2020 Week 51

 This dotty paper foundation pieced quilt was finally finished this week

The binding was black (with small white dots) onto black fleece - I'm glad that's finished, it was really difficult to see where each stitch was 

The upteenth attempt to start my crochet spiral circle is actually working!  As I cant start a crochet piece I'm in the hands of others as to how it's going top look, but Lisa made a great choice in the style of this one - I'm using the variegated wool and the cream wool together!

My friend Louise had her first baby, Jessica, the same day I had Lisa - that's actually how we met - in adjoining beds.  We used to see a lot of each other but over the last 29 (!) years life has moved on so its less frequent but it's always a joy to see her and her three girls.  Grandchild number 3 has a feeding issue and has to be tube fed . . . could I find a way to add front / belly zips to baby vests so the port can be accessed.  I started with creating a lined opening and trying to add the zip to the front but it was a lot of fiddling ... so for this one I added a second zip put to the zip, stitched it on the outside, then opened the zip and cut away the now unnecessary fabric behind it - took about 5 minutes!  It's gone in the post to them - if it works for them I can easily adapt other vests for baby M

Louise's second daughter, Claudia, is my God Daughter, and she has just become a mum - baby William was born earlier this week.  This EPP quilt seemed a perfect gift - with three big cousins who can use the fussy cut hexies to invent stories for him!

So I've added his name and this has gone in the post too!

The girls and I did another on-line Brush Party painting class - it was great fun but we are not natural painters so would like to do one with a real life person - when ever we are allowed to!!!  Anyway, I don't think these are too shabby!!!

A very good friend of mine is Jewish.  She ordered a few Christmas gingers from me: I added a Hanukkah ginger for her - just mixing my faith and non faith celebrations!!!!

More Gingers - these went to Manchester to my childhood best friend (I love that we've reconnected through Facebook!)

For a quite week there seems to have been a lot happening!  It was mum's birthday last weekend - but we were not allowed to meet in a home so we agreed to meet for a walk and a picnic - come the day it was *pouring*, so we chucked the gazebo into the car too and used the boots of the cars as seats!

A birthday we wont forget in a while!!!  Mum enjoyed it!

Nat used the Elf Ginger costumes

My friend Jane crocheted me an awesome Julenissen

And Barbara made me a mask with a matching zippy - isn't it great!!!!

If I'm not in touch with you before "the" day - I hope it's a great one even if it's not what we hoped for and we cant see the people we want to see, but by doing the right thing this year we can see each other next year.

Lots of love xxxx 

2019 Wk 37: tea and trees and Dresdens

The girls and I took their God Mother and God Sister out for their combined birthdays this year: afternoon tea on a vintage London Double Decker bus

 All that food plus savoury muffins, and scones with cream and jam (or should that be jam and cream?) and lots of tea of coffee - a great afternoon out

 And we've finally got around to getting a gardening in to hack this lot down.  Behind that forest is my beautiful church - but you wouldn't know it.

The gardener got let down by his partner so he got his two lads to help - they did a great job first of all giving me back my view of the trees

and then cutting the last few down.  The stumps will protect the garden from un-authorised visitors, and if the apple tree in the garden gets too big that will have the same treatment!!!

At Chertsey Museum we had some show and tell of the handy pods and foundation paper piecing

and some Dresden plates were created (I was too late to get the other photos!)

2019 Wk 24 - the last ten days

The "last ten days" in the heading has two meanings - the photos are of crafty stuff FROM the last 10 days and I have about ten days left at work (gulp!)  They have made me redundant and there isn't much work coming my way so I have been doing a bit more making than I would normally get a chance for!

I have planned the finish of my rainbow hexie flowers - not much more piecing to go, *just* assembling and quilting and binding after that!!!

Even though the weather is up and down at the moment I am sleeping under a coverlet that is just patchworked blocks quilted to a cotton sheet.  But I only made one coverlet which means I don't have one for the opposite laundry change! (This one, which I love 
http://slikstitches.com/2014/07/teal-on-tuesday.html?m=1)

Anyway I wanted something sunny and bright and found this FQ pack from Jackie

I chopped it into squares and sashed it with 2.5 inch strips and in very little time I had this:

I just need to find some binding (shopping excuse!) and some time to quilt it and then I'm all set!

The Chertsey Museum class last week was paper foundation piecing.  It's difficult to teach and the fabric sort of gets pinned in place inside out upside down and back to front, but it seemed to go OK even if there wasn't much ready for a photo opportunity by the end of the class!

 A number of the ladies did bring back their bowls from last month - looking good!

2019 Week 21 Crafty Church

May's Crafty Church was possibly best described as ambitious!

One of the crochet ladies had two necklaces that she reckoned had been done by crochet - could they please work out how they were made so she could make some to sell on the WI stall

I am know we are only 8 and 10, but w saw this pattern in a magazine and have decided to make a dress and a skirt!

Um - OK!  I did the explaining-the-pattern bits and we got everything cut out but poor mum and granny had to take over as we'd run out of time

EDIT: The dress now looks like this!!

Others were working on crochet blankets, patchwork sampler quilt and all sorts of other things!

We also had some girls teaching themselves string art

And I was working on my paper foundation pieced blocks

2019 Wk 19 - since last time

Since the last post  . . . The Chertsey Museum ladies made fabric baskets (thank you Plum)

And Briege has been busy in Kisumu (near Nairobi) handing out our Days for Girls Stitch bags

The cat has been happy sitting on the first half of my rainbow flowers hexi quilt (grrrr) while I finish sewing the other half of the hexie flowers - now to sew the rest of the flowers on!

And I have been inspired by Instagram's #libertysocietykanthastitchalong  So I have sorted some scrappy liberty squares and some liberty hearts (thank you Amo) and some lovely embroidery threads and have been stitching to my heart's content.  Before stitching . . .

And after stitching happily for a few hours . . .Look at the difference!

 And a different version of Kantha stitching (or stitch doodling!) - this is my sample fabric basket made for the Chertsey Museum class, now finished

Annnnnnd, I have also been working through this pile of spotty strips . . . 

. . . making these blocks (foundation paper piecing) . . . 

. . .  which will eventually look like this - curves with just straight lines!  I will scan the template and add it when I get a chance