2012 August second half

Splurging on Slough Centre

I live quite close to Slough town, thank you, I feel your sympathy.

I think it was Chris Tarrent who said that "Happiness was Slough in the rear view mirror" and he may have been right, at least as far as a lack of patchwork shops is concerned.

However, a major revamp of Slough town centre is on the cards . . .

It made the front page of the local papers . . .

What do you reckon they'll spend the money on?  A new rubbish bin?  Six month's tax for the Mayor's car?  An artist to paint what it could be like if they were to spend a bit more money?

NOW I hope your sympathy is more sincere, I bet your town council spend more on your town centres!

Intermittent Activity

During the summer, when I get six weeks off work, you'd think I would have plenty of time to sew and to blog, well this year I have failed on both.  I've been spending lots of time catching up with family and friends instead which is not always appropriate for a patchworking themed blog!

 
Wifi connections and sewing are both likely to be thin on the ground for the next few weeks, but in the last few days I did managed a few bits of making, and a bit of shopping that will (eventually) lead to making . . .

This is part of the queue that was heading for the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, from the doors opening the queue took about  15 minutes to pass us (drinking coffee rather than queueing!) and then we sauntered in

I bought some fabric (pics to follow soon) and I bought some fab bits of bling, and spent today making bracelets.

I bought a sewing themed bracelet a while ago from eBay, but the catch wasn't fab, so I transferred the charms onto the new bracelet, and added a few new ones for me

 

And made another for a friend whose birthday is soon

I also received a fab pressie from Jackie - she made me this cutting board bag which will make transporting stuff to classes (ie tomorrow) much easier - thank you, Bestie, Love you

Festival Fabric

Festival of Quilts is a place of inspiration, but also a place for shopping, and I picked up some yummy pieces that I hadn't seen before

These will be added to some plain cream, and will be made into a 9 patch which is half colour and half cream, with the dividing line being on three HSTs, but for now they have to go into the "Itching to get started" pile

These picture fabrics are for bags (the stamps) and for I-Spy quilts

And I've been looking  at Thermofax stuff for years, but this is the first time I've seen an image I can see myself using, so as soon as I find a few spare hours . . .

African Bee Block

The Bee Block for the Out Of Africa Bee for July is slightly late, but I needed to get some extra supplies.  May wanted a scrap book style in pastel colours.

I never really got the hang of scrap booking, but I eventually got obsessed with the block, and had a fab time shopping for it.

I started with a plain raw edge Union Flag

I bought charms, and I made shrinkies from London themed stamps

I used wooden buttons to represent the family pets (hedgehog, budgie and cats, I couldn't fond a lizard)

 I added an assortment of buttons, and a chain

And I added a final shrinkie of my church

It's a little bit scrapbook, a little bit steam punk, a whole lot of bling, and great fun to make

I hope May likes it!

I spy bricks

A bit of hand sewing, picture fabrics (8"x4") and Kona solid (ash I think) cut to 1.5 wide.

I can't go any further at the moment as I've run out of picture fabric!

oops, I bought some fabric!

Went shopping today and found some lovely picture fabrics for the next batch of I-spy quilts.  As the shop was kind enough to stock them it would have been rude of me not to buy any!

kits for kids

I got these two today, one for God Daughter, one for niece: no sew quilt kits.  One comes with pre-snipped fleece squares which get tied together, the other is two big pieces of fleece which need snipping round the edge and tying, apparently no quilting required in the centre.  I'm itching to have a go myself!

button bling

A quiet afternoon on front of the TV, watching the clouds and rain that herald Isaac, and threading buttons to make a necklace :-)

Charmed, I'm Sure

So often I look at fabrics and fall in love, but I don't have the money or the space to buy them.  Wouldn't it be lovely to have even just a little bit of all the yummy fabrics.  Well Sarah (who blogs at Narcoleptic In A Cupboard) had a great idea, and enough friends to pull it off:

54 of us each buy a metre of Japanese fabric, and chop it into 5 inch squares (charms) we then send them off to Sarah.  We then trust Sarah to create 54 piles of different charms and package them up to send them back to us.  We are all posting pics of our intended fabrics on a Flickr
group to ensure that no two of us get the same fabrics, and oh boy there are some fab fabrics that people are contributing

This is my first swap, and I am *very* excited :-)

You can click on this picture and drool over the fabrics that are being contributed - but be warned, this carries a severe envy warning!!!

Ribbons and stuff

Couldn't resist these fab ribbons, just need to find a use for them: I seem to be better at buying them than actually using them :-)

I got stencil brushes to go with crayons I got at Festival of Quilts, and some great cookie cutters
I really need to cut down on my shopping - back to work next week so my shopping time will be seriously reduced :-(

For all who know uncle Isaac, his visit was boring, and it's now over for us, and life has returned to normal x X

hand sewing hexies

I'm starting to miss my sewing machine, but I'm coping with assorted hand sewing projects!

 

more flowers

More hexi hand sewimg

Not *more* shopping?

No idea how this happened, but all these fabrics jumped into my shopping basket today