Books and Bunnies

Last Thursday I taught an adult education workshop in the evening.  I wasn't sure how many would come as it was enrolment on the night and the local authority hadn't advertised it much.

I put it on the Windsor Parents facebook page, and the Hive office (Military and Community information) put it on their facebook page . . .  and we had 11 ladies wanting to come!!!!!

They all worked hard

 and we had nine fab book covers finished by the end of the evening!

Well done ladies

And I've been making Easter Bunnies again!  This is another recommendation from the lovely Plum (the notebook are her instructions too).  The bunnies originated from Urban Threads - they are called Giving Bunnies, and you can read about they and the random acts of kindness they support here.

These are being made for the assorted great nephews and nieces as Easter pressies - the first batch are ready:

And I'd like to make some more to leave for children to find over Easter

A Few Finishes

Its been cold here for a while so I've spent more time than usual watching TV with a quilt on my lap - no, not slacking, but finishing the binding by hand.

That means I actually have a few finishes to show:

My Rainbow floating charms (or LJR7 ) quilt

And the first of three quilts from shirt fabric

 I've also finished another dozen named fleece jackets

 

And I've finally done the Magna Carta 1215 2015 embridery panel

In other news I've had three creative classes this week.  Hopefully you can see photos if you click on the SLIKstitches Facebook page, please let me know if the link doesn't work for you.

In short we have a nearly finished baby changing bag from Monday, a cushion made from our transfer paints fun in January, a proggy owl and some faux cathedral windows from Chertsey and a great two hour session with kids dipping in and out of all the craft resources boxes at church yesterday

2011 July (1)

Too busy to blog!

I have been busy making stuff, and busy being lead down dead ends trying to revive the SLIKstitches blog.  The making has been fun, trying to get to communicate with someone at blogger reminds me of the saying "the impossible I can do at once, miracles take a little longer!

Anyway, enough whinging - I've mostly been working on blocks for the texture quilt, just 4 more to go, then I need to work out how to arrange them.  Here are some photos

Suffolk punches from A at Stitching Science (thank you A)

Not sure if this is smocking or pleating, but it seems to be called honeycomb smocking

This block is four squares of corduroy with the nap in four different directions

This is a very loose woven fabric given to me

This one is ripped fabrics with some extra threads pulled out.  The strip is made by alternating back and front of the fabric

and finally a pleated one where I have stitched the pleats down so there is a twist

Where did the mojo go?

I still haven't really got my blogging mojo back: I really would rather be blogging at SLIKstitches, but still blogger ignore my communication attempts, so I have no idea what to do next :-(

I'm having a generally bleugh day anyway, as school have finally told me that although they have the funding, they are not going to extend my Extended Schools Co-Ordinator contract, so that leaves me with just three hours a week from September, so for the first time in about (gulp) 25 years I am actually looking at the vacancies section of the local papers.  Until now I've been lucky enough to hear about a job that I wanted - at a time that I was ready to work those hours - and get it, so this is a whole new ball game!

Anyways, enough of the whinging ... I HAVE been sewing!  I have pieced together some 8" squares to make an I-Spy quilt, just to have for when it's needed:

I have also taken this fairly simple flimsy,

and with the help of my little template

have turned it into this yummy Whirly Gig or Square Dance flimsey.

Annoyingly I did type out 90% of the instructions about a month ago ... and saved them on the old blog, but I think I can copy and paste so if you want them just let me know.

I have also been doing some lesson planning for Fun With Fabrics next weekend: The ladies asked for Stained Glass, and I had three methods in mind, so I have done samples using two methods and am half way through the third.  I chose owls for the image, and wondered how best to display them

When I next checked in at Hadley's blog (Flying Blind On A Rocket Cycle ... What does that mean?) I got inspiration, so here are two of my owls, just waiting for for number three.  (Pink is created using the cut-away method, and Yellow is made using the fusible bias binding method.  Red hasn't fully hatched yet, but will be made with the mosaic, or needle turn method)

Instructions are available if you are interested

something pretty

Lisa suggested I sew something pretty, just because!

I picked up this jelly roll from Fabric Freedom (Aunt Grace, Circle of Friends, SOOOO pretty! It reminds me of summer dresses from childhood) and pulled out some white to go with it.

Did I want to do nine patch blocks?

Or scatter the patterned squares randomly amongst the white?

I started stitching each strip to white, and then had a brain wave.  I cut 8" off each pair, then stitched the remainder together.  At one end I added the patterned to the white to make an 8" strip of patterned / white  /patterned which I cut off, then I added the white to the other end (making white / patterned / white) so i made enough for two nine patches and left enough for 6 or 7  white / patterned pairs. (Makes sense to me anyway!)

 

Yes Mum, I know I'm supposed to do Hilary's textures first, but I needed some therapy!  I've had to stop with the circle of friends because I ran out of white fabric, so I did this one for Hilary: woven strips.

I think it's just a few more to go, so I think log cabin (maybe uneven log cabin? and maybe ticker tape (raw edge applique)

I'm also doing some liberated sizteen patch for Block Lotto, so I'll show those when they are done.

9 patches and Block Lotto

I have done ten blocks for the July Block Lotto.  I loved doing the blocks (each pair is done together, and one is the opposite of the other) but the ironing was a pain.

 

Having not done enough squares for the day (!) I then made up a whole load of nine patches.  Lots more summery fabrics waiting to be used as soon as I get a chance to go the the shops

2011 February

 Managed some sewing - yippee!

I knew that, as usual, I wouldn't get much sewing done on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday (dratted W.O.R.K!), and Thursday wasn't too exciting as I had a dozen fleeces to embroider for a local builder, but yesterday and today have been sewing days :-)

I won an Arnold's Attic Layer Cake (from Moda) in the Christmas Giveaway over on Stash Manicure, and finally (with help from Niki) decided to do a Vanishing Patch, but with 42 squares there wasn't quite enough to make five nine patches.  I had just bought some (reduced) Moda from Julia at CrossPatch, and she'd been really helpful, so I decided to put my trust in her and ask for a few fat quarters in a  fabric/range that coordinated with Arnold's Attic  She came back with Bistro (see to row, middle fabric) which I LOVE! and got 3 meters of it!

So . . . 45 10 inch squares stitched into five 9 patches.  (I carefully chose my favourite fabrics for the corners as they remain whole, and the smallest print for the centre as this will become the smallest section of fabric)

Then each 9 patch is cut into quarters (first in half then in half again)

Leaving me with 20 blocks like this.

I cant go any further yet because I don't have anywhere to lay them out and arrange them how I like them.  However in just under two weeks time I am going to mum's and she has floor space, and a good eye for colours, so we'll do it then, and I can pin them at mum's and bring them home to sew into a flimsy. (Thank you mummy!)

I feel all de-stressed now that I've got some sewing done!

Now I've got 30 t-shirts to embroider for a local transport company - boring, but will pay for the Bistro fabric I just bought, so I cant complain :-)

Productive weekend

After I mentioned that the Vanishing 9 Patch had to be put away for 2 weeks until I get to mum's, Teje was worried about me, would I be able to survive?  Amo also commented, 'accusing' me of having attacked the 9 patch fabrics - good call Amo!

Anyway, I've now gone on to distract myself from the 9 patches, by attacking another pile of fabric: these are some of the scrummy Aviary fabrics from Julia's shop that have been cut, stitched, cut, cut and ironed to make half square triangles.  They will become pinwheels, and I will show you how, but now I'm on my way out :-)

Hope your weekend went well

Pinwheels (with no triangles!)

These pinwheel blocks are made of triangles - I love pinwheels, but I have an aversion to sewing with triangles ... and this method doesn't use triangles at all!!!

Take two squares, the same size, and line them up right sides together.  Stitch along all 4 sides using 1/4 inch seam

 Cut in half, then in half again making 4 folded triangles

 open the triangles and press (seam to dark fabric, or seams open)

Stitch the squares together first in pairs, then each pair to the other pair.  (Ooops forgot photo of that finished pinwheel)

Having checked that the instructions work, pair up 64 pink and green squares, stitch together on all 4 sides

 cut into 64 triangles

Discover what the 45 degree marking on the ruler is for, and use it to cut each triangle in half again

 You now have 128 little triangles

Iron them all open (seam to darker fabric, or seam open)

Carefully align each pair of these (called half square triangles, or hst for short) and stitch to make a 2 hst unit. Press, then join each 2 hst unit to another one to make a pinwheel

Now you (I) have 31 of these ... and cant quite decide what to do next LOL

Conventionally, they would get put together, but they aren't very well defined  (click on any photo to make it bigger)

I could alternate them with uncut fabric -

BUT should I use the big roses fabric ...

or the paisley fabric ...

or the small roses fabric?

Or I have some small pink gingham, or small green gingham?

Or I could sash them?





I have emailed Julia to ask if she has any plain pink or green in the range as that may be better for either alternate blocks or sashing, but for now they can go into a plastic bag while I wait for inspiration.

Not very exciting

Not a very exciting weekend - I've embroidered a company logo onto 30 polo shirts, and Brian's put new floors and shelves in Lisa's room

I did however, clean out the fluff from inside the sewing machine (yuck!)

 Niki went to London and spent some time with Lisa... and brought back this awesome postcard for me.  Thank you Lisa, I LOVE it!!!

 

a bit more exciting

A while ago I made this, thinking maybe for the BQL skinny wall quilt swap.  I made this one because the first one was too small, and this one is actually no better (they are supposed to be about A3 size)

This evening I was 'helping' Brian finish Lisa's floor, and the landing floor (this means I was on call for hooving and an extra pair (LOL) of hands when needed) and I decided to have a go at another skinny hanging.  I haven't really enjoyed free motion quilting as I've had problems with tension, but I had a new foot that I hadn't tried and figured I'd give it a go, and I could always hide the back!

Well it went really well, so I kept going, and now I have this piece.  

It's pieced and quilted (all raw edge applique), and the back of the quilting is as neat as the front - yay, I love my new foot :-)  The scene is based on the one I did for my Aunt's 90th, but doesn't have the cottage and the boat house on it.  As this is meant to be night (I ran out of day-time-sky fabric LOL) I think the yellow cottage would look out of place, so for now it's just a moon lit beach.  If you click on the picture you can see it enlarged, and one more click will zoom in further.

Anyway, the point is that I have started this for the swap, and whilst I would be disappointed if neither of the other two were picked by anyone, I'd be gutted if this one wasn't, but that's because I love what this represents, and really why should anyone else be interested?

Ho hum.  I shall ponder this while I sleep!

SLIK Stitches goes freelance

Well I'm in shock - but delighted.

I have been booked to teach "Fun With Fabric" at Chertsey Museum for one Friday a month for 12 months ... and, what's more ... they are going to PAY ME!!!!!!

YIPPEE!

Sorry no photos, but you can picture me ... I am doing a happy dance, and now (deep breath), I need to go and lay down in a darkened room as I'm feeling a bit giddy and over excited!

What a week!

This has been a busy week, and an even busier weekend - but that was partly my fault for putting all the free-lance work and volunteering in the same weekend!

On Saturday I ran the Fun with Fabric course at Windsor Library, and got all the class started on a two colour rail fence block.  We looked at English paper piecing, and foundation piecing, and moved onto easier ideas, and I introduced them to rotary cutters and self healing boards!

They all chose two fabrics and cut some 2.5 inch strips and have gone home with a stack of strips and 'homework' to make 15 or so rail fence blocks.

Saturday afternoon was at Church - we had five of us there.  I got on with lining the old stoles, while Beryl, Debbie and June all tried to teach Lisa how to crochet!  Beryl also has started some rail fence blocks!

In the evening I did this sample for Chertsey Museum and for Windsor Fire Station craft centre.

I had great fun finding things I could weave, and I think the kids will too.

 I have also tried this idea of weaving using a paper plate.  I think it's too slow moving for kids to get much from, but Kate pointed out that this could be adapted to go with our Poppy theme for the new children's Centre

This brings me to Sunday - after church there was time for a quick lunch then I was helping Kate at the Natural History Museum ... in Eton!  Yes there is a little N H M outpost just 5 miles from here, and it's free!  Kate had run a treasure hunt for kids, but I had a great time too, and then I came home to work on an embroidery for her.

The new Broom farm Children's Centre has it's official opening next week.  Just two week's notice, and the manager is away for one of those weeks, so I'm helping get crafts and displays reading for the great and the good next week.  Kate has asked me to do an embroidered plaque, so that was this evening's task.

The craft has been planned and I'll take photos of that later when it exists, but the embroidery needs to be framed, so I needed to get a move on with that.  This photo is a shot of the computer screen, but you can see the logo and the colours. 

 And here are two parts of the embroidery.  I'll join them together and add some wadding, then Kate can take it to a framer, and hopefully it will be ready in time.  (The colours are more vivid than shown in the photo)