Don'tcha just love it when a plan comes together ......

I've been stripping for months now ...... strictly on a crafting basis you understand ;-) all in aid of the no strings challenge.  As I have sat stitching strips to square backing fabric it occurred to me that if each square had the same fabric as the starting centre piece, a clearly defined border would start to emerge.  Surely the same principle would apply to a rectangular shape and it did.

So the old brain cells got going and I sat with pen and paper working out how to place colours to produce one of the old favourites and here it is .......

The no strings Union Jack which at some point this week will become a cushion cover. 

Just made with four rectangles and the only piece of fabric to be sewn on when it was assembled was the centre horizontal one.

We've had a lovely sunny but chilly Easter Sunday here and this morning was the opening of this season's car boot at my favourite local site .... it doesn't open till ten so I don't have to drag myself out of bed at the crack of dawn.  I really didn't expect it to be on as we'd had some heavy overnight rain which must have put a lot of sellers off because there was only a fraction of the usual number there.  The vultures were in position and swooped on the poor sellers before they had chance to get their doors open.  This is one of my pet hates but sadly there is no way of keeping them out of this particular site until the sellers are ready.  The pickings were very slim but I did manage to get one bargain ... a Royal Worcester three tier square cake stand .... it is plain white but for £3 I think I got the real deal.

and of course some baking had to be done to fill it when I got home .... you will notice that there are some gaps and I now have a grown man sulking because he got told off for pinching them before I'd taken the photo .... I turned my back for a minute and they'd gone!  The green glass sundae dishes in the background are from a set of six from the charity shop purchased a week or two ago.

When we left the car boot we headed for two little monthly antique fairs in neighbouring towns .... we hadn't visited these for ages and were pleasantly surprised to find new stalls and sensible prices.  My one little temptation here was a cute Arthur Woods Piggy Money Box for £3

He goes very well with this little bear ... also from the charity shop .... I've decided to break the line of blue & white on my dresser and these pretty colours are just the job.

The day has finished with a family dinner of traditional Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding and now I'm off to munch on some choc and get the crochet hook working.

Hope you all had a lovely relaxing day x