2022 Week 6

Hi

thanks for coming to the new blog!!

This week I have been crocheting . . .  (no idea why the bottom line isn't straight) I'm loving the colours in this wool

I've been having a go at making an Eton School boy Ginger

I've finished one of two I-spy quilts for Tara

I designed and stitched a daffodil / spring Ginger 

The finished Granny Square quilt is now on the spare bed with it's 'parent'!

And I've finished the alteration to the patchwork jacket mum made me years ago

2022 Week 5

 A bit of a round up of what I've been doing!!

A tiny hand sewing project for on the train the other day: this will go on a second version of "my Small World" that Jackie is making and that I get to contribute to (only fair as I have the original!!!!

This is the tiny hexies on the original.  I'm hoping she'll let me make the New York Beauty and the Dresden plate too!

At Richmond and Kew Quilters this month we are making clothing out of patchworked pieces.  It's quite an 'in' thing (you wouldn't expect us ladies for a certain age to be on trend but there you go!).  It reminded me that mum made me a patchwork jacket years ago. I never really got on with the rounded neck so cut the binding off with an intention to change it, but it then sat in the stuff-to-be-done pile for (I have to confess), years if not decades!!!

Here is an idea of the before

And now the after

A friend of mine directed the village pantomime: The Pied Piper.  I was asked to make a Ginger of the Pied Piper himself: you can just see him in the centere of this cast photo

And here is my version

I also made a cyclist Ginger for a customer

and a World Cancer Day a few days ago and a Story Telling Day next month

 

Inspired by another member of Richmond and Kew quilters' Magic Starts quilt I started cutting up fabric.  Debbie's version used 10" squares and had light on dark and dark on light - whilst lovely it wasn't quite what I wanted, so Plum helped me find another method and evertually all of these . . .

. . .  will become a quilt of this!

I have finished a granny squares crochet blanket, and have come to realise that I do not like sewing in the ends!!!!

We were asked tpo see if a sewing machine was fixable.  The stitch width is shot but the stitch length works fine, but there was a problem threading it, one of the early guides was broken.  This paperclip now identifies as a thread guide and all is well in the world

Chertsey Museum Fun With Fabric class met yesterday: Susan brought in these for Show and Tell from December's session - what a cute family!!

February's session was a 'wrap necklace'.  This is the start of mine: I'm using embroidery threads (amout a metre gives me about 5cm of colour!  

I also took my fabric wrapped necklace as another sample and brought some magnets so people could choose to make bracelets.  They did well but the necklaces are a long project!

I have received all my January pink (carnation) hexie flowers)

And have posted out all the ones I made for the swap

2022 Week 2

So we start a new year with a new blog post - and some actual finishes!!!!

None were quite as smooth as they should have been though!

The Janet Claire sludge fabrics got added to a fleece backing with a lot of flaffing and measuring: I like clams but I dont see loads of them in my future!

I decided to use the sewing machine to blanket stitch them down: sometimes she was very happy, 

Other times she was a right pain in the neck!

Anyway: quilt got joined and bound, and was delivered on Wednesday - juts two weeks late, and she's very happy with it!

Another finish has been posted to Norway for a cousin's newish grandson.  His name, Sverre, is an old Viking king's name.  His mum is cousin to Theia and Saga's mum, so although I made a different type of I-spy quilt I wrote his names in the same style

Annoyingly I managed to trap some loose fabric on the back when I embroidered one of the names, but I added a strip of the blue spraytime to the back to match the front and the binding and that hid the problem!!!

I stitched badges for the scouts and other uniform groups that delivered the village Christmas cards

And I got to the hairdressers for a trim and a bit of colour!!!!

With a bit of help from Lisa my stack of granny squares . . . 

Is starting to become a bloanket

I have completed the January Hexi flower swap hexies

And received all the December ones

Lisa's Jim got me a fabric pack for Christmas: mostly mustards and teal.  He is colour blind so I know he sometime struggles to choose colours but he said he bought these because they must go together as they came in a pack, and I overheard him say that he chose a pack he liked in case I made him something from it.  This is the problem with having daughters - it honestly never occurred to me that Jim might want something patchwork!!!!  Also he lives in a house with a number of quilts I have made for Lisa over the years and a fair number of blankets that she has crocheted, so I don't know that making him one would have occurred to me . . . well now it has!  He has the box room as his 'play room' where he plays computer games, and there is a small mustard sofa bed in it

This was the pack he got for me

I ordered a few more mustards and a replacement teal, cut them into 2.5" strips

And now I have a flimsy round-the-world in mustard and teal!

I need to find the right colour fleece for the backing but I rather like it - hope he does too!

2021 Week 52

Happy New Year to all

I must have been a good girl in 2021 as I was very spoiled at Christmas:

My little gang of Ginger Fans in the villages outdid themselves!  Look at the awesome Gingers I received from them!!!!

This cross stitched card from Niki

These awesome goodies from Jim, Plum, Jackie, Niki and Kathy: things made for me and things to make!  Thank you all so much!!!!

And this advent calendar stocking from Sharon (must take a pic of the finished version)

In other news: Niki and I helped with Meals on Wheels on Christmas Day - and she got cuddles with Monty and that made her day!

Lisa was trying to finish Niki's Christmas pressie: a heavy (t-shirt yarn) crochet blanket but the cats had other ideas!

(Niki loves it !)

And so does Thor!!!

Photos of this years' (and last years') Julenissen flooded into my inbox and social media - it makes me so happy to see them!

  

  

  

  

Thanks to Alice I have now sussed crochet "magic circles" and have started on squares for a blanket using up oddments from my previous blanket

And I made a decision about my not-enough-wool-to-make-a-big-shawl-but-not-enough-money-to-buy-more-skeins problem. I overlapped the ends and stitched them in place so I have a cowl/scarf and I might have ordered some variegated wool and a pattern to make a big multicoloured shawl at far less cost than even the skein I bought so far of the original plan!!!