2024 October

Hi

I rather feel that someone has stolen a couple of months - I don't believe it can actually be November already!  

Not much to show for the month of October, but here's a few pics:

Kawandi projects at Chertsey Museum

Finished papoose pouches

I bought the centre wool in Texas, but ran out before it reached a reasonable length.  I thought I found the same wool on ETSY but clearly not 😕.  I've fallen out of love with it but at least it's finsihed!

Another finished was two Grandmother's flower garden quilts for this lovely lady's new great grandchildren.  She started the quilts in the 1970s and gave me the flimsey about a year ago and I reduced it to 2 cot sized quilts and quilted and bound them and gave them back - she was delighted!

And I was delighted . . . I love this enamel jug but the ice would all fall out in the first pour.  My lovely repair cafe man, Peter 3D printed an ice stopper insert from squishy plastic so now the ice remains in the jug.  Roll on next summer

I held a class at Windsor Baptist church making willow weaving stars  - aimed at children the adults had great fun too!

I just wanted to share this Lego envy: Jackie's daughter S has sorted by colour and it's a dream to find the right pieces!

I asked my cousin in Norway if she would knit me a traditional cardigan, and oh boy has she delivered!  I love, love LOVE this, and even a hat from the left over wool!

Well that's it for October: although I've managed to scrabble together a month's furtle* it doesn't show much that I've made . . . hopefully I'll do better next time

("Furtle" is a word that means to rummage around or search through something, often in the hope of finding something overlooked.)

2022 August

Is it an age thing?  Every time I go to write a blog post I want to start with a reference to how quicklty that month went! 

Anyway here is August in Crafty photos!

Hexi flowers received from a Facebook swap

Oldest daughters other half's Birthday pressie (deliberatly not symetrical!)

A fun afternoon at Chertsey Museum mark making of fabric

and mark making on hands (oops, it was gone after two days!)

I borrowed a pattern for a wrap around craft apron.  I made the lined version but it was warmer that I needed so I had another go using half the fabric and a load of bias binding - it worked great!

Mum requested a small quilt for the top of her sewing table: 

The village library was officially opened with a visit from Peppa Pig - so I had to get a cuddle!

Lots of people attend the combine coffee morning and library

A quilt for a friend's 60th - and I gave her matching fabric pens so everyone could write on it

It will probably live at their new beach hut!

I even braved the sea for a swim!

Jackie came for a visit and we did some long overdue touristy things . . .  Windsor Castle was great - we visited the Moat Garden which in 35 years of living within 5 miles of I have never been to!

Loved it!!!

We did of course do some sewing too!

And we had a family dad for Jim's birthday: we hired a boat and had a day trip on the Thames

Miss you Jackie - when are you coming back???

2020 Wk 24 - Hello Blogland People

I cant believe it's June already: we are nearly half way through the year!

I finally received a delivery of white fleece so prepped a whole load of flimsies for quilting:

The Hexi rounds,

A spare I Spy

A spare Children's quilt (probably going to Linus Quilts)

The EPP Elongated Pentagon Plus Quilt

And then I got to quilting!  The children's quilts aren't very exciting, but I'm rather chuffed with the Hexie Rounds: Lizzie did the first 8" of spiral which is the really hard bit, and then I took over and went out to the edges

I used the same Lizzie spiral on the plus quilt.  No need for me to carry on, the 8" was perfect.  

I wondered whether to do every centre and have them overlapping but I halved the work and just did alternate ones.  I need to visit a shop to get the right binding for this one, so it'll be a while!

This quilt found a good home with a colleague's daughter for her 10th birthday

The girls and I attended an on-line painting party, I'm not sure we are made to be painters but it was a great evening!

The Australian hexies and stars quilt top has been quilted, has had borders added and has had the binding finished.  Annoyingly the latest delivery of black isn't the same shade of black as the one I used as the infill border - cant be helped as I cant go to a shop and compare: at least it's finished!

My current hand sewing project is Windsor Castle again.  I didn't like some of the tree designs, so I'm unpicking and replacing with smaller more random stitches

2020 Wk 11 - what I made and what I learned

Richmond and Kew quilters has a challenge that started a few months ago - we were given a random animal “pin” badge and were challenged to make an A3 quilt inspired by the pin.

I got a stag: a beautiful beast that we can sometimes see with a herd of deer in Windsor Great Park which is a few miles away.  The park isn’t very distinctive but it incorporates The Long Walk which is very distinctive.  I designed the castle for the embroidery machine to stitch (in two hoopings, that was fun to match up) then added the start of the Great Walk and the trees.  I did try machine stitching the trees but decided to hand stitch instead ...

And here is the ready-apart-from-binding result

My other sewing this week was close to (are you sitting down?) dressmaking.  I had a sweatshirt that was too short.  I bought some extra red fabric and replaced the lower 8 inches of grey with 14 inches or so of red.  I’m rather chuffed with the result

However it’s not perfect and I have learned quite a bit ...

I learned that rather than zigzagging the hem then stitching it down it would have been better to find a double needle and top stitch that way - it would have saved time and would have stopped the hem edge flipping out.

I learnt that it worked well to join the raw edges about 1/2” from the edge, zigzag the raw edges and then top stitch the seam alliance down

And I learnt that sweatshirt fabric has selvedge edges - doh! 🤦🏼‍♀️  I’ll do better next time!