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????

2024 March

An early post this month, and I think I've been quite productive this month.

Chertsey Museum ladies made pin cushions in ramekin dishes

 

And I made some simple ones to thank the friends who had cleared out kitchen cupboards and made it possible.  (I hope I remembered everyone!)

The lovely Stephanie is leading the next Chertsey class - we are making felt rabbits, so I had a play in advance:

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole (pardon the pun) on Pinterest looking at "little house" pincushions.  I made a cottage

(a cottage with a chimney)

And then I got a bit carried away: a hobbit cottage;

and then a lighthouse, a beach hut and a birdhouse 😂  I had great fun, and I'm calling it work as I think this could be another class!

Lizzie and I made Mothering Sunday Gingers with violets;

Then a Saint Robin (a marvellous friend and neighbour of mum's);

And then Easter Gingers

I started and finished a Christmas pressie (I moved the trees a bit as I felt the design trees looked as if they were floating)

I finally finished a load of I-Spy quilts and got the names on them

And got a photo from baby Rose's grandma

Another idea for Chertsey classes is a pinch purse.  I had a practice to see if I could work out how to make them, and pulled out some weird paper stuff that claims to sew like fabric.  I'm not convinced it's like fabric but it worked ok . . .

So I tried another version.  This one opens as a hexagon - absolute nightmare to turn inside out (if you use the paper stuff I suggest you make it wrong sides together to avoid the fight)

I spent some money at the garden centre: I bought a Salix - not this one, but inspired by this.

And then Lizzie and I finished the week with a few customer orders,

And that was the end of March!  Hope you had / are having a good Easter weekend

2024 February

Hi, here is this month's summary!

I finished my Christmas wool crochet blanket, I love the colours.  I ended up deconstructing the variegated wool as I wanted 123454321  rather than 1234512345 (if that makes any sense at all!)

I started a new one, from an old unloved one that I frogged, but I have since fallen out of love with this version too, I think it just wasn't destined to be a success 

I bought some new cutlery, with wooden handles.  The packaging said dishwasher safe but after I'd opened the packaging we realised the dishwasher proofing was 50 degrees or below, and ours doesn't go that cold.  We mixed up some resin and dunked the cutlery in the resin then left it to drip dry

There was some resin left over, so I coated some clay "toadstools" and hopefully they'll survive for a while in the garden

Jackie and I made these bags when she was here: I was delighted when I saw the same style in a shop window in Regents Street! Fancy us being trendy!

At Crafty Church I laid out my Paula Doyle blocks - I will get round to stitching them eventually!

At Stitch we had a fab production line packing kits - 53 packed and as soon as we can get them into big enough boxes we can send them off

These were made at February's Fun With Fabric - It was a bit of a challenge to attach the fabric to the plastic frame, but they persevered! 

And that was it for February - see you next month!