2019 Wk 49 - Teaching

I was teaching on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning last weekend - both were great fun!

The adults at Chertsey Museum made these scrappy penny designs: I'm so glad I bought the black tote bags - the felt looks great against it

 And I finished my Secret Santa wrap

The children on Saturday had a great time, and made wreaths (pipe cleaners and beads), Christmas trees (and loved using the Sizzix to cut out the circles) and stick and pine cone mobiles

Fun but exhausting - I walked over 6000 steps just walking round the church hall checking that all the families were doing OK!!!!

After that I came home and put my feet up, while Lizzie stitched out gingerbread men for my boss, the Vicar, and his Finnish wife:

2018 WK 50 - too busy to blog

Life has been a bit hectic recently - I've got a new job starting 2nd January so I have been making sure everything at my current job is up to date to be handed over . . . and I've been teaching and making gifts!

These were some of the Christmas Decorations created at a recent Family Learning class

As well as me leaving, my poor boss is losing his other admin receptionist as she's going on maternity leave.  I made a Mickey Mouse quilt and taggie for the baby

 I taught Suffolk Puff Christmas Trees at Chertsey Museum

And ran a stall at the neighbouring village's Christmas Fayre talking to people about Stitch (our Days For Girls washable menstruation kits)

One of the group had been busy making stuff to sell to put towards more fabrics and an overlocker - I got this fab fella

Richmond and Kew had it's Christmas do: We do a secret Santa and I got this lovely little pouch with an easy thread needle

I also did a little side swap with Cheryl - she makes these fab free range sewing kit bags

And was making me one, so I made her a zippy pouch

2018 Wk 46 - work and family

We made these cute birds at Richmond and Kew on Monday: whilst hearing about the results from the Quilt Exhibition.  We took over £6000 - and 1/4 of that was from the bric-a-brak (aka crap) stall - that's all going to charity: isn't that an amazing total.  Just over 600 people came through the doors so they spent and average of £10 each!

I have been working on customer embroideries - tese pathes are for scarves for the football club

and there were zippies and hoodies for them too plus polo shirts and big patches for table cloths for the museum

The village turnout for the 100 Years Remembrance of WW1 was great, and our girls helped 91 year old nanny lay her cross.

I made  a sewing machine needle organiser and some scissor tags for a secret santa gift at Richmond and Kew Quilters

 And Mr Postie delivered a lovely squishie of zips from Zipit at Etsy.

Plum gave me a whole load more 1.5" squares for mine and Jackie's mini quilt

I met Pudsey Bear at work

Oh, and I got a new car!!!!! (she's gorgeous!!!)

 Hope you had a good week

More Christmas Pressies

We stretch our Christmas out over a couple of days, and after I had posted pics of crafty pressies yesterday, I remembered that they were the Christmas Day pressies, but I was lucky enough to get some more on Boxing day:

These lovely summery fabrics were from Secret Santa (Thank you Slavka (Niece #1), I know it was you)

And these goodies were a belated Birthday Pressie from Anna (Niece #2) who confessed she had a lovely time choosing goodies in TheClothStore in Horsham

I think both girls have a hitherto un-discovered interest in fabrics and sewing, so I am working on them to come to the dark (and light and medium values) side!

Time for bed

I'm off at 5am tomorrow, for a girly trip to Austria (Vienna!) so this is just a very quick post to show you . . .

. . . this (Nephew's car track quilt, ready for hand quilting on the plane)

and this little bag for a secret Santa swap

and these goodies for another partner in the swap

and here they are ready to be posted

Working on the to-do-list (and getting distracted)

One of the items on the to-do list is a table runner for my uncle, Trygve, and his wife. They brought me the fabric when they visited in the summer, and as Christmas was ages away I put it to one side. Now, of course, Christmas isn't ages away, so I've had to get moving!

The fabric looked luscious in the stack from the fabric shop (but i forgot to take a photo) and looked pretty yummy after I'd cut it too

















I'm making a stack and slash for a coffee table, and a table runner too.

Photos to follow

Meanwhile, I had bookmarked this fab little bag from Ayumills at Pink Penguin. She has given some great instructions, but I confess I simplified it a bit to make this zebra stripe bag.















It's a cute little bag anyway, but also has a cover: she describes it as a lunch bag, but I think it'll be great for bathroom stuff on an over night stay, or for taking hand sewing in the car, or for all sorts of treasures that need to go from A to B. I think a bigger version will make a great handbag too















So having made one ... I simplified the instructions further to make this Christmassy version for my BQL Secret Santa swap, and I have another 7 started on a production line!
















Finally, I wanted to show you the postcards I received form Lisa this week: all hand embellished (she has the old sewing machine at Uni with her, but is worried that if she gets it out she may never get back to the essays she is supposed to write!)

Aren't they lovely

Busy Day

As I have managed to get Thursdays as a not-employed day, I bounce from a packed Thursday (visiting mum, Lisa, or whoever) to a nothing-at-all-in-the-diary Thursday - and today was one of those!

I've upgraded two sets of blocks into flimsies,























I've got my BQL Secret Santa packages ready to go,

































I've done one named fleece blanket, and the next one is on the machine
















And baby Hobby's flimsy is as ready as it can be, just waiting for his name

















And added later ...

Another three fleeces, hot off the embroidery machine














and another flimsy (I think this one was started about 7 years ago, next stash splurge will see it becoming a charity quilt I think!)















And best of all, STILL no one else is home so I can have a go at stitching out India's rainbow that I've digitised :-) rather than thinking about dinner - yippee