another.  I'm wondering if T. Milnes made lions for gravestones as well, I'll have to do some research, as these lions remind me of one in Highgate Cemetery.

 The streets are narrow and cobbled still.

 The chimneys are massive.

 The church like a spectacular cake!

 The mill building is now divided into galleries with art materials, a book shop to die for (I could have spent all day and all my money in there), antiques emporiums and yummy restaurants.

 Even the toilets have been left with the industrial tiles and feel.

 There is a designer homeware shop with displays of vintage pottery, some by one of my friends.

 And they had a display of Totem by Portmerion, one of my all time favourite ranges.

 Around the mill are lovely shops including vintage, which is where I spotted this lovely bit of embroidery

and a gallery showing these super quirky art dolls by Ann Davies, an artist living and working in Saltaire.

Just to prove it was snowing earlier this week, some snowdrops out at Newtown Linford, so pretty with their little blanket of snow.

Stitching Little Quiltlets

 Now the studio is tidy and my table is clear I'm back to creating!  In tidying up I came across lots of started-but-not-completed projects.  Let's face it we all have them.  The ones we lose interest in, the ones that need something but we don't know what, the impulse buys etc.  Well, one of my resolutions this year is to finish more than I start!  So these little quiltlets, a la Teesha Moore, were started ages ago and then I moved on to something else and these languished in a box.

 Well, no more.  I've now cut out some more, watched the videos again on Youtube and started stitching again.  They are so simple to make and easy to pick up and put down, so ideal TV project.  It's great when a project fits in a box don't you think?

 I also came across this stitched journal that I suspect was made using Teesha Moore's instructions and only one flap had been started, so combining the quiltlet cover with this journel will mean two projects finished!

In the process of tidying I came across this box of soft sculptured heads that I made in workshop many years ago, probably the 90's, and I still don't know what to do with them.  Any suggestions?