2019 Wk 31 - Festival of Quilts Day 1

Woohoo - a weekend with Jackie, and with a zillion other (mostly) ladies in Birmingham.

Some stunning quilts were on show: This amazing piece was made but a lovely friend of Jackie's called Valerie

And a close up

And these next two are by the very talented Avril: a friend who also attends Richmond & Key Quilters

This circle was made from gathered fabric - gathered as if for smocking - I was desperate to touch it: a lovely piece of wall art, although the pleats must collect so much dust!!

These are dorset buttons: tiny ones about thumbnail size, mounted in plastic rings

After 14000+ steps, we went to the town to find out hotel,

and show our purchases

The one where Chertsey ladies made zippy pouches

I had a break from the 9-5 today and made my way to Chertsey museum - first we had a bit of show and tell - just look at this smocking! (Well done Anne)

And Kay's oven gloves:

Then we had a go at making zippy pouches.  We had some great results and they will be finishing these for homework! 

This evening I spent (ok wasted) a bit of time on Facebook and found a lovely message from a May bride this year:

I know we all know people who don't appreciate made gifts - but clearly some do and that makes it all worth while!

2011 July (1)

Too busy to blog!

I have been busy making stuff, and busy being lead down dead ends trying to revive the SLIKstitches blog.  The making has been fun, trying to get to communicate with someone at blogger reminds me of the saying "the impossible I can do at once, miracles take a little longer!

Anyway, enough whinging - I've mostly been working on blocks for the texture quilt, just 4 more to go, then I need to work out how to arrange them.  Here are some photos

Suffolk punches from A at Stitching Science (thank you A)

Not sure if this is smocking or pleating, but it seems to be called honeycomb smocking

This block is four squares of corduroy with the nap in four different directions

This is a very loose woven fabric given to me

This one is ripped fabrics with some extra threads pulled out.  The strip is made by alternating back and front of the fabric

and finally a pleated one where I have stitched the pleats down so there is a twist

Where did the mojo go?

I still haven't really got my blogging mojo back: I really would rather be blogging at SLIKstitches, but still blogger ignore my communication attempts, so I have no idea what to do next :-(

I'm having a generally bleugh day anyway, as school have finally told me that although they have the funding, they are not going to extend my Extended Schools Co-Ordinator contract, so that leaves me with just three hours a week from September, so for the first time in about (gulp) 25 years I am actually looking at the vacancies section of the local papers.  Until now I've been lucky enough to hear about a job that I wanted - at a time that I was ready to work those hours - and get it, so this is a whole new ball game!

Anyways, enough of the whinging ... I HAVE been sewing!  I have pieced together some 8" squares to make an I-Spy quilt, just to have for when it's needed:

I have also taken this fairly simple flimsy,

and with the help of my little template

have turned it into this yummy Whirly Gig or Square Dance flimsey.

Annoyingly I did type out 90% of the instructions about a month ago ... and saved them on the old blog, but I think I can copy and paste so if you want them just let me know.

I have also been doing some lesson planning for Fun With Fabrics next weekend: The ladies asked for Stained Glass, and I had three methods in mind, so I have done samples using two methods and am half way through the third.  I chose owls for the image, and wondered how best to display them

When I next checked in at Hadley's blog (Flying Blind On A Rocket Cycle ... What does that mean?) I got inspiration, so here are two of my owls, just waiting for for number three.  (Pink is created using the cut-away method, and Yellow is made using the fusible bias binding method.  Red hasn't fully hatched yet, but will be made with the mosaic, or needle turn method)

Instructions are available if you are interested

something pretty

Lisa suggested I sew something pretty, just because!

I picked up this jelly roll from Fabric Freedom (Aunt Grace, Circle of Friends, SOOOO pretty! It reminds me of summer dresses from childhood) and pulled out some white to go with it.

Did I want to do nine patch blocks?

Or scatter the patterned squares randomly amongst the white?

I started stitching each strip to white, and then had a brain wave.  I cut 8" off each pair, then stitched the remainder together.  At one end I added the patterned to the white to make an 8" strip of patterned / white  /patterned which I cut off, then I added the white to the other end (making white / patterned / white) so i made enough for two nine patches and left enough for 6 or 7  white / patterned pairs. (Makes sense to me anyway!)

 

Yes Mum, I know I'm supposed to do Hilary's textures first, but I needed some therapy!  I've had to stop with the circle of friends because I ran out of white fabric, so I did this one for Hilary: woven strips.

I think it's just a few more to go, so I think log cabin (maybe uneven log cabin? and maybe ticker tape (raw edge applique)

I'm also doing some liberated sizteen patch for Block Lotto, so I'll show those when they are done.

9 patches and Block Lotto

I have done ten blocks for the July Block Lotto.  I loved doing the blocks (each pair is done together, and one is the opposite of the other) but the ironing was a pain.

 

Having not done enough squares for the day (!) I then made up a whole load of nine patches.  Lots more summery fabrics waiting to be used as soon as I get a chance to go the the shops