2021 Week 14

 Hello lovely people in blog land, how is your corner of the world?  Mine is doing OK!

Our savings are invested in premium bonds and husband loves to check each month to see what we've won - just look what we won on 1st April.  Convinced?  Sadly it was an April Fool's joke!

I made some Easter Gingers for my sitting room window, and dropped some more Easter Egg versions to my little Ginger Fan club members

Along with lovely Thank You cards and messages I got 2 photos  of Ginger Collections!  Don't they look great!

Our village We're all in this together" group celebrated it's first birthday, so needed a ginger

And oldest daughter celebrated her (ahem) 30th birthday - she got a crochet blocking square, crochet hooks and a storage case for her hooks

Youngest daughter was given some second hand netball bibs (could mum please fix the elastic straps!) so i also made her a bag to keep them in - I love the name of the team!!!

If you want a good book I thoroughly recommend this one.  The first 90% was great but I was getting anxious as to how she could possibly wrap it up before the end then Oh My Gosh!  I cant tell you in case you read it, but if you do please let me know, I'd love to be able to talk to someone about it!!!!

And "someone" sent me a card, a little pouch and some chocolate for Easter - thank you Jackie!  I cant begin to tell you how much better my life is for having you in it (and what utter cr@p it is that we cant meet up!)

I spent a morning with young D who has been learning machine embroidery for her skill section of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme (Rest In Peace, sir, I hope you knew what an amazing legacy this scheme would be)

She designed this bunny

and we tried to stitch it out but my old portable machine clearly needs a service, 

so I stitched it out at home for her

I have a collection of much loved Chambery summer shirts - some are nearly worn out, and others have shrunk in the wardrobe (!)  One was neither - it's problem was that it was too short.  So I took a deep breath and cut up all the shrunk ones, and the bits of the others that had some life left, and lengthened the short one

There are raw seams top and bottom, but I'm rather chuffed with the method I used to join the strips as there are no vertical raw seams

There was some darker Chambery left when I'd finished and I had some yardage that was slightly too dark for the shirt too (left over from this previous adaptation:)

 

And there was a denim pinafore that I loved but was too short to wear with leggings and too long to wear with jeans - so flushed with success I'm lengthening the pinafore too!

And finally a finish (that's gone back on the to-do list!)

The binding fabric arrived, and the quilt was bound . . .

And then I realised one of the spirals was missing on the left hand side!  Luckily it's still do-able even after the binding has been added - phew!

2021 Week 12

So what have i been up to?  Work (of course!) but apart from that . . . I stitched these five Easter panels from Kiwi Designs: rather than making them into a panel I made them separate - they could maybe be used as mugrugs? 

Briana nd Niki have been creative - the old (original 1960s) flat porch roof has gone and been replaced by this one - and because he's just as much a hoarder as I am, he could find the tiles that came off the roof in 1995 or so to make room for velux windows and use them on the new porch roof!!!

A friend became a granddad, so a good excuse to finish an I-spy quilt!

The pre-school children came into church to hear the Easter story and hunt for felt Easter eggs - it was lovely to see this lad in the fleece that I embroidered for the uniform holding and egg that I'd embroidered for their trip to the church

My Crochet blanket is growing: but as the weather improves I'm doing less - it might have to be put away unfinished until next autumn.

I took a sneaky trip top Cliveden House - just walking the grounds but it was a beautiful days and I may have bumped into two friends who were coincidentally there too

I was asked to make a Ginger commemorating ANZAC day (end of April).  This photo

became these Gingers

via  a game of thread chicken!!!!!  (I won, phew!)

Scratchy cat seems to think this blanket might be hers!!!!

Panic Production Line

Ahhh, two hours until I have to go home, think, think, what can we make / learn / teach?

Jackie showed me how to make a lined zippy pouch (can you send me the link Jackie, so I can make one again?) ( new to me - a successful zip, and fusible wadding)

And we learnt (thank you Hadley!  Link to Svetlana's post with instructions here) how to make lined drawstring bags, so we made one

Then another 

And a few more

And with 20 minutes sewing time left, made two more!!!!!

Do I HAVE to go home :-(

Bennett's Bunnies & Baby's Finish

We have an estate agent in the village, B S Bennett's, who do some fabulous themed window displays.  Well this Easter they have turned it over to the community, and invited us to submit Easter decorations

About the same time as they issued this invitation I was looking at Urban Thread's Giving Bunny project, and was reminded that Plum and her girls had made some [see here] and they really enjoyed them, so I got to thinking about making these for the kids who come to the Easter Kids' Craft Church session.

I adapted the design slightly to allow me to use just one colour thread rather than keep changing - this way I can do two in five minutes: a great help when I'm doing 30+!!!

So here are the Bennett Bunnies enjoying a bit of Windsor sunshine before being delivered to the shop window

 

There are another couple of dozen already stitched, with more being stitched as I write this: ready for the kids to stuff and sew closed at Crafty Church - and we shall discuss the Urban Thread's idea of leaving these in places for someone else to find

I have also finished Baby Mark's pillow and quilt, and they are ready for delivering, with all the bibs and vests etc, to his mum

Who Won the Sweepstake?

Ok, I guess we all knew I wouldn't stick to the list for the whole 17 days, so whoever got today in the sweepstake- congratulations, you win!!!!

But I did spend a fab day with Lizzy - and she learnt loads and made this

Her husband always makes me feel very welcome!