2018 Wk 21 A Triathlon Finish

Proud mum alert!

Niki completed a triathlon today!  She says she will NEVER do another one but here is the photographic evidence that she was there!

WELL DONE NIKI!  And raised nearly £400 for blood cancer research too!  (Her JustGiving page is here if you want to donate!)

Far less strenuous was Friday's Chertsey Museum class making a patchwork basket block from the Farmer's Wife book (thank you Plum) using the template method.

And looking really colourful:  Niki's colleagues have started to add graffiti to the Chemo Quilt

2018 Wk 20 A finish and a visit

I have finished a Chemo quilt that Niki requested for a colleague at work.  There is a LOT of white at the moment but she is taking it to work with a handful of fabric pens so that people can write in the white squares - I'll hopefully be able to post another pic when it's been  decorated!

We had our monthly (!!!) Days For Girls meeting this weekend.  We were aware that some ladies were being put off by the high quality expectations from the charity, so we added a new project - boomerang bags.  These can be made to roughly the suggested size, can be overlocked OR zigzagged, can be made of the donated fabrics we would otherwise have to reject as they aren't ok for D4G and are the simplest construction imaginable

We got one finished and several more are close to being finished.  We were going to give them away but decided we would sell them to people in the churches which would raise money for the D4G fabrics!

We also found we were spending loads for time each month sorting through and seeing what needs what doing next - so with the help of loads of zip lock bags we now have bags of items all at the same stage and we feel much more organised!

Mum and I went to see the poppies at last.  We missed them at the Tower on London, but two sections of the display are now doing a road trip and one is just a short drive from her at Fort Nelson, Royal Armouries Museum, near Portsmouth

They looked amazing!.

And Brian and I spend all of yesterday at the girls' house.  They had hired a sanding machine and wanted to do all the upstairs floors in the one weekend.  I wish I had filmed them using the machine.  It was an industrial one, and was stronger than them.  They switched it on at one end of the room, they then ran with it, trying to slow it down, and trying to turn it off in time that it would stop before it hit the opposite wall, then they would drag it back and repeat.  Dad showed them how to master the beast, and 12 hours (!) later the whole of upstairs has been sanded - despite all three bedrooms having the usual amount of furniture - much of the time was taken moving it from one room to another, do you remember these puzzles?

It was a bit like doing one of those, but worth it in the end.

Today they are varnishing - today I am staying at home!

Weekend Round Up

I've had a busy few days: Fun With Fabric on Friday, Church Craft and Christmas Fair, followed by a baby shower on Saturday, and sewing today. 

I didn't get any photos of the 'homework' from last month at Friday Fun With Fabric but I did get plenty of moans about how difficult the binding had been!  I did remind them that we had been working with fairly small units, and that binding a large quilt would be much easier, but promised them something easier for this session.

As I hadn't finished my sample, I took them on a Magical Mystery Make instead!  Based on a tutorial from Lis at Piece 'n' Peace, (thanks, Lis) I got them making Christmas Coasters that DID NOT NEED BINDING!!!!  Just for fun I didn't tell them what they were making, just gave them one instruction at a time!

Ready for some photos?

Saturday was mostly spent setting up and then attending the Church's Christmas and Craft Fair.  I didn't take anything to sell as I don't have any stock, but I have an order for a Christmas sack for next year, and I was also promoting the church version of Fun With Fabric, and got some interest in that.  I also managed to finish the binding on Swirls, so when I unpack the bags that can go up on the wall, yippee (only 15 months!)

From there I went to a friend, Lisa's's, 40th birthday Champagne Tea Party.  As Lisa is also 34 weeks pregnant with her first baby (Congratulations Lisa) we turned it into a bit of a baby shower too.  I had cut 36 8" squares, and had the 'girls' decorate them with fabric pens.  After the baby arrives I shall stitch them together into a quilt.  Most of the squares are fab . . .

 

 

I knew I would late arriving, so I had done a sample block to remind them that they had to leave me some seam allowance - I thought I made int fairly clear, but these six blocks will need some creative work to be able to include the words that went right to the edge!

 

Ho hum!

Anyway, today I managed to get some more ticked off from the list: the draught excluder / door stop for school - done

 

A very girly baby quilt for Jane who became a Great Aunt - done

 

 with Amelia's name (need to wet that water soluble pen mark in the middle of her name!!!)

And a name onto a knitted blanket for another customer (yuck - knitted blanket are 'orrible to embroider onto!)

Now off to do some work of a bag for S-I-L and a play patchwork for nephew

Design Bed problems

I tried to arrange the red blocks today, but the largest (clear) horizontal surface surface at home is my bed - and that isn't big enough to lay out all the blocks!  So the red "Cricket Stumps" quilt will have to wait until I can either get to mum's or to my nearest patchwork workroom.

I did spend a bit of time preparing some cotton for a quilt project a friend is planning.  I cut the cotton into 8 inch squares and have bundled them up with fabric pens for people to decorate before I get them back to join together.

  
Hopefully nothing significant will be lost in the seam allowance .... do you think they'll get the message!