2024 August

 Hello again from my corner of the blogiverse

The ladies at Chertsey museum took the idea of mini dwellings as pin cushions and really went for it - aren't these great!

This month we did some crayoned pictures: trace a picture, then crayon to your heart's content, on the back of the picture onto kitchen paper, until the kitchen paper doesn't show any colour, then stitch 

 

 

 

Jackie, Lisa and I went to Festival of quilts for the day: we saw Plums gorgeous Megan's forest mini quilt

And may have done some shopping!

We had a family day out to "scatter mum's ashes".  She had a lovely day!  For anyone who doesn't know, she wants her ashes scattered at sea when she goes, and we thought it would be a shame she wouldn't be there, so we have a picnic and a trial run!

Huge thanks to Rhona and Martin (and their boat) who made it a fabulous day

Blackberries from the village and apples from the garden

So I started this blanket is Texas.  I love the colours but I don't love the shape.  I was quite convinced I needed a chain between each shell, but apparently (and clearly) not.  I fell out of love with the shells too

So with Deb's help at coffee morning it all got frogged and I've started again

This time I managed a chainless foundation (yay, go me)

and I'm much happier with how it's going

I'm trying to get more into the habit or regular haircuts - so this

minus this

became this

I did a few patches for my friends at Windsor Baptist's church's community bakery

I cut a whole load of houses for a QYG village

and then we went on holiday: not too shabby eh?

We met up with family

 

saw beautiful scenery

and wildlife

and wool shops!

(six of these ladies in the public lounge were knitting!)

and we saw the northern lights!

and one off the bucket list: we travelled the Atlantic road

And finally an update: the quilt I made Niki and George for the wedding: totally appreciated by the youngest member of their family!!!!

(if you want more photos from our holiday there are here: https://hickleysonholiday.blogspot.com/2024/09/2024-hurtigruten-norway.html)

2024 April

 I have a few customers who make patchwork quilts and are very organised about wanting labels for them, so I've been doing some designing and stitching

I made some fabric bowls as a sample for a class, now I just need to get some fabric that can be suitably fussy cut

We had made pincushions-in-glass-jars at Chertsey museum, and some came back for show and tell

as did a finished purse

And for April we all made felt rabbits thanks to Stephanie who led the class

A future class (I hope you are impressed how organised I am!) involves crayon pictures which then have the wax iron out of them and are then over stitched

These are my samples

The top one is based on a stained glass window in my grandmother's house which is now at my aunt's  It isn't a typically Norwegian scene but I though it would be easy to copy.

My favourite is Hamish!

One of my favourite girls in the village is representing England in the World Cheer Leading championships.  Its a bit demeaning to call it cheer leading - its more like synchronised gymnastics if you want to watch their GOLD MEDAL performance it's here.  I am beyond delighted for her!  The training and dedication from all the girls is incredible.  Me?  I just embroidered on t-shirts for mum and dad!

I bought a tray / table from Ikea, in the as-seen section.  It was all black and a bit scratched.  The lovely Hayley drew on some flowers and we did some painting together

And I finished it off and poured resin over to seal the paint

Talking of Hayley, as well as being a fab artist, she is also the queen of charity shops!  She bought a half square triangle bed sized quilt (if you're not a patchworker it's made up of squared made up of two triangles)

She bought a fleece blanket and a gilet (to get the zip) and made this fab jacket for less than £15!

Lisa has been making too - this hexi flimsy was 90% finished but she wanted to move on to something else (husband is the same - 90% is good enough?) so I added the final row of not-hexies to give a straight edge

This is another one she has been working on since she her own sewing machine at Christmas - this got layered for quilting and she tells me she's done half the echo quilting (and is finding it boring!)

Niki is happier creating with food that with fabric - she and George have bought a pizza oven so we had a lovely afternoon trailing different bases, tomato sauces, cheeses etc.

Although I'm really please with the kitchen since we got the new doors and work surfaces, it's not big enough for the stuff I've got, so a while ago (during that year when we couldn't go anywhere or see anyone) we put up some cupboards on top of existing cupboards to make more storage

 It was never lovely, the various layers of cupboards came from different ranges to suit our plans and everything was off set for a variety of reasons, but it did make a LOT of storage.

So a few weeks ago, the washing machine came out of the downstairs loo (that space is needed for something else), the spare larder unit that came from Lisa's kitchen and the assortment of white units came down and went up in a new configuration

 

Once the larder unit door is replaced with white it'll look OK, I just needed to find homes for all this stuff 😳

That's my April in a nutshell, I'm hoping for sunshine and blue skies in May - what do you reckon????