A finish, and a farewell

Yay, the scrappy diamond quilt has been finished

The front . . . 

 and the back . . .

and the bodge, where the back strip (needed because the fleece wasn't long enough) wasn't long enough!!!!!

And a sad farewell.  This is Lisa, looking deceptively happy (holding back the tears) as she took her car to the scrap yard this morning.  We had to push start it as there was no life in the battery, but she did get £96 in scrap value, which she then spent on an external hard drive for her computer to cheer herself up! Bought for £1000 4 years ago almost to the day,  I reckon depreciation of 62p a day was pretty good value!!!!!

More Yummy Yellow

The Chertsey Museum ladies have been busy again - and these three fab blocks came through my letter box

dreadful photos - but fab blocks towards the baby quilt, thanks Kay and  Deborah - wish I'd got further than part way through mine!!!

M I A (without the A)

Missing In Action - but practically no action!  I wish I could claim to have been too busy sewing to blog, but I've hardly picked up a needle for two weeks.  So what are my excuses?

. . . We have been to the Cruise Show at Olympia, and we have decided on our treat for having put up with each other for 25 years next spring - and are off to cruise the fjords of Norway, hopefully with light displays from the Northern Lights

. . . and thanks to serendipity and technology we met the lovely Scott and Slavka in Covent Garden.  Scott was working on the developing of Lattitude for phones (locating your friends by smart phone maps) in the late 1990s, and this was the first time he had used it to meet friends or family without planning in advance.  Hope you had a fab birthday Slavka!

 . . .and we have spoon fed anti-biotics laced meal worms to a poorly hedgehog who now seems to be on the mend

. . . and I have machine embroidered Grace's name onto this buggy seat lining

. . . and I have discovered that the backing fabric on the Diamond Quilt is just too short in one place so I'm having to flaff around, post quilting, to add on a strip so I have something to stitch the binding too.  No, no photos, not that will stop some of you being entertained by it (H, K, J, R - you know who you are!!!)

Mellow Yellow

Once a month I host a class at a local (ish) museum, and it was arranged by the assistant curator, Sally.  Sally has just gone on maternity leave, and the group decided we would make some yellow and white blocks to create a quilt for the baby.

I got photos of a few under construction last Friday

(it is coincidence that these are both foundation pieced flying geese)

And the first finished block arrived in the post yesterday - it's lovely Deborah, I'm so glad you felt you could part with it!

Did it myself

While I was window shopping at Creative Grids a few days ago (possibly really shopping too, oops) I saw these "Row Marking Safety Pins"

Advertised as "Perfect way to keep your rows in order as you sew" they came with instructions to . . .
1. Place letter beads on safety pin
2. Pin into rows in alphabetical order to keep in sequence
3. Sew rows together in alphabetical order

For a Price of £4.96 I thought they were a really good idea, far better than the scraps of paper I usually use, but I was worried that the beads would fall off when I opened the pins again. Eventually I had a Eureka moment . . .

Do I have alphabet beads?   Yes, loads  . . . Do I have safety pins?  Yes, loads

And I even have mini split rings, so look what I made

(Not that I think I'll ever made a quilt with 26 rows!)