2018 Wk 42 Leather and Poppies

Crafty Church ladies worked on poppies for the Horton lads who went to WW1, and the one lass that died locally in a ammunition factory explosion.  All the names have been written on these poppies, one for each, and pinned to these wooden crosses.  Carolyn is working on mounting all the information sheets she has put together, again one for each. 

And I have been patchworking leather!  A customer de-constructed the seat covers from a leather sofa and cut them to size to fit together.  He wants them as a backdrop for his pet photography business

He took photos of the 4 sections so I could plan the best route to joining them

and we started sewing them together with a zigzag stitch

and they are looking good - we are about 2.5 hours in and about 1/3 of the way through

 LOTS more of these left!

2018 Wk 41 Finishes

I have been frantically finishing the quilts on the rail of shame as they will be on show in two week's time at the Richmond and Kew quilters exhibition

Finished but need sleeves:

Also being finished is a quilt both Jackie and I have worked on - it's being finished in Ireland ready for the show . . .  My Small World.  I am SO looking forward to seeing it in real life!

I got this pack of lush fabrics from Lisa's Jim for my birthday - he's a good boy!!!

On Saturday I attended a wet felting class at Chertsey Museum - and made this poppy

And on Sunday my oldest friend (should I rephrase that?  The friend I have known for the longest time) came over with a suitcase of her late dad's shirts.  Linda and I have known each other since school age and I knew her mum and dad very well - a lovely couple.

Anyway, she and mum have cleared out dad's clothes: most have gone to a homeless shelter, some jumpers have gone to the grandchildren and the rest came to my house.  We turned a lovely jumper into a cushion

And are in the process of turning the first 1/4 of the shirts into a patchwork for mum (and will gradually work on the rest for Linda, her sister and her daughter)

It was an honour to be allowed to be involved and lovely to catch up with what the two families have been up to!

2018 Wk 34 - catch up

I've been doing the boring pre-school embroideries, but also some hand sewing, embroidery design and prep for the next few Chertsey Museum classes.

This mandala pattern is one that I designed and stitched using variegated thread - I've since made the satin stitch wider, so we'll see how that comes out.

I finished the edges of the two interchange wall hangings:

And I created this celtic cross embroidery design

It needed several tweeks, but I've now stitched it on the purple stole fabric and the two sides are ready to be stitched together to make the reversible stole

At Crafty Church we have started getting ready for our Remembrance day (100 years) display.  We've decided to go with poppy shapes.  (or rather approximately poppy shapes - I see a red snowman, but I have been assured that when I see loads of them I will see poppies - and to be fair they are very similar to the British Legion poppies!)

Janet is taking the sizzix and the circle dies to cut poppies for all 36 from the village involved in WW1

 I'm teaching Quilt As You Go hexies at Chertsey early September, so I sizzixed these

and made some of these

 
 which will be joined into this sort of shape

And finally, not me, but Jackie made this and I think it's far too gorgeous not to share! Perfect for a baby girl's essentials - a few nappies and a pack of wet wipes: and a pocket for mama's phone too

2017 Wk 44 - Back in England

After my far too short break in Ireland I've reverted back to real life with work and work and food shopping and other boring stuff. But now it's the weekend and my minutes and agendas are all up to date so lets see what I haven't told you about!

I had a full class at Chertsey on Friday - making sewing wraps. The bigger pic here is one that a friend made for me several years ago from a Woman's Weekly pattern - the others are the beginnings of the ladies' versions - I'm looking forward to seeing them finished for show and tell next time

This month's star show and tell was A's poncho - I LOVE it!!!!

It's just two weeks now until Remembrance Sunday and I haven't get seen a poppy seller to get my poppy, but the lovely R gave me this crocheted one - I'll pop my money in the collection box at church tomorrow

In the excitement of going to Ireland I neglected to shows photos from a family class last Saturday - Making Monsters: The kids have such great imagination!

I got a lovely squishy during the week: The lovely Barbara who blogs at The Flashing Scissors posted some finger-less mittens that her mum and sister have knitted for a local charity shop. Being slightly digitally challenged (I have to count in base 8 rather than base 10) I can't wear gloves. Jackie (and previously my M-i-L) have kept me in knitted-for-me gloves and mittens but these were a bit different so I cheekily asked Barbara for a pair (and I have paid my money to charity!)

Thank you Barbara (and your mum!) They are great

As for me, my creative 'juices' have been designing and embroidering for customers!

Fun eh? But I have some holiday left to take for this year so I'm having a few Wednesday's off where hopefully I can just SEW!

We did pop out this morning to collect our pottery which we threw back in September - now painted (glazed?) and fired they are looking amazing!

I might be back on Wednesday!!!

Posted with Blogsy

Fab Felted Flowers

(This description of how we made these fab flowers is more to remind me than a detailed tutorial)

These are the main ingredients: roving in red, darker red and black, resist (a piece of plastic packing material, it needs to be flexible and cut into a circle a bit bigger than the proposed poppy size) plus a tea towel and some bubble wrap (note to self, white tea towel next time, working with red on red is a tad difficult)

Put the disc on one end of the bubble wrap, on the towel.  Pull fine sections off the roving and lay them so the ends are in the centre hole, spreading out over the edge.

Spray, this helps to anchor them to each other for now (warm water and a little bit of liquid soap)

Flip the other half of the bubble wrap over the top, and flip the bubble wrap sandwich over - lift off the top half of bubble wrap, now you can see the resist and just the ends of the wool.

 

 Fold all the outer ends of the wool around the edge and towards the side 2 centre, spray

Repeat with side 2 up, and flip and fold the ends onto side 1, spray

Lay just a few strands over the  top of the wool on side 1, spray

 

Repeat the first steps again: strands onto side one,

 flip

 and fold and spray

Then strands onto side two, flip and fold and spray.  If you want to add a few strands of darker red now it the time to do so.

loosely bunch up some black wool, and add it in three points near the middle.  Spray and flip

Put the bubble wrap back over the top, spray the wrap and start stroking the flower through the bubble wrap, gently so as not to risk moving the black sections.  You need to stroke for at least 10 minutes, moving your work around as you go, so you are stroking in all directions.  Flip over, and repeat

When the fibres have all felted together (you cant pull any off), fold it in half and roll firmly between your hands,  then fold back on itself and repeat.  This will have distorted your circle into an oblong, so fold in half (at 90 degrees to the first fold) both ways ad roll again to restore the circle.  It will have shrunk, but the resist wont, so it will look a bit bloated.

Cut around the edge, but just inside the edge, so one side is a bit bigger than the other.  Once you remove the resist it should look something like this (there should be just one piece as the centre will have felted all the way through)

To create the petals, cut the top circle into thirds, from edge to about an inch off the centre.  Do the same to the other side, but offset (see dotted lines)

 Snip the corners off each section

Scrunch in your hand and roll firmly to rough up the cut edges. stretch each leaf width ways so it falls into waves

Take some black roving and wrap it a bit like winding a ball of knitting wool to make a small ball for the centre, roll it between your fingertips for ages, then gently between the balls of your hands until it has felted.

I've almost certainly forgotten some stages, but I plan to have another go, so I'll edit thee notes as appropriate

Sew the ball onto the front, and a pin onto the back, and as always, wear your poppy with pride!

Sizzix Sunday

It was Remembrance Sunday yesterday - the sun shone and the church was full for the 10:30 service.  Our usual 9:30 service was still held, but was slightly shorter to allow the extras to take their seats, but my Sunday Schoolers had asked if we could still have Sunday School, and could they do a Remembrance themed craft please.

I'd been contemplating this on Saturday, while I was sewing hexies with God Daughter - and she had a flash of inspiration . . .

So I lugged the sizzix to church with red and black paper, the boys had great fun cutting paper shapes, (*some* even came out as hexies) and we made Poppy Posters:

Rural Jardin flimsy

I managed to get the Rural Jardin finished (at least to a flimsy) yesterday,


and made part of the Secret Santa BQL pressie.


I also finished sewing the 1.5 inch blue blocks into a strip for the Log Cabin Candle quilt, and piece some green piecing to bulk out the tree - phew!


Today - nothing!

We did go to the Remembrance Day Service at church, and I have to share with you the sight as we came out and walked (about 200 of us, with Scouts and Guides etc) past the section which the gas board have dug up, and have had traffic lights for what seems like months ...


How awesome is that? And what's more, the lovely man who arranged it (and came to the service with his wife) donated one to the parish and one to the church!