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!!!!!!

2019 Wk 38 - cats and quilts

We had Crafty Church today, and a new lady joined us - the very talented Sian: she brought this awesome liberty quilt to show us:  Several of us threatened to run away with it, it really is stunning!

Sharon and I took it up to the mezzanine floor so Sian could get a pic of the whole quilt.  Absolutely no pattern  - just added bits to other bits, and scrappy binding

I didn't get much work done for myself: but I did get a piece of white cotton basted to some while fleece (too boring to photograph!)

But worthy of a photograph - my new house guests: Thor, and underneath him is his sister Luna - gorgeous kitties!!!

Anmd my sewing room . . . I should probably do some tidying up!

2019 Wk 38 Sicily and Inspiration

I've just come back from a few days away in Sicily: some random street art like these "windows" and "doors" in a side street

and lots of fun, chat, food and just a few drinks with these lovely ladies.

Such random stuff

 but some of it I fancy trying

 This cork pencil wrap was lovely and simple - and was selling for 148 Euro!!!!

I really like this simple clay design

And thought this was a great toy teaching so many things - matching, balancing, counting, colour recognition . . .

Mount Etna was having a little puff, but otherwise the skies were blue

As was our little apartment

I've been thinking about ideas for next year's Chertsey Museum classes: Separated (not EPP) hexies

Using crochet with fabric

I thought these might make good mega Dorset buttons

 And can I do anything fabric related with these?  I have 13 and a tea light just fits inside!

2019 Wk 37: tea and trees and Dresdens

The girls and I took their God Mother and God Sister out for their combined birthdays this year: afternoon tea on a vintage London Double Decker bus

 All that food plus savoury muffins, and scones with cream and jam (or should that be jam and cream?) and lots of tea of coffee - a great afternoon out

 And we've finally got around to getting a gardening in to hack this lot down.  Behind that forest is my beautiful church - but you wouldn't know it.

The gardener got let down by his partner so he got his two lads to help - they did a great job first of all giving me back my view of the trees

and then cutting the last few down.  The stumps will protect the garden from un-authorised visitors, and if the apple tree in the garden gets too big that will have the same treatment!!!

At Chertsey Museum we had some show and tell of the handy pods and foundation paper piecing

and some Dresden plates were created (I was too late to get the other photos!)

2019 Wk 35 - Dresden Plates and other stuff

In my last post I showed a "blades" Dresden plate made using this method

I thought I ought to be able to teach petal edges using the EPP method as well, (gathering the curved bit separately to tacking the fabric to the template) so I made this one

I had real problems finding on-line templates that actually fitted to make a circle, so many attempts later made my own templates.

Also this week I've made cushions for the lovely ladies at Windsor Baptist Church (I wasn't going to do hidden zips so I went colourful instead!)

And I had a stall at the Church fair - which was attended by a real unicorn!!!

I sold a few things at the fair but the bigger success was  the baby embroidery machine embroidering names on flannels.  I sold at least 4 to girls who are now at university (and one is a new mum) but still have the named flannels they bought from me a dozen years ago - and were delighted to get fresh versions (but still wanted to come and type in their own name and press the 'go' button!)

And I have been tacking hexies (just for a change)

and loving seeing them sorted in a Tupperware box

 And finally a friend, Hayley, and I have been silk screen printing.  A few disasters, but this cut from a Tescos brown paper bag worked really well.

We are meeting again next week to twist the stencil and turn the 4 leafed flower into an 8 leafed flower