2011 August (1)

 Guess...

Guess what happened here today

Well done Niki

Drive safely x x x

Hand sewing and embroidery today

A few bits and pieces today, nothing from the to-do list, but mostly because I forgot to put these on the list!

I have measured and tacked the hem of Lisa's curtains, but want mum to check that they are OK and level and stuff before I press and sew them

Last year I contributed some blocks to the Linus quilt charity, and had a very nice email from the lady who went on to make a quilt out of them.  This year they are asking for transport themed blocks.  I'm not much for paper piecing etc, but I have a set of embroidery designs on the same theme, so, remembering that Festival Of Quilts is just ten sleeps away, I embroidered a whole load of blocks

and turned one into a postcard for Lisa as she's back at Uni

 I also did some embroidery on an I-Spy quilt for the new grandson of a friend of mum's

This on the front...

and this on the back

 and then binding round the sides ... not really the weather for sewing on binding, but there you go!

Has anyone seen my marbles?

Has anyone seen my marbles? As I have obviously lost them.

• Next week I am going to the Festival of Quilts.  I will travel there (Birmingham) by train.  I have bought my ticket
• There I will meet Jackie (as well, obviously as looking at quilts and spending money, but that is not relevant to the missing marbles)
• Jackie and I will fly to Dublin.  I have bought my ticket
• We will have a lovely time (of course)
• I will fly back to the UK (I have bought my ticket)
• I have a train ticket back from Birmingham pre-booked and paid for, at a time that is appropriate for the plane landing time

THE PROBLEM IS ... that I don't land back at Birmingham NEC airport.  I've booked my flight to Gatwick (bottom of the purple squiggly line), and my train from Birmingham (top of the purple line) about 140 miles away,

and I live ... well the route goes within a mile of my front door ... using my highly sophisticated pointer (OK, tip of a pair of scissors) I have pointed roughly to my house

Obviously my age is to blame - as it is for the grey hairs, the spare tyre, the inability to thread a needle, the losing of words, the personal tropical holidays, and the granny hairs on my chinny chin chin.

Whinge over, I'm now going to plead with someone to come and pick me up from Gatwick, tear up my useless train ticket, sob over the wasted money that equals about ten fat quarters, and try and find the plastic wallet with the flight tickets, the necessary train ticket and the FoQ ticket, as I've put that somewhere safe - gulp!

some work on the UFO list

At last a finish from the UFO list - I have finished the binding on the Nathan I-Spy Quilt, so that can be crossed off (no photos as it doesn't look much different to two posts ago), so I'm down to 19 projects!

I've also done some work yesterday and today on the ladders quilt.  It has been attached to the fleece blanket,

and most of the quilting has been done.  I have just used liberated / organic / free range / not-trying-too-hard-to-be-straight lines through the blue sashing, three, four or five roughly parallel lines.  I really enjoyed doing this, although there are lots of thread ends on the back to be sorted.  Not a 'Finish', but a bit closer to being one!

I also came off the list again after hearing that a friend, Nicky, has been in hospital having a lump removed which is almost certainly breast cancer.  (Mum, this is Nicky of the parent's 50th Anniversary quilt that you helped us with)

I have made her an "anti-ouch pouch" (see http://www.asg.org/html/giving.html).  It's a sort of underfilled pillow 'that hangs from the shoulder, fitting snugly under the arm to cushion the area after breast surgery or during radiation treatment.The wedge shape gently holds the arm away from the body when the user is standing. The strap holds the pillow in place without having to use sore arm muscles to “clutch” it.The strap is adjustable and the fiberfill may be adjusted via the overlapped opening.'

The photo is rubbish, but it gives an idea.  The fabric is brushed cotton that I picked up in the states last year, knowing there would be a time to use it - you probably can't see, but the pink splodges are the pink breast cancer ribbon.

I haven't spoken to Nicky herself, but Sue (a breast cancer survivor herself) says that Nicky is positive, and that the lump was spotted early.   Love you Nicky, thoughts and prayers are with you, Andy, Kate and Tom x x

Now I need to go and pack as tomorrow I'm off with 3 girlfriends for a spa break ... need to find some hand sewing for while we're sitting round the pool!

Problems with my Brother

Not my actual, biological, brother (hello Titch), but one of the Brothers I have paid good money for!

I came home from my lovely, relaxing Spa Break to a delivery of polo shirts that needed to have a company logo embroidered onto them.  I've done this several times before: same logo, same supplier of polo shirts, so I started the first one - the tension on the top thread was awful.  I re-threaded both thread and bobbin - no improvement, so I went and got the old machine out of the shed and used that for the next few shirts, meanwhile I tried another design on the newer machine.  The first 100 or so stitches were still far too loose, then, suddenly, it sorted it's life out and worked fine.

I tried a few more projects on the new machine until I was convinced it was behaving and then started on the polo shirts again.  Well i didn't get a photo of the first problem, but the second problem it decided to throw as me involved a bird's nest under the race which meant I needed to cut the shirt to release it from the nest!

Not impressed!

However - far more fun was the testing project.

Victoria from Boutique Uniquely has some great pins on her Pinterest boards, including some felt citrus coasters.  I thought they looked great and would be quick to stitch using the embroidery machine.  So in order to test the machine I stitched up seven of these: orange, grapefruit, lime and lemon.  These the machine liked making, the polo shirts, not so much!

I think I am going to load these onto my ETSY site and see if they sell

Lovely weekend away

What a great 4 days, I don't think I could have planned it better!

I got the train to Birmingham on Thursday and met Jackie and the group she had travelled over with about lunchtime.  Valarie had just told the group, very nonchalantly ... "my quilt won a prize" so we went straight over to see ...

So may I present the 1st prize Contemporary Quilt ... Dear Jane for the 21st Century

Isn't it great!  121 logos all in hand dyed felted wool.  She won a great money prize, but doesn't get her quilt back for a year as it now goes on a road show

I did take some photos of other quilts, but it is a bit of a grey area as to whether bloggers can load other people's quilts without consent, so I shall leave them for me!

I did manage to do a little bit of shopping!

I got these for a black and white quilt for Lisa's friend Heather

and these for a quilt she is making for Sam

After the Quilt show finished, Jackie and I had a meal with the others then got the plane to Dublin and drove for hours through the night, getting to hers about 1:30am - and straight to bed!


I lost track of the days after that, so no idea what happened on what day, but we went to a fitting for Sabrina's wedding dress (I felt very honoured to be allowed to come along - Jackie and I may be really good friends, but Sabrina has only met me once before, so it was really generous of her to allow be to come.  The dress is jaw droppingly gorgeous, and she looks absolutely stunning.  Just as well I made a few paper tissue pouches - I think they will be needed!)

From there we went to Avoca Mill (in the pretty little village where Ballykissangel was filmed) and had a scrummy lunch (I got two cook books for Niki) and had a tour around the mill, and did some shopping (!)

We also went to see Anne-Marie who had been in the Irish group we travelled over with.  Anne-Marie has a lovely bed and breakfast, and until the 'Hobby Hut' is finished, she has one bedroom fitted out as a fabric shop. Jackie helps her in the shop sometimes

These fabrics came mostly from her shop, although the cupcakes, and the red with white spots were from Festival of Quilts.  Hum, there is another project that I forgot to photograph - yellow and pink bold flowers on beige and brown spots

We also spent time making decorations for the wedding, and tidying the sewing room (actually looking for a zigzag rotary cutter, but we never found that) and went for walks around the parish churches and along the river at St Mullin's - very pretty

Jackie gave me this lovely bag ... and I left her loads of rubbish on my bed!  Air Ryan is very pedantic about size and quantity of luggage, and with all the shopping there was no way I could bring everything home.

Luckily I had considered this in advance, and took clothes that I was happy to lose, and managed to get everything (everything important that is!!!) into one small case On Sunday we set off for the airport ... via IKEA!!!  We managed to get a perfect storage unit for the sewing room, complete with shelves and baskets and drawers, so I went to fly home and she drove home to start playing and organising.

I came home itching to start sewing, but have to clear this mess up first, and finish some UFOs, sigh