2024 December

 Happy New Year

I hope you had a lovely Christmas

My December in pictures looks like this:  Lisa and I are working on a quilt for Niki and George in the confident belief their flat will sell and they can buy a house..  It will mostly be white and yellow, and bee themed, but we are incorporating a few letters too:  Growing gradually it will eventually spell New Hive

The Chertsey ladies brought in finished fabric bowls for Show and Tell

And spent a session making macrame santas

and Christmas trees

I was commissioned to make an apron for the florist at Windsor Baptist Church

and a ginger with a colostomy bag!

We had loads of volunteers to help make Christingles the night before Christmas Eve

and they all got a "thank you" ginger

For Christmas I received this gorgeous duck - thank you Stephanie

And from the family  and friends I received lots of crafty things - I was sure I took a photo but apparently not🙅

The great niblings came to visit.  Master S had a great time with Brian playing computer games while Miss L and Miss N did some needle felting

 

I have actually managed some sewing this month - not for me but for Chertsey Museum for their "St Peter's Hospital Untold Stories" project.  Museum staff have carried out hours of recorded interviews, and commissioned me to lead some family learning sessions and help people decorate squares of fabric with their own images inspired by their hospital story.

I've then been joining them together for a wall hanging to go on show at the museum.  Not finished yet, but close.

2023 September

It's been a lovely month!  It started with me *attending* the Chertsey Museum class, not teaching it!  One of the regulars is a spinner, so she brought in a sleeping beauty spinning wheel, and had made us all drop spindles so we could do our own spinning.  I really enjoyed the session, thanks Kate

The painted beads from last month were made into necklaces and paired with two dresses:

I started adding 'grass' to my EPP flowers - they will tesselate when they lay flat

I finished one of many quilts on my to-do pile!  In fact I finished two - both for baby girls called Freya!

One of the Freyas with her cousin Amelia

I made by "blue whale" cousin a new zippy pouch: the old one had finally worn out!

Like me she's a bag lady 😂 

I had been trying to ignore that fact that time was galloping towards my 60th, but the lovely ladies at Coffee Morning were not going to let me !  I felt very spoiled!

 

It was also Plum's birthday, so there was a mixture of EPP, gingers, needle felting and zippy pouch that went in the post to her . . .

and in the post FROM her was a lot of awesome Puffin themed stuff plus a lovely necklace and a pouch with a miniature house: she's so good at the tiny blocks!

To be honest, I was spoiled by a lot of people!  Jackie sent the most amazing set of sashiko inspirational instructions (watch this space).

Hayley sent me a painted card of stacked stones, and also made a necklace of stacked pebbles - she and her husband actually drilled through these pebbles!!!

There were also a lot of garden themed gifts!  These and more from the girls and their boys

The Acer tree in the blue pot

These lovely gardening tools,

And over the weekend Niki, George and Brian make huge inroads into uncovering the back half of the garden which had been covered with blackberries and weeds for the last 25 years: my new garden area will be a lovely place to sit and relax!

Lisa made me two crocheted baskets which are perfect for the stuff that can be hidden in the bathroom

We had a lovely family weekend in the Cotswolds for my birthday

I really wanted to stay near a stony stream ... I got it!

Then I had another fab weekend away with girlfriends: a really chilled time at Center Parcs, and our favourite new activity is willow weaving!

 

We also did some needle felting onto calico bags,  and Santa making!