March 2026

March furtle is here - photo heavy as usual!

Chertsey Museum involved Dorset Buttons using curtain rings - compared to originals from the museum's vaults! 

I made Gingers for Mothering Sunday

And a #craftivism Gingers for Ovarian cancer

I finished and named 4 I-spy quilts (plus 3 more waiting for names)

Stitch donated 11 second hand sewing machines to Days For Girls 

plus 16 kits

Three of us spent an afternoon making aprons for a local church cafe 

A mini "Guess how much I love you" quilt to go with a copy of the book and a matching outfit

Then a fab weekend in Ireland with Jackie.  We made lovely quilted Liberty pouches . . .

And Liberty Twist pouches . . .

and tall liberty Japanese rice bags

I was spoilt by the Irish family for Mothering Sunday

Even had a yummy cake make for me by the oldest granddaughter

Great spending time with her and her brothers

And an awesome collection of Mothering Sunday goodies

Gorgeous grandson has learnt to hold things, the taggie is proving successful

but a drinking glass is fun too!

We had a really good turnout at Crafty Church

and again at Coffee Morning (with crafts and lego)

And finally welcome to the world little Miss Sophia.  Obviously she had to have a quilt to match her brother's!

December 2025

 Hi.  Hope you had a great Christmas, and wish you all the very best for 2026

Chertsey Ladies made angel and bell tree decorations in December (instructions here)

In November we had made vinyl pouches (see the blue ones below).  But I found that if the poppers / snaps weren't 100% perfect we had to pull against the vinyl to open the pouch and that was a definite weak point.   The yellow versions are the next evolution: a fabric band at the top of the vinyl rather than just bias binding, so the popper goes through fabric not just vinyl

I got a lovely dove kit for Christmas (thank you Plum)

And a Christmassy dish set that probably thought it was for foods but was perfect for the threads, sequins and beads etc for the dove!!!

A lot of Christmas Pudding Gingers were made and distributed

And of course one joined the other Gingers on my tree

We had a lovely evening making Christingles - 12 people, 6kg sweets and 56 minutes to make 106 Christingles!

   

This jumper was bought 18 months ago, with a black Peace sign knitted into it.  Removing the sign was more complicated than it should have been, and left a lot of dropped stitches so I ironed stabiliser on and tried to match the colours thinking some EPP might cover the mess.  I still don't like it!  It was threatened with textile recycling bin but Tara has taken it to give it some love - lets see what she does with it!!!

We had a lovely Studio session making candle and foliage centre pieces, thank you Lucy

Jackie send me a photo of her and the 3 older grandchildren last summer: with the help of ChatGPT I managed to create a recognisable likeness in embroidery so I made her this.  

I had a go at making a wedding image for her youngest who got married just before Christmas, but this doesn't look like them at all

So I gave up and sent them this instead with Ginger bride and groom

I've done some work on the Mandelightful quilt.  Each line takes about 20 minutes, and there are 134 lines left to go (please don't tell me how many hours that equals!!!)

So far I've done the section below the snips (on the right)!  It'll take a while!

I have also hand quilted this brick i-Spy quilt

And now we are in 2026!

Gorgeous Boy has been using his quilt and has been growing!

October 2025

 Well goodbye to October: the year really is picking up speed isn't it! 

I finished this topper for the lady chapel altar: we get the occasional bird or squirrel in the church so like to cover the altar cloth: we are currently using an old duvet cover so I made this

I

 also made a new altar cloth.  I don't have anywhere to lay out 2.5m so I moved into the village hall: we have a desk top ironing board so I could move the iron along rather than moving the cloth!

The embroidery is faint but there

I embroidered a few customer labels

And made a few taggies for some babies that have arrived recently (so many girls!) 

 

I did some hand sewing and made this bunny

Jackie visited and brought this fab nappy clutch for the baby

Nik has been working on two projects:  Obviously the 40 week body building project (less than 2 weeks to go!) and also a pathwork for her husband using the Southampton FC club shirts his dad bought him over the years: Not bad for her first patchwork quilt!!!

I started piecing a general i-Spy quilt then remembered I'd made a flimsy for the baby a while go but hadn't finished it (so that's what I'm now working on, no photos yet)

Niki and George's kitchen looked like this a few weeks ago . . .

And has now morphed into a real kitchen!  Well done Brian and George!

And because this post has been a lot about Niki and the baby, to finish here is the current position on Lisa's needle turn applique QAYG blocks - aren't they awesome