Latest progress & Festival of Quilts

Here we are in August and Maple Barn is growing steadily albeit below ground! Lots of trenches and pipe work, concrete and blocks - we were warned that so much money is spent where you can't actually see it and it turns out to be right! 
We have had so much soil taken away now - 61 lorries in total at 20 tonnes each time, it is certainly a lot of 'muck' but we are fairly confident that there won't be much more (?!!)

The studio is progressing well and the concrete slab is down, services are in and this coming weekend Richard will be putting gravel boards in to secure the ground around it. The studio and the house are all ordered and in manufacture as I type and we expect delivery to be at the very end of August to middle-end of September.

The footprint of the house is taking shape in the form of block work and Paul is preparing the site now for the block and beam floor which is currently in design and then stone which will surround (and cover the mud) the whole of the area outside of the house for scaffolding ready to receive the building itself.


This will make a huge difference for us living on site, trying to stay one step ahead of the weather and laying boards to walk on in order to stay as clean as possible is a nightmare; I've renamed the breed of our dogs- they were once Cocker Spaniels, now they're are affectionately known as 'mud hounds'!! I've had them clipped very short to keep them a bit cleaner but its a battle.

At some stage fairly soon we will have to move the caravan... This is attracting mixed reviews! We are situated quite high up (see previous photos) and we are going to be moving to the front of the site - Richard (who is an engineer) assures me that with simple planning and strategy it will be easy, (I'm less confident - that is by the way how we work together!!)It will be fun and I think I may start selling tickets for the event!

We had another mixed week of weather but managed a beer with Paul the builder and Tommy the bricklayer on Saturday!

And we celebrated my niece Millie's 1st birthday too, she's so adorable I can't resist posting a few photos!!

I did have a massive attack of cabin fever this week and we decided to go off for a mid week mini break and stayed at a friends house. It was so nice to have a real shower and a proper bed and a comfy sofa and big TV!! I'm now back on site and suitably refreshed to plod on with living in my trailer!!  


Textiles News:
A huge event in the Quilting and textiles calendar at the NEC this week is 'Festival Of Quilts'. It attracts a huge international following and I went along yesterday. There were some amazing textile creations and some of the art quilts were incredible.

Here are some of the photos I took yesterday: 

Edwina MacKinnon's 4Seasons

Ineke Berlyn

Linda Kemshall Close up

Linda Kemshall

My absolute favourite -close up

One of my favourite Art Quilts

Love this one!

Amazing perspective

and finally I have been building a website using TicTail an incredibly easy user friendly site where set up takes only minutes! I'm not quite ready to launch it yet, I still have more items to finish and or make but it wont be long before The Maple Barn Company is ready for business...

See you soon Wendi x