2020 Wk 24 - Hello Blogland People

I cant believe it's June already: we are nearly half way through the year!

I finally received a delivery of white fleece so prepped a whole load of flimsies for quilting:

The Hexi rounds,

A spare I Spy

A spare Children's quilt (probably going to Linus Quilts)

The EPP Elongated Pentagon Plus Quilt

And then I got to quilting!  The children's quilts aren't very exciting, but I'm rather chuffed with the Hexie Rounds: Lizzie did the first 8" of spiral which is the really hard bit, and then I took over and went out to the edges

I used the same Lizzie spiral on the plus quilt.  No need for me to carry on, the 8" was perfect.  

I wondered whether to do every centre and have them overlapping but I halved the work and just did alternate ones.  I need to visit a shop to get the right binding for this one, so it'll be a while!

This quilt found a good home with a colleague's daughter for her 10th birthday

The girls and I attended an on-line painting party, I'm not sure we are made to be painters but it was a great evening!

The Australian hexies and stars quilt top has been quilted, has had borders added and has had the binding finished.  Annoyingly the latest delivery of black isn't the same shade of black as the one I used as the infill border - cant be helped as I cant go to a shop and compare: at least it's finished!

My current hand sewing project is Windsor Castle again.  I didn't like some of the tree designs, so I'm unpicking and replacing with smaller more random stitches

2020 Wk 19 - sorting stuff!

I have dug out various UFOs that have been stored in all sorts of places.  This pile is flimsies waiting to be attached to fleece

This pile is waiting to be hand quilted or hand finished

This one was a quick win - I quilted it whilst listening to an audio book this afternoon, whilst also attending to Lizzie with her embroidery, and the binding was already cut so that has now been attached - another hour or so in front of the TV and this will be finished.  I cant find that I've blogged about it before: I am fairly sure they are Aldi fabrics from Jackie.  Gorgeous bright spring colours

It can join the various piles of stuff in the sitting room: you might have thought I was content with having the biggest room in the house for my sewing room but that is clearly not enough room!!!

Lizzie has been working on pre-school polo shirts: It is really lovely not to be working on the burgundy for a change!

I have finally completed the last dark row of this and have decided to call it a day.  It is in the flimsie pile

A quick make: my niece in Norway had her second baby last week.  I made this quilt for number 1, Saga, and thoroughly enjoyed embroidering her name in usual letters and how it would be written in Viking runes, and also in runes type letters.  Her new sister is Theia, and Great Grandmother explains "Both names have a mythological background: Nordic and Greek, fit together well: Saga and Theia, it seems they have made a good choice."

So having gone Viking on Saga's quilt I felt I have the opportunity to go Greek on Theia's!  There is even a small patch of Greek fabric!

And I embroidered her name in Greek looking letters, normal letters and Greek letters! 

I will post it with crossed fingers: things are looking better on that front.  The first American quilt was delivered and well received (Step Mom's comment is on this post) and the Irish quilt has been received, and the second American quilt is being tracked.  The Aussie quilt - no news :-(

 Basil has been stitched back together and I made him a onesie to protect him for damage for a while

 I've been doing a bit of baking - Cheesie Marmite swirls went down well at the VE Day party, along with the bunting made for the Queen's birthday 4 years ago

And Kay and I made no-knead bread which was better than expected

And husband and I went out, together, in public, and saw people!!!!


Not quite a date night, and not breaking any rules ...


We went and gave blood!

2020 Wk 5 - catching up

The lovely Amo messaged me to ask if I was ok - I hadn’t realised it’s been so long since I blogged!

Thank you yes - I’m fine.  It’s just that all of my little jobs (which are independently sometimes busy, sometimes quiet) got busy at the same time🥴

However when I thought about it, I do try and spend an few hours with husband through out the day and that usually involves the TV being on but me sewing or crocheting - so there has been some progress!

I made six hexie flowers for the FB hexie swap I’m a member of

My hexi rounds quilt has reached a natural pause as I’m out of hexies

I’m teaching a modern crewel class in a few months and have been playing with a sample - it’s tote bag and I’m having fun filling the random circles

The Plus Quilt has grown a bit

And in other news, Husband has re-varnished the garden table

And Lisa has finished her Ferris wheel crochet - isn’t it great!

2020 Wk 1 - Hexie Round

The Hexie Round is getting really rather big - to sew one hexie on at a time is a lot of holding a big flimsy, so I've been making it easier for myself.

I have tacked what feels like a zillion pieces, and sorted them into light and dark - and here are the darks for the next round.

I've stitched them into rows about a dozen hexies long (wide?) - the next round needs 14 on each side

I've now speed-dated the strips - first attempt:

But these two blues are too similar to be next to each other

So I can slide the row along and separate the blues.

I can add the extra hexies to the row or to the flimsy, and I'll probably do the same with the two circles of light hexies - speed-date them and add them to the darks then add all three rows to the flimsy in one go

And I thought I'd share some of my gorgeous Christmas pressies

And the prayer weaving we did at the Christingle service on Christmas Eve

And the penultimate gingers - two of these for Niki's teacher friends

2019 Wk 52 - Merry Christmas and happy New Year

I thought 'd finished work!

I added some more hexies to my Hexie Rounds

I made myself a rope bowl

I made some German Christmas stars

One of the Stitch ladies brought some thick aluminium foil from Germany.  Cut eight circles, and snip in 3/4 to the middle 8 times

Twist the outer arcs around a pencil to make a point (well, 8 points)

Like this, then snip two small squares from an elastic band.  Thread a needle, and sew through elastic square, 8 pointy circles and then a final square of rubber, and pull tight!

 I embroidered some initials onto linen napkins for a customer

 I machined the binding onto the Kaffe Fassett quilt

I embroidered a name onto an already made brick I-spy quilt for a friend who has just become a grandma

and then I discovered these two have wondered off somewhere - and I was planning on gifting them tomorrow!!!

And wouldn't you believe I have no white felt left!