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 32 - mostly Kantha stitching

I have been finishing some projects ready for the village fair at the end of the month but have also been happily losing myself is stitching smaller portable projects just for fun.  The EPP sewing machine has started to be quilted with kantha stitches.  Defined as ".Kantha stitching is ...used to make simple quilts, commonly known as Nakshi Kantha. Women in Bengal typically use old saris and cloth and layer them with kantha stitching to make a light blanket, throw, or bedspread, especially for children." I think of it as stitches you don't need to think about: long or short, a bit wobbly, not quite parallel, not evenly separated. . .  who cares!

I am using the same dark colours for the stitches as are in the blocks, so it is fairly subtle

but you can see how far I've got looking at the back.

I also have worked on this piece: the Chertsey Museum ladies were making hanging pods this month, and I got the urge to Kantha mine to the nth degree!  This is the back

This is the front (we are calling the yellow a design feature not a I-didn't-have-enough-black-fabric-error!)

And this is the finished pod. 
Love LOVE LOVE it!!!

The ladies didn't get theirs finished so I am looking forward to seeing them at Show & Tell next month

I have finished the EPP-without-the-paper hexies, and have quilted the front much more than I would have done had it been any bigger!  I'm planning on  a few bigger EPPWP hexies for the other side so I guess I'll have to quilt that too then I can put it all together

I did make and finish this one though.  It's a lovely laminated fabric I got from Sewing Sanctuary at FOQ - she has designed the fabric, and had it laminated: it's lovely and soft.

2019 Wk 25 - Rainbow weekend

Jackie has been here and we've had (of course) a fabulous weekend but unfortunately it's come to and end and she's on her way home :-(. 

We both have a crazy number of reminders of the weekend - and more than a few are rainbow themed!!

We made rainbow necklaces and embroidered a tshirt for Gay Pride month

 We made these fab rainbow bucket bags, based very loosely on this Pin

The designer machine quilted them more or less in the ditch - we went for in your face Kantha type quilting and for this lovely textured look

By making the bucket bags slightly smaller than the instructions said we managed to have some rainbow leftover so we make these Pythagoras zippy pouches with the remainder rainbow and some beautiful cork fabric with rainbow splashes

We used some other cork too - this lush claret red cork - to make another zippy

Oh, and then went on to make these framed retreat pouches (that were much easier than I last remember them being)

and finally some of these from this gorgeous fabric from South Africa from Sharon, lined with some spraytime

 Love you Jackie - come back soon!!!!

2019 Wk 6 - A surprising amount!

I'm not quite sure how I've managed to achieve all this, but

I've made a Brick I-Spy quilt

I've finished my storage pod

And I've finished my enormous fabric bowl (the cat keeps eyeing it up as a potential bed!)

And I've stolen a idea from Janine (Rainbow Hare) - she added circles to her clam shells and it looked fab so I'm doing the same!

I probably ought to do some work work though!