2019 Wk 41 - Working with Jackie

Working (ie sewing) with Jackie . . . and shopping with Jackie at the Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitching show makes for a pretty fab weekend!

We made a couple of 'Fold Up Sewing Folio's from Aneela Hoey's Stitched Sewing Organisers book (we had to put an elastic strap on as we didn't have enough fabric for the fastening strap)

And these Stash and Go drawstring bags

(the mint zippie was a repair for oldest daughter)

The lovely Kathy sent us instructions on how to make her Japanese Eco market tote bag and we made these

These pouches came from this blog and although they took more than the promised ten minutes, they were really quick to make

These Handy Fold-up pouches also came from Aneela's book

and prompted this larger i-pad sized version

And finally we made Emmaline's retreat bag (just one got photographed!)

Not bag for really just a day and a half of sewing as we also spent a day at the Knitting and Stitching show!

I bought some great iron on plastic from Happy Fabric (this is my first test piece)

and some felted sheets to line some tube mittens

Some additional shades of pearle quilting threads, and some Advent calendar ribbons, together with some felt that is a bit more 'gingerbread man' coloured

And a skein of sari scraps with should allow me to make a scarf like this one

2019 Wk 40 - assorted stuff

It's been a busy and crafty week

I made luggage tags for a group of friends, with name and mobile phone number on them

I gave a talk at a local corporate office: I talked about Stitch and Days for Girls and then taught the team how to make basic tote bags - actually I taught the teams how to use a sewing machine too: some had never used one and others hadn't done so since leaving school

They did a great job

At Chertsey Museum we made t-shirt and velvet necklaces

 And admired the Show and Tell from last month's Dresden Plates

On Saturday the family treated me to a chocolate experience!  We all went to a lady who has a great workshop with liquid chocolates and all sorts of goodies to get creative with (and unlimited pecking whilst we worked!!!)

 And we all come home with a bag of hand made goodies!!!

 I did some more work on the paper foundation pieced spotty circles

And I worked with a friend at another church to talk about the concept of weaving prayers into everyday life.  We used a tall clothes rail and warped it

then wrote prayers on colourful paper and wove them - doesn't it look great!

2019 Wk 39 - whole piece quilting and a day out

The whole piece quilt is rather lovely even if I do say so myself!  I have a plan for it, but then I had more ideas of what to do with it . . .  so I started another one!  This one doesn't have any specific negative space, and it has more hand stitching than is planned for the bigger piece, and I just used the machine running stitch.  More hand stitching is on the cards

It was my birthday this week and Plum and Avril have blogged about Chihuly at Kew Gardens.  It's not that far from us so we booked tickets and went for the afternoon.  I thought we would see them lit up, but we went on Wednesday and the "Chihuly Nights" session are Thursday, Friday and Saturday :-(  We had a good time though, although I declined the opportunity to buy a small bowl for £6000!!!!

 

My favourites though are the pagoda I remember from going there as a child and the dragons on every corner of every roof

and the wrought iron spiral staircases - I cant help feeling my life would be complete if I had the space for one of these!!!

This week end I did a bit more hand sewing on the second whole cloth piece

and found a purpose for the amazing folder Plum sent me for my birthday

(My friend Sharon gave me a journaling bible for my birthday and a guide book . . .and persuaded another friend of ours to get me some journaling pens . . .  and they all fit perfectly in the folder - thank you Plum (and Sharon and Alison!) no comments on lack of artistic talent thank you!!!!

2019 Wk 38 - Quilting!

I'm not really a quilter - more a patchworker (as husband explains, I cut up fabric and sew it back together!)

But I woke up at about 3am the other morning with a vision of a completed whole cloth quilt.  I basted it a Crafty Church on Saturday, and marked off 6.5" squares, and on Sunday I started sewing.  Very liberated machine running stitches, a few fancy stitches from the machine's memory, and later will be adding some hand stitched running stitches sort of Kantha style

I'm using each thread no more than once on each line - and each line may have just have one or two decorative stitches: either from the machine or hand stitched.  It's taking about half an hour to do each colour - On Sunday I clocked up 2.5 hours.  There may be some paralleled sections but not many!!!

And today I took the total up to about 4.5 hours.  It doesn't look much from a distance

but close up I'm loving the colours.  Next I need to add the hand stitching and I have an idea for the squares . . . watch this space

 Just thought I'd confess to a total inability to sew parallel lines, but I don't care!!!!!!