2019 Wk 48 - Drat and fiddlesticks

Fact 1: I had thousands of photos of my phone - some were family photos, some were blog photos and some were ones that had come in through WhatsApp etc and stayed.  And my phone was using battery at an alarming rate

Fact 2: I used to have to save my phone photos to my PC to be able to add them to my blog, but some time ago (my guess is September 2016*) a new option appeared so I could add photos from my phone which saved a lot of time.

Fact 3: Someone suggested that I delete some of my photos from my phone to see if that helped with the battery usage.

Have you guessed what happened?

Fact 4: I saved the family photos from the phone to the network, but I deleted the others that I'd used on the blog starting at about 2013, up to about April 2018: I planned to carry on later.

And the reason I can quote the dates?  Almost every photo on the blog between September 2016 and April 2018 has been replaced by this

I have done the hair pulling and the screaming at the computer and the crying - and finally the thinking ... Google give me 60 days to change my mind about deleting photos - phew!  So I think I have reinstated most of them!

I have managed a bit of sewing too!

This planning

and this cutting

and this making-binding-by-bodging happened (sorry about the striped ironing board cover, makes it difficult to see what I'm doing but the binding is purple and then red)

and making this

And this

And then doing this ...

More to follow when it's been pressed under a weight to get the vinyl creases out!

I've started working on this with the Kaffe Fassett 3" squares I got from Jackie - I'm really loving the fabric!  : It's planned and ready to stitch

And I've done the prep for the next Chertsey Museum class - we are doing scrappy pennies

These were fun to do.  They all started the same but I did different embroideries

And finally I've received another Pudsey themed hexie flower from the Facebook swap group I've joined.  Roll on next month

2019 Wk 47 - where did the time go?

I rather feel this post is just going to be a list - but lots of pretty pics anyway!

I made green felt storage containers for another Chalice set at church.  I prefer the colour of the red but I think the design of the green is better

We had a fabulous Remembrance Day parade and service ten days or so ago - huge turnout and not only no rain, but incredibly blue skies

Lisa I attended a course where at one stage we had to "make" something to reflect what we had learned - our eyes lit up as we were allowed to rummage through bags of stickers and pipe cleaners etc.  I used needle and thread (of course I have a sewing kit in my handbag. doesn't everyone???) so the stickers dangled - we had great fun!

Another Pudsey hexie flower arrived

 And I joined a whole load of 1.5" squares into a long strip.  Jackie and I have a few million of these squares, but my seam allowance isn't accurate enough to make 3.5" squares (3x3) so our first plan has been abandoned.  I think something like this will work, and my dodgy seam allowance should be hidden!!!

I've also given up on a blanket crochet I started ages ago. I cant find any progress photos but it was far too wide and would never be finished with the two balls of wool I bought, so I frogged it all and Lisa started me off with a straight forward granny square

We had Crafty Church last week.  I got a bit on pinning done, not much more, but there was lots going on!

Carole visited us for the first time and taught several girls how to make decorations form corn stalks

Ulrike showed us how to make this star while others got on with patchwork or quilting

Others were making Suffolk puffs (with lavender inside), and Stitched Christmas cards

While others were knitting or crocheting or sewing buttons onto a tree for our Crafty Church entry into the next village's Christmas Tree Festival

Phew!  So that's where the time went!

2019 Wk 45 - yet another post this week!

I'm a bit behind with posting fabriccy stuff!

I've joined a FB group that does hexi swaps - my first theme was Pudsey bear!

This is my first inward flower - isn't it great!

I was a bit stumped for ideas then I saw this fabric Jackie was using for her version of the baby clutch, and the dots screamed Pudsey at me

So I've been fussy cutting the circles and  tacking them and and working on getting them stitched into flowers asap

You know you sometimes think you have just the right pouch for a project?  I thought I did but it' s a bit small

I've been asked to make some stuff for church.  This is a trial collection bag.

 And I didn't blog about last week's Chertsey Museum Fun With Fabric!  These were my samples

 and these were the versions that were being worked on

I'm look forward to seeing them finished next month

2019 Wk 44 - Irish Retreat

I managed to spend the weekend at my very favourite place - Jackie's!!!  The saga of the flights showed the carrier as so utterly incompetent you wouldn't believe me if I told you! Suffice to say they eventually issued the tickets that I had paid for three weeks earlier, refunded the monies they shouldn't have taken (5 debits totaling > 3 x flight costs), gave me two apologetic chunks of compensation, and I managed to get to Dublin at the planned time!

So what did we do???

We spent a lot of the weekend in this awesome room!!!

We made two nappy clutch bags (we finished the hand sewing on the other one first as it had to be gifted, and it never made the photo session!)

A quilted pocket on the outside (phone?) and a clipped strap so it can be clipped to a buggy or pram

and two zipped mesh pockets on the inside for nappies and wipes.  All machine washable

We also made these sewing tool cases: two big zipped pockets outside, and I think I counted 29 pockets inside - some zipped, some slip, some vinyl, some mesh and some quilted.  We used Annie soft and stable, and in places there are at least three layers plus fabric, vinyl and zip - and now we have to add bias binding.  I really love the design, but we've made a sheet of notes as to how to do it differently next time (it doesn't need quite so many pockets (5 of them are zipped!) or quite so much padding!

We also made some more boxy zip-on-top pouches, trialing different types of stabiliser.  I think my old favourite of fusible fleece was best

Based on the nappy clutch and the tool case, and the Sewing Folio we made from Aneela's book we then designed our own caddy.  ("Design" might imply thinking about it in advance but don't be fooled!)

We used Aneela's rough size, and used another design from the book as inspiration to make one vinyl pocket with zips at both ends, then stitch through the middle to make it two pockets

Two vinyl pockets got added to the other side (one zipped, one not), and a zipped mesh pocket

And it folds into a clutch great for holiday / travel projects.  Mine will be for hexies, and Jackie switched the slip in vinyl pocket to a padded pocket with stitching to create small sections and will use hers for her knitting needle set that has interchangeable needles and circles of different lengths

What else?  While Jackie and her sewing machine were battling the layers in the tool case, I cut a whole load of 6x10" squares from a pack of Kaffe Fassett fabrics.  She's going to make the shadow box quilt ... and I tidied up the remains and cut myself a whole load on 3 inch squares to make something like this 

We did get some fresh air over the weekend.  Jackie's youngest, Paul, plays hurling for the local team.  They were playing against the "two-time All-Ireland club champions" in the quarter finals and beat them!!!!!

It was a very exciting match (and traumatic for other reasons), and I've got a bit closer to understanding the game!  After my first match six years ago I described the rules here

Finally though I had to leave.  On the two flights and some occasional chatting-and-hand-sewing sessions I attached all the hexies I had brought, so I'm now ready to join these to the hexi round

2019 Wk 44 - what I've been doing (and should have been doing)

I'm teaching a class today at Chertsey Museum - and planned to teach a sewing caddy in a glass jar with a pincushion lid.  As I started to prep for the class I realised this would take no more that ten minutes so was NOT a good idea.  Instead I made this (just for fun, we wont be making these at the museum until December 2020!!!)

Then I had to get back on track: I have a couple of dozen polystyrene balls planned for the sewing caddies so I had to find something that I could do with them.  Thank you Pinterest: two ideas!

I treated myself to a new storage organising thingy so spent the best part of a day sorting lots of little bits and pieces into this - I think everything little is now easy to find except a box of bells that are still hiding somewhere

I did some machine embroidery for a customer

And I love it when I get pics of things I've made being used

And that pic wasn't the only one this week: I got this from the Windsor Homeless Project showing Chris with his hat

And this from Lily's granny - what a cutie!

The hexi rounds flimsy has grown, and hopefully the dark rings and the light rings are obvious.  I can go two more light and half a dark with prepared hexies, and then oh dear what a pity never mind I'll have to do some more!

I'm almost up to date on the temperature project

And I am up-to-date on the European-trips-with-friends patches.  Do I sew them onto a bag as originally planned or would a zippy or a scarf be better?