2017 Wk 40 Bits and Pieces

A lovely afternoon at Chertsey Museum - making Autumn Wraps! We all started with an Ikea fleece blanket. We looked at two different design ideas

Ann made a poncho, the rest made a wrap

Take an Ikea fleece and fold in half lengthwise. Then fold in half width wise to mark the centre. Cut along the long fold from one end to the middle - about 1.5 inches from the fold, so you are cutting out a piece about 3" wide. Arrange so the solid section is at your back and the two thins section hang over each shoulder - you can throw one front jauntily over the other shoulder, and look as fab as the ladies!

Some then went on to decorate their wrap with embroidery, other salvaged the fleece scraps and made flowers

Next I went to Portsmouth to see mum. I gifted her the wrap I'd made - and that was very well received! Look at the fab view from her flat!

I just love when one of the girls comes home and asks "muuuummmmm..."! She was about to meet her boyfriend's baby nephew for the first time - and needed a quilt finished. Luckily it had been largely constructed but needed name embroidering and binding finishing

First problem was quickly solved

And then she got a quick lesson on sewing binding and off she went!

Me? I did some making too - some more of these porthole blocks. I'll take them to Richmond and Kew quilters tomorrow and see if I can work out the best arrangement - should all 4 patch blocks be made with with coloured portholes, or just some? Should the colours arranged randomly (randoku! Thanks Avril - it's a fab word) or in a pattern? Either way I'm loving the blocks

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2017 Wk 2 - Mostly a quilt

This has been a bit of a 15 minutes of fun project: doing a little bit of work whenever I get a bit of time, but today I managed a few hours and got it close to being finished.

I was given the fabrics as a small jelly roll for Christmas. I took out a few strips of the off white, and added the navy. I cut the width of fabric strips - some into 1/3 and 2/3 and some in half. I joined them all together in a single strip 16m long, then took the two ends and started joining them lengthwise, and again and again ... I seem to remember these were called 1600 foot quilt tops, but my jelly roll was probably half that.

Pretty eh?

Just need to finish the finding

In other news, this Star Wars man and lady, complete with light sabers were made for me at Sunday School this morning

 

 

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Half Day Happiness

I love half days - the kind where I get away from work actually on time, come home to a cuppa with Niki (who was on her way to first tutor a couple of children, and then go to work at the bowling alley until midnight) and then sew :-)

I nearly finished two draw string bags for a friend's twins (the older set of twins had similar bags about 5 years ago!)  Just need to get into town to get some cord

I stuffed and finished Lucia's taggie "L" - thanks for the tip Plum, I put the bell into a plastic bag before I put it into the L

And I stitched and stitched and stitched that pile of 2.5 inch strips into a quilt top about 58" x 42" (150 x 110cm)

The are at least 50% I-Spy fabrics, so they make a really busy quilt top, but I am loving these scrappy Jelly Rolls.

Of course none of these were even on the UFO list, so that hasn't improved at all, but I've had a lovely time!!!

Holiday Happenings (part 1)

We've had the May half term break in England this week, which is all very bizarre as it was in June, not May, and we longer have three school terms (where this break would be half way through term 3, hence its name of half term holidays) but we now have 6 terms, so this is just a break between terms 5 and 6 - go figure, answers on a postcard please!

Anyway, whatever we call it, and whenever it is, I have managed some sewing, in amongst everything else I've tried to squeeze in!

This I spy quilt has been made for baby Amelie, and I'm trying to get her name embroidered before I go and see Grandma this afternoon

These two 'Endless Ribbon' quilts have been finished for the Siblings Together Charity, and need a final 'haircut' before being sent off

This has been finished for Laura's 18th . . .

and I actually remembered to add a label too

Apart from that I have taught the final Windsor A to Z class (these are the blocks that have either been finished, or were snapped under construction)

Had a lovely (albeit wet) day with Lisa in London (!)

and I have thoroughly enjoyed all the pomp and ceremony that celebrated the Diamond Jubilee.

To follow: a felting day with Jacqui and Sarah, a kid's activity afternoon at Chertsey Museum, creating junk weaving wall art, Crafty Church afternoon, socialising with two groups of friends, and a day with mum . . . followed by going back to work for a rest!!!

Binding and Boats

(Last time I blogged about binding, when I used the word bondage in my post, I got more hits than ever before - what are people like?)

Anyway today, in the cold and the rain, and that amazing Diamond Jubilee pageant, I was curled up on my sofa, hand sewing binding

 

 onto not one . . .

 (love, love LOVE this newspaper print fabric, 

brought it back from Amsterdam years ago, 

and knew it was prefect for this binding)

not two . . .

 

but three quilts :-)

Number 4 didn't get started as the cat looked far too cosy!

Hope you had a good weekeknd

Birthdays and Bondage

So - how many of you are here for the title? 

Bondage is defined as the practice of being bound . . . and the current tense of bound is bind . . . and that's what I've been doing! [smirk]

The binding still needs to be hand stitched to the front of the quilts, but that can wait until slightly cooler weather.

I have pieced, basted, quilted and machine bound Laura's Black and White and Green Quilt . . .

and what is being called the Green Twin Sibling Quilt  . . .

And the Blue Twin Sibling Quilt

 (The spotty  fabric behind the twins is the yummy fleece backing for Laura's quilt)



 And the birthday . . .   Well, somehow this gorgeous newborn baby . . .

 

  became this amazing adult

Bank Holiday Bonus

So far today . . .

Endless Ribbon has been renamed Ribbon Race, as it's down to 6m long which hardly qualifies as endless.  I wish I'd used more picture fabrics as I think it would make a great I- Spy quilt.  Maybe next time

I have started on an embroidery order of  sweatshirts and fleeces for the local pre-school

I have made scissor tags for A who I will be seeing tomorrow (and who has sons who have little respect for fabric scissors not being designed to cut other stuff)

And I've been proof reading a 2500 word essay on ": Leibniz argues that our freedom rests in the fact that reasons ‘incline without necessitating ‘. Assess the concept of freedom in Leibniz and compare its strengths and weaknesses with at least one other rationalist’s concept of freedom." - wonder why I've got a headache!

The best sort of shopping

You may remember I made a quilt for a friend of Lisa's 21st. [Heather's Black and White and Pink]  Well her mum, Carol, asked if I would make another one, for her sister.  In purple please

I don't know about you, but purple is one of the coloursI have problems matching - so many shades.  I pulled a whole load from my stash, and sent them off with Heva (Heather!).  There were a few Carol liked, so we agreed to meet at Helen's - a log cabin in Helen's garden where she sells fabrics and holds classes.

Like me, Carol likes Spraytime, and the one I think of as snakeskin: we had a lovely time choosing these fabrics.  So just to make this very clear . . .

• I got to go to a fabric shop, 
• I come out with fabrics that I can cut into (however I like) 
• and stitch back together (however I like)
• and I didn't have to spend any money

 

I didn't think the day could get any better, until Carol asked if I could make some place mats too, so we had to choose MORE fabric for me to use

I even got some sewing done: no pic as it's just a pile of fabric, but Endless Ribbon got ironed pressed (thank you Jackie) and the first row stitched - it is now 27.5m long and 4.5 inches wide - What a fab holiday weekend!

Scrappy Sewing (Take 2)

Darn iPad - since blogger changed, I cant see posts to edit them on the iPad.  I assumed they were just not showing - until I tried to publish a draft post from the iPad, and there it was gone!

So here I go again

Niki has asked for a green and black and white quilt for her friend Laura's 18th in a month's time.  I bought the blacks and whites at Lady Sew and Sew's a few weeks ago, and Niki was inspired by [this one] I'd pinned on Pinterest ages ago for another project.  So I cut and stitched, and stitched and stitched, until I had 11.5m of striped blacks / whites / green fabric

 but then it needed pressing, so I looked around for something else to do

I have a drawer full of 2.5 inch strips left over from the last 5 years or so of projects.  On the rare occasion I rootle in there for a particular fabric or colour , I usually cant find it, so I decided the time had come to reduce it.

I really enjoyed the Jelly Roll Race I made a few weeks ago, so decided to join all the scraps into one almost endless ribbon  (Does anyone else remember 'Endless Grey Ribbon' from Nick Lowe in the 80s?  I loved that album)

So this . . .

 Got reduced to these . . . a 55m endless multicoloured ribbon, and a few scraps in a box

But then the endless ribbon needed pressing too, which is why I wrote the blog post . . . the one that the iPad ate