2018 Wk 43 - alone in my sewing room

Jackie has gone home now, just emails and Whatsapps until next year.  I should be tidying up in here but I thought I'd do another post instead!

Today's makings  . . .

Two 'pink penguin' bags

A book bag for a neighbour

 A plan for our joint postage stamp / tiny blocks quilt

(this was a close runner up, but we probably don't have enough patterned squares for this)

And a rough plan for the solid postage stamps but they will have to wait their turn

I meant to show this - a first stitch out of the village church door - the painting won't be repeated (I need to find another method of showing the stone colours), and the design needs tweaking but I'm pleased with it for a first attempt

 

 And I said goodbye to Warm Diamonds as she sold, and has gone off to a new home!

2018 Wk 41 Finishes

I have been frantically finishing the quilts on the rail of shame as they will be on show in two week's time at the Richmond and Kew quilters exhibition

Finished but need sleeves:

Also being finished is a quilt both Jackie and I have worked on - it's being finished in Ireland ready for the show . . .  My Small World.  I am SO looking forward to seeing it in real life!

I got this pack of lush fabrics from Lisa's Jim for my birthday - he's a good boy!!!

On Saturday I attended a wet felting class at Chertsey Museum - and made this poppy

And on Sunday my oldest friend (should I rephrase that?  The friend I have known for the longest time) came over with a suitcase of her late dad's shirts.  Linda and I have known each other since school age and I knew her mum and dad very well - a lovely couple.

Anyway, she and mum have cleared out dad's clothes: most have gone to a homeless shelter, some jumpers have gone to the grandchildren and the rest came to my house.  We turned a lovely jumper into a cushion

And are in the process of turning the first 1/4 of the shirts into a patchwork for mum (and will gradually work on the rest for Linda, her sister and her daughter)

It was an honour to be allowed to be involved and lovely to catch up with what the two families have been up to!

Back to work tomorrow

The holiday is over and I'm back to work in 12 hours, so the sewing room has been put away for a while :-(

I did manage to assemble and quilt my warm triangles quilt

 

And I've stitched down the binding on the white zigzag quilt

 

Now I can plan and shop for the next projects!!!!

 

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At last a sewing day!

A happy day today: I finished sewing triangles onto grey squares, and speed dated the blocks.

 

I also got them clipped in place, so I can start sewing the strips together.

AND I started on my plain and spotty rainbow fabrics - the ones I got from the girls' boyfriends for my birthday.

However, I think I need more blocks ... so I shall just *have* to go shopping for more fabric: I hope HobbyCraft still have it in stock

 

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One to one sewing retreat

So at home there seems to be no time to see, and anyway my machine is still out with the engineer, so I had a great solution this weekend - I attended a very very exclusive 1-2-1 sewing retreat - at Jackie's !!!!

Only a 48 hour trip this time so we've had to cram lots of sewing in!

 

Some nesting boxy pouches from Sara's website

 

A lovely Christmas tree decoration

And a load more warm diamond blocks have been stitched

 

And we still have another day!

 

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The Old School One

You may remember Lisa, mum and I started making a dress for Lisa a few weeks ago - well she wants to wear it to a wedding - on Tuesday! Needless to say we had done nothing further since the initial work, but this weekend it had to be finished!

My main sewing machine is still away being serviced, and the one I bought when I was teaching weekly has been playing silly games - so I dragged out an ancient Singer hand crank machine for the top stitching

 

And I hand stitched the hem and am rather chuffed that it's pretty invisible!

 

Not all old school this weekend though. The embroidery machine has been earning its keep with this pile of tshirts done

 

And a last minute present made a birthday girl very happy

 

And I've pinned a whole load more warm diamond blocks - I've even stitched a few on the Singer but my arm is starting to ache! I think I'll be back to hexies for a while until I get a machine back!

 

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Beautiful, and Boring

No fabric time during the week but I managed to spend a few hours this afternoon.

Cutting 6" squares from dark grey spraytime, and small triangles from the warm FQs I I bought last week, then sewing them together, pressing them, trimming them and then p

Laying them out like this

 

I know lots of people don't like spraytime, but I do, and I knew I didn't want a flat grey - I'm really pleased with the way this is going!

Meanwhile, after being taken apart and put back together last weekend, the embroidery machine was back at work on about 30 polo shirts for the preschool, boring, but a nice little earner!

 

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