2014 June (first half)

 

Holiday Happiness

Once you're back from a holiday, and unpacked and put away, and gone back to work, it can seem as though you never went away.

Thank goodness for photos and achievements!

We spent hours and hours on this beach, soaking up the sun, and enjoying the solitude

I saw patchwork and quilting inspiration at every turn - a quilted cushion cover in the museum

A ticker tape quilt in the jetty:

A real log cabin:

A scrappy quilt in the walls of the monastery:

and free range quilting lines in the rocks:

One of the hand sewing projects I took along was this which will eventually become a note book cover 

To begin with,

this idea plus this

      

plus this idea that I Pinned ages ago, saw this stitching happening for the front

But the more I went to the beach and saw this and this . . .
 

. . . the more I wanted to introduce curves . . .  and the back is now starting to look like this

  and all together . . .

And on a more somber note: goodbye to an old friend

 

More Holiday Happiness

Whilst on holiday I also finished Tara's quilt, now her grandmother can take it back when she goes home.

I know I'm not very inspired at taking photos of completed quilts, but given the location it was easy even for me to take decent photos:

As well as the quilt for my niece Tara, I made two smaller versions (for her children) to use up the extra fabric - here is Mila's, Tara's and Matteo's all lined up

 

Holiday Happiness 3

I hope you aren't bored, or green with envy seeing my holiday pics!  Just a few more ...

These shells and pieces of driftwood from the beach,

 together with some of the embroidery yarn, became wind chimes

 

And my crochet square has grown :-)

It's amazing how productive I can be when there is no internet conection!

Essentially Exhausted

Over the last few days I have finished assembling and have actually quilted the Essential Irish quilt -,quite a battle at times, but I'm loving the colours in the darker essential dots from Moda:

I've quilted either side of the chains . . .

. . . which isn't very easy to see, but if you look on the back, sunk into the oh so soft fleece, you can see the quilt lines

As if that wasn't enough with the Essential dots, I've also got as far as I can go with the Essential Dots Lone Star:

I've echo quilted twice both inside and outside the edge of the star, and have also triple quilted another star within the shape

I can't go any further with these until I can buy some more dots for the binding, and I think it will be a while before I work on even one quilt as big as these (lone star is about 2m x 2.5m, and Irish Chain isn't much smaller) let alone two!!
Plans for today include Kids's Crafty Church and a evening Bunting class - followed by a large glass of wine!!!!

Crafty Church

Yesterday was a great day - in the afternoon I ran Kids Crafty Church: we made super hero masks, hema bead designs and corn dollies made from wool (thanks Kate)

As for the corn dollies - tow of the kids thought they'd made great earrings for mum but mum threatened to cancel our friendship if I published the photo - will this compromise retain our friendship?

Then in the evening I ran Bunting Bonanza - a bunting making session - it was great fun and I forgot to take photos during , but grabbed this pic of Lucy and Kathy before they went home !

To Bunt or not to Bunt?

To Bunt or not to Bunt? That is the Question.  

And given the sorry lack of any other sewing this week, the answer had to be be 

Heck Yes!!!

 So I bunted, and made this

 

and in just 8 sleeps I can give it to Aiden's Grandma!!!!

Birthday Bunting

After a full day at work, and plans to go out with friends tonight i didn't expect to manage any sewing time - but I did!

There are two June birthdays amongst the friends I'm seeing tonight, and I know I missed the third girl's birthday last year . . .

So three lines of bunting made, and me showered and ready, all within about an hour!

2014 June (second half)

 

Wonderful time in Windsor

Thank you to Hazel and all the families that came to Tart up a Tote bag in Windsor this morning - I had a great time, hope you did too!!!!!
Just look at these great creations:

Well done to all - hope to see you again at another session

Diamonds Done

You may remember a little poppet at my school who has been battling cancer.  It's looking good for her, but they are looking at weekly chemo until Christmas!  Friends have set up a fund raising page (do message me if you want the link) and I wanted to help.

It's taken me a bit of time to finish, but with the help of a lovely lovely friend: Quilter in the Closet (aka Jen) I have now finished my contribution - and hopefully this will raise some money towards their hoped-for trip to Euro Disney

If you want raffle tickets feel free to message me

School for Sewing

I *still* haven't got much sewing done recently, but we certainly managed loads at school yesterday!

I'm teaching the year 4 class how to design for the embroidery machine (and they have managed to teach me new stuff about the software I have been using for nearly 8 years!!!)

A's first design on the computer

And stitching

After school I had a few hours free, so Valerie brought in her quilt (her first quilt, that we started over the Easter hols), and we got it finished:

That happy face says it all!

And then I spent two evening hours with half a dozen mums, a grandma and an ex-pupil learning how to read paper patterns, and how to cut all sorts of corners (we are looking for quantity over quality!) to make costumes - the school production of Aladdin needs 100 pairs of trousers, and 50 each of strappy tops and waist coats!

Three more weeks, we can do this (I was pinning trouser legs together in my dreams last night!)

Friends on Friday

(And Saturday and Sunday!). Jackie is here this weekend, for a three day weekend and the challenge is on to see how much we can pack in!

So today Jackie had a few hours unsupervised in my kitchen, so I came in from work to be greeted by this

And this

And this!!!

( to be fair, this was the view after supper, they were complete when I got home!)

Then we went to Chertsey Museum and made these with the lovely ladies, 

followed by shopping in Hobby Craft, and then a spot of making!

Jackie helped me make a boxy pouch

We made button bracelets

And she learnt how to use an embroidery machine!

Saturday Sewing

Another fab day with Jackie :-)

She helped with with some decision making: the rainbow charms

(now ready to be chain stitched)

Another decision made - the aqua fabrics have been cut ready to piece

And these cotton pieces have had their future decided, and they have been washed in case of shrinkage:

We made another two boxy pouches: so that's some Christmas pressies sorted,

Jackie learnt more tricks with my embroidery machine

And made a pressie for the new grandson!

Not bad results for one day eh?

Tomorrow ... Sandown!!!!

Sunday Shopping

So today Jackie and I went to Sandown - lots of inspiration, a little bit of chatting (!), and loads of shopping!  I managed to restrict myself to purchases that are actually necessary to complete existing projects (well almost restricted!)

From the top: two linens for the red linen quilt, red essential dots to bind the Irish Chain, wood for an idea for an aunt, sea grass, sand, sky and rocks for a lighthouse quilt I've been asked to make, purple essential dots to bind the giant lone star, (we'll gloss over the grey dots) and dotty red oilcloth for another boxy bag!

Oh, AND 

Fusible binding for a friends' stained glass project, buttons for a tshirt adaptation, replacement thimble, and some transfer dies.

This all has overtones of comfort shopping though,  as coming home from Sandown also meant taking Jackie to the airport :-(

Thanks for a great weekend, How long until Festival of Quilts????

Secret Finish Part 1 (piecing)

Back in January I showed you a recent photo of the Yellow Hexie Quilt that implied it was still a way off being a completed top, and therefor a long way off being finished.

Since then I haven't shown you any more photos and haven't even dropped any more clues.  The quilt was being finished for a baby; both under construction at the same time, but baby's grandma is my best friend Jackie.  Like the very best kind of best friend she is a loyal reader of this blog, but I wanted the quilt to be a surprise.  Jackie has now seen the quilt, and has taken it for baby Aidan, so I can share the rest of it's story here:

So the work had been plodding on, and the photos had been taken, but until now, unshared!  The earliest post about this top is March 2013, but it was actually started a year or so before that

18th January

20th January

All pieced :-)

Tomorrow I'll show you what I decided to do about quilting

Secret Finish Part 2 (quilting)

I'm really not a quilter.  I don't much enjoy machine quilting, and I'm quite sure life is too short for hand quilting, but for some reason I got it into my head that having hand pieced this quilt I should hand quilt it too

So I spent the next month doing just that

Jackie is very kindly including me as an honorary Grandmother (she gleefully told me six months ago "We are going to be grandmothers"!!!!) so I felt the baby needed to be in touch with its Norwegian heritage - so I've used my favourite Michael Miller Vikings fabric for the backing

I had pretty much finished the quiting when I went to visit Jackie in February.  My plan was to sacrifice the edges of the outer hexies, and finish with a straight yellow boarder - bish bash bosh - it would done in plenty of time . . .

However - Jackie and I played around with some ideas for finishing *her* hexi quilt, which made me rethink the finishing of the yellow quilt

so tomorrow I'll show you how I finished the edges of the yellow hexies

Secret Finish part 3 (finishing)

How to finish a hexi quilt top?  Jackie and  I asked Google, and loved this finish from Badskirt, so I thought I'd give it a go.  I now think another time I would be happier doing this where the hexagons were a bit bigger than these little whatsits.

But the instructions were great, and the finish went well

* Add a border of hexies around the edge, right sides together

* Cut the backing and wadding to the same as the outline, and flip the extra border over to the back leaving a zigzag effect on the front . . .

 . . . and also on the back

Then slip stitch onto the back - and *then* its finished!

Secret Finish Part 4 (Finished)

I have to say the finishing took *forever* but was so worthwhile; I love the effect!

It should have gone to baby Aidan when he arrived, but I tactfully asked Jackie about entering it in the village craft show - the conversation went like this

So it got entered in the village fair craft show and got one of these:

Response from my daughters? Well you've set the bar for all future children haven't you?

Fabric Fun on Friday (part 2)

After my last post I had a bit of time before I needed to set off to teach the covered journals, so I made a few more - they really are doable in 20 minutes or so!

Here are a reporter's notebook (spiral bound at the top), a small hardback notebook, and a travel pass (that'll be the one with a London bus on the front!)

I also had a piece that I made about 3.5 years ago: Kate North was hosting a Stay At Home Round Robin : she gave us monthly instructions as to size and location of a piece and we added or created what we wanted.  I made three and I have no idea what happened to the pink or the blue, but I loved the black/white/red piece but had no idea what to do with it - until today!  It was the perfect size to become a ring binder cover

After I'd had loads of fun making these I let the Chertsey ladies have a go too!

From the same samples, the same set of instructions and the same resources box I was amazed how very different their covers turned out:

Fabric Fun on Friday (part 2)

After my last post I had a bit of time before I needed to set off to teach the covered journals, so I made a few more - they really are doable in 20 minutes or so!

Here are a reporter's notebook (spiral bound at the top), a small hardback notebook, and a travel pass (that'll be the one with a London bus on the front!)

I also had a piece that I made about 3.5 years ago: Kate North was hosting a Stay At Home Round Robin : she gave us monthly instructions as to size and location of a piece and we added or created what we wanted.  I made three and I have no idea what happened to the pink or the blue, but I loved the black/white/red piece but had no idea what to do with it - until today!  It was the perfect size to become a ring binder cover

After I'd had loads of fun making these I let the Chertsey ladies have a go too!

From the same samples, the same set of instructions and the same resources box I was amazed how very different their covers turned out: