Second Sewing Day

Well the Altar cloth hasn't yet got the better of me - it was assembled this morning:

And now is quilted (!) and machine bound, and it's still afternoon!  I've just got to hand sew the binding, - I wonder which is the coolest room in the house?

Don't you love it when the binding is JUST right?

Just a few pictures tomorrow of it in church and then I plan to never show it again !

Day One Done

At the end of day one I'm a bit more confident i will meet the deadline - all the children's samples have been stitched and framed:

And all the alter cloth blocks have been stitched and joined in rows 

If you want to see the individual designs just pop over to the Fun With Fabric blog!

(http://funwithfabricuk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/trinity-st-stephen-leavers-project.html?m=1)

Dreaded Deadline

The Year 4 embroidery & patchwork altar cloth project needs to be ready for Monday morning to be presented to the school and blessed by the vicar.  We ran out of time at school so I have to finish the embroidery, cut the pieces to size, patchwork them, finish and bind the alter cloth, trim and bind and frame embroidery for each child, and make a thank you pressie for the mums who helped!

Sewing machine 

Frames 

Laptop with embroidery designs

Embroidery machine 

Old school dress for appliqué

Pile of stitched designs

Cutting mat and equipment 

Measurements of alter table

(Unseen) large cup of coffee

See you on the other side!

Thespian Thursday

So the school production is over! All that work! Now just a memory!

I managed to get some snaps of the costumes, but from a distance

Good night!

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Sweat Shop Slog

Dress Rehearsal tomorrow = panic today, followed by marathon production of extra costumes!

Just keep sewing, just keep sewing!

Just a few pairs of trousers, and a few tops

And just a few more

That's it, I'm done - time for bed!!!

I just hope everyone has a costume !

Real life (including replying to comments and reading other peoples blogs) will restart after the final performance!!!

School for Sewing

I *still* haven't got much sewing done recently, but we certainly managed loads at school yesterday!

I'm teaching the year 4 class how to design for the embroidery machine (and they have managed to teach me new stuff about the software I have been using for nearly 8 years!!!)

A's first design on the computer

And stitching

After school I had a few hours free, so Valerie brought in her quilt (her first quilt, that we started over the Easter hols), and we got it finished:

That happy face says it all!

And then I spent two evening hours with half a dozen mums, a grandma and an ex-pupil learning how to read paper patterns, and how to cut all sorts of corners (we are looking for quantity over quality!) to make costumes - the school production of Aladdin needs 100 pairs of trousers, and 50 each of strappy tops and waist coats!

Three more weeks, we can do this (I was pinning trouser legs together in my dreams last night!)

Selfish Sewing, and So Long, School Sewing

I have stitched another 30 nine-patch blocks for my essential Irish quilt, just 20 left to stitch. I'm really loving it - this one is just for me!

The Wednesday night sewing club at school has now come to an end, but I thought I'd show you some of the projects the ladies will continue to work on
Tara did some work on this bucket for her knitting

And Tracey brought in some fabrics she created some years ago for A'level textiles. She took them all off the display board and we fitted them together

.

I especially liked these steam punk wheel prints

and these hand prints

Sadly the course is finished, but I hope they will keep in touch and let me know how their projects finish

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Sewing at School

We only have one week left of the evening sewing class at school, sadly :-(

But there are some finished projects (Tara's bag, and Tracy's tooth pillow), some nearly finished projects (Kate's quilt) and an 'I know what I'm doing' project (Tara's umbrella appliqué / embroidery) so we're all doing well 

Sewing School

Busy ladies sewing at school tonight .  . . 

Tara worked on a reversible bag, and an unmbrella wall hanging (very appropriate given the weather!)

Naomi worked on a bolster cushion - the stuffing was taking longer than the sewing!

Tracey is working on the tooth fairy cushion,

And Kate has learnt spray basting and quilting!

Thank you ladies!

A Few new Friends

The new course at school Started this week: I had no idea how many to expect, but had three "can't come this week will be there next week" messages! In the end Niki came with me, and two lovely ladies came, so a slow start, but a lovely evening.
All set up waiting . . .

Kate brought a book of fabric samples she had got her hands on: we couldn't peel the stickers off, so she had a lesson on rotary cutting and pretty soon had them all cut to a usable size. This pic is lack and white as we were considering their values, but in fact they were all lovely: very calm creams, yellows, pale blues reds and greens. She got most of them sewn into strips before we left - lots of ironing to do next

Tara came with fabrics to make a bag for her niece, and has the bag planned and cut (and stitched and unstitched, but we shan't dwell on that!!!)

Niki also stitched - she's working on a charity quilt, but I didn't get any photos

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Sewing Saturday

Yesterday I spent the morning at school at the last Fun With Fabric class of the school year.  More squares got added to more strips

The family then went to my S-I -L's for a lovely afternoon of food, drink, fun and chat.

My M-I-L tried to take a nice photo of the girls . . . 

She didn't quite get the hang of the phone camera!!!!

Next attempts were better . . . 

(The champagne in the top pic is to celebrate this letter)

And then I bullied the girls and their boys into posing for a photo 

What a lovely group ;-)

Saturday Sewing

Still not getting any sewing done myself, so I'm sharing a bit more from one of my classes:

On Saturday morning I taught one of two Saturday morning Fun With Fabric classes at my school: two new families came and attached a number of squares towards a quilt for the local neonatal unit.

The youngest children were a bit young to sew, so they did some sticking instead