2022 April first half

I felt as if I had spent most of the last few weeks copying blog posts from the old blog onto this one, but as I look throuigh the photos on my phone I realsie there has been a fair amount of making too

I have ticked off some of tyhe projects in the Book of Days:

Labels for cloths store at church

Scissor labels for Kandy and her grand children

Gingers with Daisys for Mothering Sunday (do excuse the art work!)

Gingers with Ukrainian Sunflowers, and sunflowers

And red white and blue bunting for the Diamond Jubilee coming up in a few months

  

I then mutilated a quit!!!

I made this one quite a while ago, and I'd missed the faric in quite a few seams

  

As it's a size that isn't very useful, and there are lots in the same size (a single fleece blanket size)

At Richamond and Kew Quilters a month or so ago we looked at making jackets from a really simple pattern of rectangles.  It fitted by quilt perfectly - and became a no-waste pattern (coincidentally Plum and I have been looking at these) 

The construction is such that you dont have to inset the sleeves: you add the sleeves to the middle of the sides then sew two seams: from side/bottom of the jacket, up to the junction with the sleeve, then out to the sleeve cuff.

Luckily I was able to keep the quilt binding as the binding on the bottom of the jacket and as the cuffs of the sleeves.  AND I found the box of left over fabric so I can bind the centre front and the neck in the same fabric.  The photos are poor but I'll take better ones when it is ready to be shown off!

 

I made April's crocuses for the Facebook Hexie swap group I'm part of

And I finally got round to teaching screen printing at Chertsey Museum: it was put off from a few weeks previoulsy when I had COVID.  The ladies have printed onto tote bags (after lots of test prints on paper and waste fabric).  In a few weeks time we will embelish these

As I was buying some paint and some screens ready for the class I also ordered one I designed myself:

To design a pattern with a repeat you start off with a few parts of the design on a piece of paper the right size.  You then cut the paper into quarters and rearrange them so the newly cut pieces are the edges and the blank bits are in the centre - this enable you to add more designs

By leaving a small clear section around the pattern I can print it again and again so I get a repeating pattern.  This will now be sashiko stitched with red embroidery thread

Lisa specifically asked for a patchwork for her birthday: it needed to be bir enough to go over the top of the beds and to cover the sides!  Either for her and Jim to sleep under with blankets added for each of the according to preference, or to go on the spare bed to keep it free of cat hairs.  She chose these colours and was happy with the design.  It isn't actually finished but I wanted to be sure it was big enough before I added the binding.  I think the 225 squares represent 10 m of fabric!!!!  Anyway they like it and are delighted with the size - phew!!

A friend of Niki's asked if I could make a chemo quilt, so I did.  

There were some scraps of the fabric left over  so I added a matching tote bag

And finally a few more Gingers - This lovely couple from church gor married this week: I had made a gebneric bride abd groom but once they posted wedding photos on FB I realsied I could match their colours 

  

And these two from our church gor confirmed in February.  Due to work and other uissues they havent both been in chgurch since then so this weekend we were able to gift them a bible.  I made covers for them both, plus (of course) a ginger bookmark!

2021 Week 47

 Hmmm, no post for a month 😱

My excuse has been that I've been busy, busy and ill, ill, too ill to care about being busy and now busy again, with a hint of being ill!  At least I haven't had Covid - *just* a horrible cough and cold and then (without being guilty of TMI) a burning sensation that is being sorted by antibiotics!!!

So a review of the last month (broken down into two parts)

The Gingers have decided to start a countdown to Christmas!  I made a few of these to sell at a village Christmas Fayre, and a few others which will go to the half dozen or so lovely Ginger fans in the villages!  I'm just finishing them off so they can be delivered by Tuesday

A young friend in the village is an amazing cheerleader and trampolinist.  One of the groups she trains with have these sparkly backpacks with their names on in gold - she was gifted one but it had someone else's name on - so a gold patch was created and hand stitched onto the bag over the previous name

My girly trips (see under LSA labels) to Europe have all had a badge made for them.  It started with a backpack for the ones that went to Norway in 2007, with a norwegain flag on it, but they suggested that all the trips should have a design, so they got created and added to the bag.    Since then I have been making them as a patch - I've managed to lose my bag so have re-done them on a fleece shawl: it looks as if the other bags are getting rather full!!!

  

I have made and posted the November Hexie flowers for the FB swap

And taught a class on Sashiko embroidery.  I bought pre-printed panels but as we stitched in white it doesn't show very well 

A bit of grand-kitty spam, sorry, but aren't they cute!!!  Penny is sat in the pouch Jackie and I made Niki for her work stuff

And Thor is sat in a cat cave that (based on the receipt date) he and his sister have totally ignored for 367 days, but NOW its a cozy place to sleep!!!

At the start of the horrid cold I had a few days away with girls that I worked with about 30 years ago: so lovely to be together

And finally for this post - I had fun sorting out all the keys for the village hall - now I only need the few keys to get in and then can access all the other stuff from this key cabinet - I love that it's colour co-ordinated and all labeled - is it very sad that this makes me so happy???

2020 Wk 10 - Resin and crochet recycling

Last weekend the girls and I went to a class making resin jewellery.  We had to wait for the pendants to be delivered as they were still wet when we finished - these came through the letterbox yesterday - they don’t photograph too well but they are gorgeous!

I’ve done some more sample prep for the Well-being class in a few weeks: a version of sashiko

And a version of Kantha (well it will be when I’ve stitched it)

At Chertsey Museum today we were looking at ways to recycle old crochet!  I’d been given a bag load by a local waste recycling centre (they sort through some of the waste and put aside stuff that might be useful to someone, isn’t that great!) and more from a colleague at church: mostly done by her dad and grandmother!  I did check with her it was ok to cut them up and she was happy so this was today’s session!

Some brightly coloured stuff was added to black and to neutral with great effect

And the natural crochet looks great too

Some ladies brought their finished modern hexie projects too - don’t they look great!

2019 Wk 52 - Crafty Church

This month's Crafty Church was mostly making Christmas decorations!

I was taught how to make these fun decorations

And Daisy, Ellie and Rosie (who taught me) and their mum made 6 large versions between them and then joined them together to make this mega star (about 20" across)

Tara made this *tiny* Christmas scene from a kit

And Lynne is working on this in secret as a Christmas gift for her daughter

 This kept me warm on the way to church - tank you Janine - I love it!!!!

I popped into my LQS last week.  I've known Helen for (we worked out) at least 23 years.  She has a log cabin in the front garden - it's a shop and workshop.  I have spent many happy hours there, but she and her husband have put the house on the market and plan to move to the south coast for retirement - the shop has now closed :-(

I help the retirement fund I bought a few bits and pieces: some shocking pink spraytime for the Kaffe Fassett quilt

 some Sashiko stencils for a class I'm teaching next year

A beautiful teale fabric and some brown spraytime to go with it, a few meters of dark blue, some sky and some random FQs

And I think I'm ready for Christmas - woohoo!