I have a collection of matryoshka dolls in wood, from small to huge, gathered from all over the world. While they originate from Japan, “the first Matryoshka doll wasn’t made until 1892” (from here). Many of mine are from Russia, but I’ve never traveled there. I’ve picked them up in Costco (!), Greek festivals at our local church, Berlin, and the large one at the back (nearly a foot tall), was purchased in the back of a copy shop in Chicago when my husband was there on business. He carried it home in his suitcase — a treasure for me.
(more photos are at the end of this post)
Another gathering of those nesting dolls showed up in my sewing room this month. I had wanted to make a gift to thank Janine for her hospitality when I showed up in London last month, so started to make one for her (she mentions it here). Then I wanted one for me (the red-head in the lower right), and then I realized I needed to make wee gifts for the tablemates at a quilting retreat I’m headed to this week, so added few more to the count.
I cut the cases from the one meter of yardage I purchased from Liberty, while I was in London. (Only one meter from that whole store — what restraint!)
I used 100% wool felt from two sources: some I’d purchased while in Berlin ages ago, and other felt I’d sourced when making the Oh Christmas Tree Quilt, some time ago. It doesn’t go bad in the cupboard, I promise. This post talks about some of the sources I used; the one that is still in business is A Child’s Dream. (How things change!)
The buttons are some that I picked up in Nantes, France, from ChifonieStudio, at the For The Love of Thread quilt show. Truly, this little doll is international!
I put more photos, the templates, illustrations and instructions in one of my PatternLite patterns, found in my PayHip shop.
And from now until our US Thanksgiving, I’ve put it on an introductory sale (incredibly cheep-cheep!). The pattern is listed here.
Besides a few decorative pins and my favorite large-eye needle, what did I put in the little pockets in the front and back? In the front are my favorite travel scissors: baby fingernail cutters, with very short blades. In the back pocket is my favorite thread conditioner from Rachel, of RileyAcres. I’ve been buying it from her for years and it’s made from the beeswax she collects from the bees she maintains on her property.
Construction photos. They are in the (currently, cheap!) pattern. BTW, I put it on an automatic discount so you don’t have to fuss with coupon codes, etc. but it only lasts until Thanksgiving 2026.
The tallest one at the back is the one my husband bought in a copy shop: scenes of family life, with mother on one side — and the father on the other when you turn the doll around. In front are some more dolls including Rosie, as she’s known (front and center with the large painted rose on her front apron).
Front of set…and back of set. (Click to enlarge the photos). Matryoshka dolls are like us: they contain multitudes (thank you to the poet Walt Whitman).
It’s a longer story about how I came to head to a quilt retreat in Utah, but it involves one of my long-time friends, Lisa. She cautioned me: get everything cut out! And Mary, of Zippy Quilts, also sent along another piece of advice: “wind lots of bobbins with neutral thread: it’s amazing what you can get done if you aren’t doing laundry!”
The scene earlier this week, with Janine’s Happy Jingle-bell Star in the background.
Project #1: two table runners for Halloween. That holiday now long gone, I’ll be ready for 2027 (she says, cheerfully!).
And then there’s this one: Project #2.
The original quilt can be seen here, but it just didn’t suit me, plus I wasn’t going to do some of those blocks since I’m doing hand-appliqué (I’m taking my Singer Featherweight, not the bigger machine). But I wondered: it can’t be Utah if there are no cherries that we canned when I was a kid? Or the spectacular Utah peaches, my mother lifting up those glowing jewels from the canner in our hot, steamy Provo kitchen that had no air conditioning? And where was Y-Mountain? And Watchman Peak, from Zion Canyon, where my husband and I spent our first camping trip after we were married (with four young children)? I had to add those things. So it’s not really the designer’s Utah quilt now, but My Utah Quilt. All of the piecing awaits, but most of the appliqué is prepped up, so I’ll get started on the long drive there.
If I get any time, I’ll prep up one more easy-piecing project (multiples of the same block). We’ll see. I do remember Lisa’s advice.
That’s Janine and I, up there under the Liberty Arch.
Apparently all roads lead to Liberty of London if you are traveling to England. Janine, of Rainbow Hare, has also written about meeting up a stranger (that’s me!) from the US in the great city on the Thames, and has a wonderful overview of that store. She called her blog post A Grand Day Out, and it was!
I learned from Janine’s blog that it has the idea of a ship at its origins, and I can see it in the timbered and half-timbered exterior (from a ship!) and interior:
I didn’t quite figure out the floor plan, but basically there are central atriums and so many beautiful goods for sale.
These are from the first central atrium we entered. That giant rose with all its petals made me wonder how they crafted it. Magic, I think.
Another atrium. They don’t just sell Tana Lawn or fabric, but being quilters, Janine and I made a beeline for that section, with one quick stop on the fourth floor to see the (new) Christmas displays).
Eyeball ornament?
And…eyeball tree. Must have been some current bit of culture I missed out on.
Love seeing their golden ship weathervane through the skylight. [Truth: Janine spotted it first. It is totally the best to go to a store with a fellow blogger. They see things you don’t, and visa versa, and we “see” so much more!] Okay, time to go down one flight of stairs (we were always looking for the stairs) to the fabric floor.
I saw some of this, too, in Paris, where they drape the mannequins in yardage and ruffles to show you a dress in their exquisite fabrics.
We were moving so fast, I didn’t get a chance to read about this display of giant scissors.
With the open atriums you can see all the festive Christmas lights. It would be so fun to be in London at Christmas. (next trip, haha)
Knowing I would be overwhelmed by it all, before I left home, I did some “pre-shopping,” browsing their website and choosing one print of Tana Lawn — only one — to purchase. I showed the young man (with the fabulous brooch on his shoulder) my photo of what I wanted, and he took me right to the yardage. One meter, please.
It’s for a secret project later on this year, so here’s the slightly disguised view. We also combed through their boxes of “scraps” or remnants, and I picked up a lovely floral clip-dot:
I learned about this way back in the day when I took my textiles classes in college. We know it now as “dotted swiss” but that fabric really that is little dots of glue and bits of fluff.
Above is the “true” dotted swiss: a long thread is carried during the weaving and then clipped short to create those little dots. Then it is printed afterwards, which is why some dots are blue or red or green. This is one of the beauties of Liberty: you can find the traditional fabrics.
While we were looking for stairs, we ran into a few other interesting Liberty tidbits:
What your fabrics are made from: spools of yarns.
The “Sole Spa” for “fabulous hands, feet, and legs.”
No(se) comment.
Stained glass in one of the stairwells.
And then out! We grabbed some lunch at Pret (which used to be called Pret A Manger) then walked over to MacCulloch & Wallis Ltd, another sewing store.
What is haberdashery? In America, we’ve adapted it to mean mens’ clothing, but the original meaning, from Chaucerian times:
“a haberdasher is a business or person who sells fabric and small articles for sewing, dressmaking and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons and zips” (from here)
Here’s some haberdashery eye candy, for those of us in the States still mourning the loss of the JoAnn’s stores:
Yes, I bought buttons. And some elastic to replace some in my half-slip that had worn out, which led Janine to take me to Marks and Spencer Department Store next to find a “half-petticoat.” A great adventure! And why did we ever change out the word petticoat for “slip”? Or the word “haberdashery” to “notions”? We really have to reclaim these words!
Some London sights.
After a restorative beverage at McDonalds (no judging, it was right next door), she took off to the train station to head back to her lovely English countryside. But she left me a great present in the form of a magic wand:
I put it in my scissors-and-pens container when I got home; when I sew on my machine, I can hear the little bells jingle. A treasure, from the hands of Janine.
When we were at MacCulloch & Wallis Ltd, we each got a tote bag with our purchase. Which leads me to confess I have a true love of tote bags. And Scotland and London feed that habit as they are Very Serious about no plastic bags. Maybe if we here in America had all these cute bags, we’d get rid of our plastic bags, too (except for special necessary occasions). Here’s most of the bags I toted home:
Topping & Company was the beautiful bookshop right around the corner from our flat in Edinburgh
Detour Story: When I was chatting with the clerk at Topping and Co. bookstore, telling him how much I enjoyed being in his shop, I mentioned that it was not like our bookshops at home. He asked me what they were like. And I said well, most of the things in the bookstores are not books. He then said the owner made a calculated decision to not even let pens be sold in the store because if pens come in, then you have to have journals and if you have journals, you have to have stationary, and so on. The whole place is just gloriously filled with books, along with a couple of racks of greeting cards, but that’s it.
Scottish Parliament Building (another tote). The deal in that gift shop is this: you can buy a paper bag for £1. Or you can buy a cloth tote bag for £2. That’s a no-brainer to someone who loves textiles.
The Royal Yacht Brittania, Queen Elizabeth’s decommissioned yacht, AKA Corgi City. I carried this bag around after that, but turned inside out so it wasn’t sooooo obvious I was a tourist.
National Galleries of Scotland (there are actually four of these linked museums, but they all share the same style of tote bag). Here’s a post about the tiled floors in the National Museum of Scotland. Above is the inner atrium of the National Portrait Gallery.
Holyroodhouse Palace. I was there on the “special day.” If I coughed up a bunch more £-notes, I could see the Queen’s Royal Apartments. I met some a mother and daughter who’d come up from Essex just to tour these rooms. I asked them “Do we like Camilla now?” Oh, yes, was the reply. “And how about your most recent returning royal, Prince Harry and his wife?” The two women looked at each other and shook their heads, saying something about how they need to keep their heads down and be proper royals. And in true British fashion, both of these women’s middle names were Elizabeth.
Last photo from London, in the Heathrow airport. I never did ride on the Elizabeth underground.
Next trip!
Bonus Tote Bags:
Backside of the National Gallery in London bag. Somewhere in the millions of title cards I read while going through museums, there was a line about what will we do when we don’t have museums to learn from? I loved that they were teaching me even on a tote bag.
As fellow lovers-of-cloth, you will understand when I tell you that I grabbed this from the tray in the hallway with someone’s garbage from their take-out dinner. I dumped out their cartons (neatly) and took it back to our hotel room. This heroic rescue made us just late enough that we had to run to catch our bus. #worthit
This past couple of weeks I’ve been traveling in Scotland, with a coda of several days in London. In Scotland, we stayed in Edinburgh where my husband had two scientific conferences which kept him (and us) tethered. We were fine with that, knowing how one can really explore a city if you are in it for a while. I’d done this before with Berlin, and now looked forward to exploring this city.
And…I wanted to buy some tartan. Or plaid, if you want to call it that (great article on that idea). We arrived in Edinburgh, took the tram to our hotel and were greeted with Conan Doyle’s statue with a cone on his head. I started laughing, but since my husband hadn’t seen much of the Tartan Army’s invasion of Boston during the World Cup this summer, he didn’t quite get the joke. I loved it. Welcome to Scotland!
The next day, our first foray to a fabric store was to Edinburgh fabrics. I was on a tartan hunt, and I wanted blue tartan.
We took a bus from our hotel (really well sited; details at the end) and in a few minutes we were there: Edinburgh Fabrics. I was not interested in the acrylic or polyester versions which I’d heard were in a lot of shops on the Royal Mile, but only 100% wool tartans from Scotland. I’ve been sewing with wool my whole life, so even though I now live in a warm climate, I wanted the traditional cloth.
I promised the fabric-cutting guy I wouldn’t post his picture.
Pretty quickly, I found the blue I wanted. I purchased a meter of wool, knowing that with its width, I could make a skirt. But the idea in the back of my mind was this dress:
I purchased that wool ages ago and made the dress. In cleaning out (and preparing for this trip) I found the dress again, and decided if I took it apart (one cuff and the collar are already gone; next is to separate the skirt part from the bodice part) and then augment the top with well-placed other pieces of tartan, I might get a jacket out of it. This is all in the fuzzy planning stage; stay tuned.
When I went back outside, I met the man in the blue T-shirt. His wife and her friend were inside the shop (I’d seen them picking bolts of fabric) and we struck up a conversation with him (my husband is on the left). He was cracking jokes left and right about quilters and stopping at shops. We were laughing at so many of them in complete agreement and understanding. The two couples were from the USA (the other man was in a car, driving around since they couldn’t find a parking place) and had been traveling around for 4 weeks…and stopping at every quilt/fabric shop. My kind of people!
So I ran back in the shop and took a photo of these lovely quilters. Wish we had more time to compare notes.
But the real experience I was after was a visit to Kinloch Anderson, all because of this skirt (also found in while cleaning out). I’d purchased it ages ago, the same time as the tartan plaid above, and I was interested in getting another as a souvenir for my time in Scotland.
(Tartans are worn for many school uniforms, like this kilt skirt on the young woman)
To visit them you get on their website and make an appointment. I did that about three weeks before I left, and we had an email conversation with what I was looking for, what I was interested in buying. So the next day, my husband and I got on the tram and went to Leith, right next door to Edinburgh.
Even though the tram was a bit late, and it was a drippy rainy day, the woman who greeted us was charming and kind and put me right at ease. We talked over our options, and she told me they had kilts I could order, or they had “kilt skirts” for purchase there, but I couldn’t choose the tartan — had to pick from what they had.
(from a display in the front)
I immediately fell in love with a soft green and purple skirt and tried it on. My husband thought it looked great, too. The woman helping me was ready to help me choose a tartan, get the fabric ordered from the weavers, but I told I liked this one, and would take it. I’d also done some research on the vagaries and mysteries of our country’s erratic tariffs and knew I could be paying a hefty sum on top of the shipping. It was a huge unknown.
We discussed this, and she was also aware of this limitation. For me that was a huge part of my decision to buy the kilt skirt right then. (The drape of it is shown in the black/white plaid on the right. They had two other styles, shown in the blue/green and the red.)
So what is the different between a kilt and a kilt skirt? The amount of yardage, for one.
(my husband took this photo in their small display room; right-click to open in a new tab, then click to enlarge)
A true kilt has about over eight yards of fabric. That is one reason why it swings so wonderfully when the wearer moves. I forgot how much was in a kilt skirt, but I think it’s more like around three yards, a dramatic difference in the amount of fabric, but also the weight of the garment. There are also varying weights of the wools; mine was a lighter weight.
Mine was mid-calf length, not short like this one. At this point, my husband took off to go get breakfast and walk around Leith, a picturesque town, so we said good-bye.
The woman who was helping me was ready to wrap up the sale, but I also wanted a kilt pin, a fancy one. So we went to an adjoining bay off the main room, and I chose one. Then she thought I was done, but I’d also read about their scrap bags. (I’m a quilter through and through.) She said she was the one to be choosing the size and color, so what did I want? Blues, of course, and about “this big,” as I held my hands in the approximate size. She left to go find the scraps, leaving me to explore in the area we’d started.
I found a true kilt. No dainty skirt hanger clips for this one.
I hefted it off the rack and laid it on the table. I was interested in seeing the construction.
I loved the hand-stitching on the above inner panel, and the neat edge treatment with the 1-inch fringe. I carefully replaced it on the rack.
They made and supplied all parts of a kilt outfit, from the jackets to the kilts to the stockings and shirts and accessories. I loved these snazzy and elegant cuffs on one of the jackets for men.
They had many books of tartan samples.
This one reminded me of my dress. I can’t remember the details of the purchase of that tartan fabric long ago, as we were all using cameras and film and didn’t document our lives to the extent that we do now.
She came back with two scrap-bags full of tartans in blue. I was in heaven! I can really have fun remaking my dress bodice into a jacket, if I can just figure out how, with some leftovers for other various projects.
My husband returned from his walkabout, and we chose two ties for him in two different tartans, one Christmasy in red and green, and one in blues (of course).
This is my twined thistle style of kilt pin, even though they included a more traditional pin with the skirt.
She brought out a beautiful skirt hanger and a garment bag, and we took it back to our hotel where I hung it up in the window to take a photo. This tartan’s name is “Kinloch Anderson Heather,” the skirt a midi-length.
I had one more kilt-related experience in the next couple of days. Again, I’d done some research about high quality shops to visit, as it’s generally acknowledged that the stuff on the touristy Royal Mile isn’t of high quality. Beside the one mentioned above, there was another I knew about:
Gordon Nicolson, on the end of the Royal Mile near the Parliament and Holyrood Castle. (As with Kinloch Anderson, I asked for permission to take photographs.)
Tartans everywhere in scarves, but they also make custom kilts as well as do rentals for weddings, as does Kinloch Anderson.
The black and white sporran, above, is not a skunk — like I made the mistake of blurting out loud — but is a badger. Remember that kilts have their origins in the hunting and military skill of the highlanders, and project that image.
Upon seeing the Dick Winters (above, on the shelf), the age-old question has been resolved.
I was there to look for a circle brooch or pin, as I wanted to wear it to the gala dinner at the end of the conference, with a sash (I’d found a long length of tartan in my scrap bag that I could use as a scarf).
I chose an intertwined circle Celtic-knot style. (And in case you were going to ask, I’m probably the only one in the world who has not seen the film series Outlander.)
There was quite a bit of tartan wearing that night, and no one said anything to me, so I guess I looked okay. The venue was the National Museum of Scotland. I put up a post about the floors here.
(at Kinloch Anderson)
Here are the details:
Edinburgh Fabrics Open 10 AM -7 p.m. Monday through Saturday 12-14 St Patrick Square, Edinburgh EH8 9EZ
Kinloch Anderson 4 Dock St, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6EY, UK Their Website This has their address, hours and a link to click for an appointment. They really aren’t too set up for walk-ins, but will try to accommodate you (but please do try to schedule yourself).
Gordon Nicolson 189 Canongate, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, EH8 8BN Their Website. You’ll love all the photos and tips and details, and they also prefer that you schedule an appointment. They do NOT sell scraps, but instead re-use them for accessories in their shop (I purchased a small tartan zipper bag), or donate them to charities.
While this post is mainly about my tartan adventure, I did also visit a quilt shop: My Bear Paw Website Open Wednesday through Saturday from 10-5 50 Lochrin Buildings, Gilmore Place, Edinburgh, Midlothian
I purchased her original quilt pattern, a meter of checked fabric, trim and a FQ.
We stayed in the eastern side of the city at Forth House by Supercity Aparthotels, at 6 Broughton St Ln, Edinburgh EH1 3LY. It was a block from the large St. James Quarter (a mall) that has a great ramen place inside, as well as good shopping. It was served well by multiple bus stations and a tram stop.
I’d read about this quilt show — For the Love of Thread — in the QuiltMania magazines for years. This year my husband and I were finally able to travel to Nantes and attend the show.
First, some basics: Nantes (pink star) is in Western France, near the Atlantic side of things; most people head to Paris, which is north-central France. The orange star is in Eastern France, and that’s where the Carrefour European Patchwork Show that’s held in the villages of Val D’argent is located. There are commercial tours to both shows, but we were able to plan and travel there ourselves. The Nantes show is held in April; the Carrefour is held in September. (Just do a web search if you are trying to find tours.)
Having traveled to other parts of France, Nantes was a total surprise to both of us — a delightful surprise. It’s the sixth largest city in this country, and has a different flavor than other regions we’ve visited. We arrived at Paris Charles De Gaulle airport at about 1 p.m., then took a train across the country (train left at about 5 p.m. and arrived in Nantes about 3 hours later). This gave us time at the airport to clear customs, catch a bit of lunch, check out the convenience store for chocolate (I’m crazy about the chocolate in France, even the drugstore variety), and then catch our train. While in Nantes, we stayed within walking distance of the Gare (or train station), which also allowed us to catch the tram to the quilt show the next morning.
We checked with the hotel clerk, who confirmed what we planned and after buying our tickets, we got on the tram with other women, carrying interesting bags and totes (a sure giveaway for a quilter). I saw so many interesting bags and totes while there, that I made a video.
After riding for a bit, wondering how we would figure out where to go when we got off the tram, a woman (I later learned her name was Sylvaine), got on the tram and started doing embroidery, so we struck up a conversation. After about a 20-minute ride, she walked us over from the tram when it arrived at the convention center, or Parc Expo. The quilters were already lining up a few minutes early.
We came in the main door (in the white building in the first photo) where they checked our bags, and walked out the other side. We followed the crowds as they walked over to this building, where the quilt show was being held. The white tents you see are the lunch places. We showed our tickets, got our wristbands (we had purchased a two-day ticket), and were in!
[Hope this video works…] Yes, everything’s in French, but fabric and smiles are a universal language. Most of the booth vendors spoke English as did many of the guest artists (many were from Australia), so I didn’t have a problem. Even buying tickets at the tram stop you can switch to English, and I kept Google Translate handy on my phone for places I needed to know the language.
The guitarist was in front of The Red Dress, and both were beautiful. Haven’t heard about The Red Dress? I hadn’t either until I went to the show’s website before the show and read about it.
The photo on the left was when we first arrived, when the show opened. The photo on the right was taken after lunch. Quilters had arrived! But it wasn’t just quilters: it was embroiderers, sewists, crocheters, purse and bag makers, and I even saw a jewelry booth. Here’s a slide show of the vendors; click to advance the images:
Note: except for a few crowd shots and candids, I received permission to take photographs.
I saw so many beautiful things and purchased a few, here and there. Here’s something I didn’t see: pre-cuts. That whole American-merchandising thing seems to be missing from here as well. The vendors are small, specific, art-driven, and some of the things they sell are kits, new ideas (like the leather handles from Miyako that you can move from bag to bag, instead of having to have one handle per one bag — genius). But unfortunately, because of the tariffs here in the US, it is nearly prohibitive to ship to the US market for many of these vendors, but I can sometimes find them on ETSY or other small marketplaces.
In several places around the show are make-and-take tables. This was the embroidery table. On the left, at the opening; on the right, after lunch. It was popular!
The crochet table, top left. The “Corner for the Bloggers” are the other three photos…and me! It got busier and busier as the day went on. When my husband was tired of following me around, he retreated here.
The crocheter setting up a display. It was fascinating to see. There were four or five booths for those who liked to crochet.
On one side of the Vendors Hall were the “classrooms.” These were surprisingly quiet, and I saw several classes in session.
On the other side of the Vendor Hall were the quilt displays, rooms created out of movable walls, done in brilliant colors. I used my Google Translate on some of the signs. Sometimes I even used my Husband Translate (he speaks French).
This exhibit was Collections, from Hungary. We talked to this quilter, Ildikó Kalocsa, about her work, and thanked her for coming to France. I loved the texture in her work. We also asked her about Hungary’s recent elections, and she said “Oh, we are so happy!” It was evident in her smile.
Slideshow for Inmaculada Gabaldon, from Spain (photos on this post were taken both by my husband and I):
Click to advance the images. She does all her own quilting on a domestic machine, not a long arm. In the photo I took of her, she chose the background, and it was a photo of herself as a child. The last photo is of me in an adjoining “room” looking back toward the main hall, with Inmaculada talking with quilters.
Carolyn was a joy to visit with, welcoming and happy to answer questions about her unique approach to doing her reproduction quilts: she actually has the background fabric printed to mimic the spots and bits and discolorations of antique quilts, and uses it when she makes her reproductions. (Carolyn on Instagram) If you go to her website, you can order some.
Finally, it was time to leave, but not before I tried to find Carol Veillon and thank her.
I felt invisible in the quilt world until Carol, in her magazine QuiltMania, published a quilt of mine that was hanging in the Road to California Show, where I first met her. She is kind and charming and encouraged me to continue submitting. I had several more published by her and every time it was like Christmas had come.
I thanked her for this, and for her kindness towards me, and grabbed a quick photo as she was incredibly busy. She is someone who had made a different in our quilting world, for all of us.
We walked back to the tram, and as we rode back to our hotel, were joined by families, strollers, children, mothers, teenagers; it was a far cry from the quiet ride in the morning. I will probably post the quilts I did take photos of here and there as I go forward, but I can’t leave this post without giving you some photos of Nantes.
The old LU biscuit factory, around the corner from the Gare, taken in sunset.
A store selling the town sweets: Les Rigolettes Nantaises. They seem like hard round little candies, but once in your mouth the outer hard shell dissolves and they are chewey and delicious. They come in five traditional flavors: lemon, raspberry, blackcurrant, mandarin, and pineapple.
They come in these charming tins (well, the elephant was a different candy), and I’ve already repurposed one for straight pins.
Joan of Arc is big around here. This statue inside the church is dedicated to her, as she hails from Orléans, which is up the road a bit in the Loire Valley.
The Elephant, one of “Les Machines” on the small island in the Loire River adjacent to the city center. A huge mechanical creation, it moves slowly around as it takes a walk, squirting tourists and children with water. We had a great time seeing this.
A few more sights (click to advance):
And what did I take away from the quilt show?
A book from the SAXE bookseller booth, and some fliers
During the pandemic, I agreed to let them share my blocks with readers of the QuiltMania newsletter. The patterns have now come home to stay, and most are free (see tab, above).
