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!