2019 Wk 26 - a bit of a bodge

For our sixth (!!) wedding anniversary (in 1994!!!!) husband bought me an iron candle stick.  The arms spiral from an iron plate and it held 6 cobalt blue pots which held tealights.  I love it!  It lives in the garden

Over the years three of the blue pots have broken and some years ago Jackie and I found some glass yoghurt pots that were a good size.  We forced ourselves to eat the yogurt (!) and I glued rope around the tops to stop them falling through.  Not as pretty, but did the job

Over the last few years the rope has started falling off, so I needed a plan C

I found a pack of solar garden lights in Aldi (funnily enough the same place the yogurt pots came from)!

I pulled off the stakes and slid the lamp part into the iron ring at the top of each arm

and I have a working garden light!!!  I am delighted!!

I have done a bit of sewing too - I appliqued the final scraps of rainbow onto some spare denim, and I gathered up all the rainbow cork scraps and after a bit of playing managed to fit them into a jigsaw puzzle that gave me almost a rectangle almost the same size as the denim.  Not sure where this is going but I hope to have some inspiration soon

I've also been embroidering for the local Scout packs, and for a museum exhibition about pleats and drapes

I have plans that may see more crafting in the future - wish me luck!

2019 Wk 25 - Rainbow weekend

Jackie has been here and we've had (of course) a fabulous weekend but unfortunately it's come to and end and she's on her way home :-(. 

We both have a crazy number of reminders of the weekend - and more than a few are rainbow themed!!

We made rainbow necklaces and embroidered a tshirt for Gay Pride month

 We made these fab rainbow bucket bags, based very loosely on this Pin

The designer machine quilted them more or less in the ditch - we went for in your face Kantha type quilting and for this lovely textured look

By making the bucket bags slightly smaller than the instructions said we managed to have some rainbow leftover so we make these Pythagoras zippy pouches with the remainder rainbow and some beautiful cork fabric with rainbow splashes

We used some other cork too - this lush claret red cork - to make another zippy

Oh, and then went on to make these framed retreat pouches (that were much easier than I last remember them being)

and finally some of these from this gorgeous fabric from South Africa from Sharon, lined with some spraytime

 Love you Jackie - come back soon!!!!

2019 Wk 24 - D4G update and some new ideas

Niki set off on her safari adventure on Wednesday morning.  She's packed everything into these two backpacks and is clearly apprehensive about going and missing her mummy (not!)

She's sent a few pics - I think it's safe to say she's having a great time!

As well as the two backpacks she also took a suitcase filled with 48 Days For Girls kits - and these have been delivered top the lovely Pamela who has undertaken to get them to Connie at Kisumu

I have bought some more brushed cotton for more D4G kits - if you ever wanted to know what £180 worth of brushed cotton looks like here is your answer!

I don't know about your sitting room but we have two double sofas - he has one which he shares with the cat and the TV remote controls and I have one that I share with my hand sewing projects!  My project basket was a rubbishy woven one with the lining on the outside rather than the inside to stop it scratching the sofa.  

So I made myself a fabric caddy, with pockets that holds it all and is gentle on the sofa, and can be picked up and moved if I have to share my sofa with another person!

I have been thinking about being unemployed from next month (!) and maybe offering a sewing / making / mindfulness class.  Something that will teach people a new skill but just as importantly let them zone out of the daily stresses of life and concentrate on themselves.

I've been Pinning loads of ideas, and decided to try this one - handmade fabric beads.  I store my embroidery threads on clothes pins, so used one to wrap fabric (and wadding) around
 

and then started stitching.  The phone clearly doesn't like zooming in that much, but they were really good fun to make and only took about 20 minutes each - what do you think?  Would there be any interest?

And finally this week I was going to a meeting and needed pen and notebook.  I was tidying up some leather (Jackie arrives in less that a week so I need to have *some* work space to share with her) and made a quick pen holder before I put it away!

2019 Wk 24 - the last ten days

The "last ten days" in the heading has two meanings - the photos are of crafty stuff FROM the last 10 days and I have about ten days left at work (gulp!)  They have made me redundant and there isn't much work coming my way so I have been doing a bit more making than I would normally get a chance for!

I have planned the finish of my rainbow hexie flowers - not much more piecing to go, *just* assembling and quilting and binding after that!!!

Even though the weather is up and down at the moment I am sleeping under a coverlet that is just patchworked blocks quilted to a cotton sheet.  But I only made one coverlet which means I don't have one for the opposite laundry change! (This one, which I love 
http://slikstitches.com/2014/07/teal-on-tuesday.html?m=1)

Anyway I wanted something sunny and bright and found this FQ pack from Jackie

I chopped it into squares and sashed it with 2.5 inch strips and in very little time I had this:

I just need to find some binding (shopping excuse!) and some time to quilt it and then I'm all set!

The Chertsey Museum class last week was paper foundation piecing.  It's difficult to teach and the fabric sort of gets pinned in place inside out upside down and back to front, but it seemed to go OK even if there wasn't much ready for a photo opportunity by the end of the class!

 A number of the ladies did bring back their bowls from last month - looking good!

2019 Wk 22 - Lizzie has been busy!

Our village fair is in a few weekend's time.  (OK not actually our village as we are too small but our sister village has a cracking summer fair!).  One of the Crafty Church ladies organises a Craft Show and I try and enter something most years.  This year there is a theme of The Big Top, so one of the classes is 2m of Clown bunting.  I had a great time designing then stitching these clowns

They are all slightly different but use the same 4 fabrics in different combinations.  I alternated some so their hands rise and fall as you look along the length.

I then used the rest of the pink, red, orange, yellow fabrics to make a Stitch banner

Which fits perfectly on the display until Husband made.  I can hang quilts, or with S hooks we can hang boomerang bags - and here we are hanging just some of the Day For Girls sanitary kits going to Kenya with Niki in a few days time

I entered some embroidery items in a craft auction to help a friend get back on his feet.  He moved into a new studio and set up all his equipment as he was working through his to-do list.  Unfortunately a neighbouring unit went up in flames before Darren got to the 'pay for insurance' bit of his list - and all the units were consumed by the fire.

4 people have bought tote bags embroidered in a design of their choice.  These are the first two customers

And patchwork labels for another two customers

And finally some hand sewing - a few more flowers added to the EPP Rainbow flowers - which the cat seems fairly positive is hers!!!

2019 Week 21 Crafty Church

May's Crafty Church was possibly best described as ambitious!

One of the crochet ladies had two necklaces that she reckoned had been done by crochet - could they please work out how they were made so she could make some to sell on the WI stall

I am know we are only 8 and 10, but w saw this pattern in a magazine and have decided to make a dress and a skirt!

Um - OK!  I did the explaining-the-pattern bits and we got everything cut out but poor mum and granny had to take over as we'd run out of time

EDIT: The dress now looks like this!!

Others were working on crochet blankets, patchwork sampler quilt and all sorts of other things!

We also had some girls teaching themselves string art

And I was working on my paper foundation pieced blocks