I love my city. Manchester, England. I've visited lots of fabulous countries round the world and beautiful places here in the UK. Manchester is my home and even if I ever move it will always remain home in my heart.
Manchester has so many areas of interest, fabulous architecture and a wonderful history of industry, including the cotton and textile trade; hence it being called 'Cottonopolis'. It has also more recently been dubbed 'Madchester' (reference to the music scene) and 'Gunchester' (we'll totally ignore that one!!).

I decided to make an English Paper Pieced block inspired by my city but I failed to really get any pictures of the most amazing sights, so please Google it and trust me! I did manage to get some cool shots though, mostly taken on a journey down Oxford Road (the main road from the South into the city centre). So here's an idea of where I live:


we have lots of trains and tracks

red brick

The Academy venue and the Contact Theatre in the background

bars, there's loads of them (loads of students too)

A wall in my neighbourhood

None of this really summed up my Manchester enough for me... so I scoured the internet and though I was tempted by lots of images of the beautiful mills and warehouses there's one building that means a lot to this Manc, Affleck's Palace. I spent WAY too much time in there as a teenager, it is an amazing building and such a fun place to explore. I also love the rain soaked street in this photo!


I used the palette builder at Play Crafts, source of photo.

I ended up with this bundle of fabric:


I chose to make a rose star block, since I'm working on a quilt using those blocks already and it would be fun to include one that reminded me of Manchester. I love how it looks:


It is a little different from the others and a bit more toned down but it still works and since this is my 21st block I thought I'd show how they all look together! I'm working on some low volume blocks to connect them together and I still want to make a lot more to get it to the size I want (to cover our bed... yeah I still have a LOT more to do!). My centre hexies are 1 1/2" each side.





This post is part of the Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop.  From 1st October - 30th November we are hopping all over the world EPP-ing in some fantastic locations.  Check out the full list here.

 On 30th November it's over to you to link up for a chance to win these fabulous prizes! Sponsored by Paperpieces.comFabricwormPink Castle Fabrics  Marmalade Fabrics, the Fat Quarter ShopWantItNeedItQuilt, and Aurifil.



Full details for competition entry can be found here.


Make sure you check out all the brilliant Travellin' Pic posts, tomorrow it's the turn of the talented Claire at Sewing Over Pins!


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