2021 Week 47 (part 2)

 We had a lovely session at Richmond and Kew quilters . . . . fusion crochet!  Starting with a fabric square (with a substantial seam allowance): add blanket stitch and then crochet onto the blanket stitch.  I need to sort out 'stepping up' but this way I dont need help starting!!!

A whole load of ginger gnomes / tomte / Julenissen tree decorations have been made

and some stuffed versions with bells on their hats too

I was asked to make this digital design into a patch

and I'm quite pleased with the result - waiting to hear from the customer!

We had a day trip to "The making of Harry Potter"  - it was great . . .

. . . I hope it's not too sad that my favourite picture is this floor mosaic!

And finally a pic of me!  I don't often like pics of me, but I did like this one!

2019 Wk 48 - Drat and fiddlesticks

Fact 1: I had thousands of photos of my phone - some were family photos, some were blog photos and some were ones that had come in through WhatsApp etc and stayed.  And my phone was using battery at an alarming rate

Fact 2: I used to have to save my phone photos to my PC to be able to add them to my blog, but some time ago (my guess is September 2016*) a new option appeared so I could add photos from my phone which saved a lot of time.

Fact 3: Someone suggested that I delete some of my photos from my phone to see if that helped with the battery usage.

Have you guessed what happened?

Fact 4: I saved the family photos from the phone to the network, but I deleted the others that I'd used on the blog starting at about 2013, up to about April 2018: I planned to carry on later.

And the reason I can quote the dates?  Almost every photo on the blog between September 2016 and April 2018 has been replaced by this

I have done the hair pulling and the screaming at the computer and the crying - and finally the thinking ... Google give me 60 days to change my mind about deleting photos - phew!  So I think I have reinstated most of them!

I have managed a bit of sewing too!

This planning

and this cutting

and this making-binding-by-bodging happened (sorry about the striped ironing board cover, makes it difficult to see what I'm doing but the binding is purple and then red)

and making this

And this

And then doing this ...

More to follow when it's been pressed under a weight to get the vinyl creases out!

I've started working on this with the Kaffe Fassett 3" squares I got from Jackie - I'm really loving the fabric!  : It's planned and ready to stitch

And I've done the prep for the next Chertsey Museum class - we are doing scrappy pennies

These were fun to do.  They all started the same but I did different embroideries

And finally I've received another Pudsey themed hexie flower from the Facebook swap group I've joined.  Roll on next month

2019 Wk 44 - what I've been doing (and should have been doing)

I'm teaching a class today at Chertsey Museum - and planned to teach a sewing caddy in a glass jar with a pincushion lid.  As I started to prep for the class I realised this would take no more that ten minutes so was NOT a good idea.  Instead I made this (just for fun, we wont be making these at the museum until December 2020!!!)

Then I had to get back on track: I have a couple of dozen polystyrene balls planned for the sewing caddies so I had to find something that I could do with them.  Thank you Pinterest: two ideas!

I treated myself to a new storage organising thingy so spent the best part of a day sorting lots of little bits and pieces into this - I think everything little is now easy to find except a box of bells that are still hiding somewhere

I did some machine embroidery for a customer

And I love it when I get pics of things I've made being used

And that pic wasn't the only one this week: I got this from the Windsor Homeless Project showing Chris with his hat

And this from Lily's granny - what a cutie!

The hexi rounds flimsy has grown, and hopefully the dark rings and the light rings are obvious.  I can go two more light and half a dark with prepared hexies, and then oh dear what a pity never mind I'll have to do some more!

I'm almost up to date on the temperature project

And I am up-to-date on the European-trips-with-friends patches.  Do I sew them onto a bag as originally planned or would a zippy or a scarf be better?

2018 Wk 22 Old Men and New Babies

I'm taking part in the Untangled Thread art project commemorating the end of WW1.  The pin cushions are based on an original design which was used at occupational therapy for wounded solders and they made something they could send to their mum or their sweetheart. 

We don't know much about Brian's granddad, but we know a Henry Channer was enlisted in 1916, and we know Granddad was known as Harry.  He married Rose in 1923, so it may have been him, so I (with help from Lisa and Niki) stuck a couple of hundred pins through the same number of beads to make this

We have had a spate of babies amongst neighbours and friends: A neighbour who used to babysit our girls when they were little has moved back in a few doors away from her mum and dad, and had baby William

Another neighbour has become a Grandmother to baby Amelia Rose.  I just need to finish the binding on these and I can deliver them

And Jackie has become a Granny again with baby Leah (but her quilt is being delivered in ten days so I'm not showing it here yet!)

My old boss and friend Dalwyn starts his new career as a Methodist minister in the autumn and I was delighted to be asked to make a stole for him.  Just in the draft stage at the moment but the stained glass rainbows have been posted to him to look at - does he want near solid or solid colours

And does he prefer hand stitched binding or twin needle stitched on the sewing machine?

My step mum sent me a memory box from my father's belongings:

I remember the hat - or one like it - he always wore one when he was sailing

Brian was really happy with the plane (bottom right)

A whole set of nautical flags will look great as bunting in the garden - really cheerful!

 Some photos of him, and of me from childhood

And my favourite of all - lots of photos of the girls that I have sent him over the years - all had been propped up on book shelves or stuck on walls!

While I'm Working

I'm plodding though what looks like a thousand jumpers, poloshirts and sweatshirts - a great way to fund my fabric habit, but very boring to blog about.

So instead, I thought I'd share some more Quilts from the Festitval of Quilts last week.  These are together as they respresent pictures.  As before, the pics in the mosaic, and other pictures are on the 'Private Use' page.  Click [here] for the link, or use the tab above

Some finished projects, and a new skill

I have saved a number of photos of quilts and other things I'd like to try, but haven't found a way to go back to the website or blog that the photo originated from.  Whilst I am under no illusions that people will be flocking to my blog for inspiration, it did occur to me that watermarking photos wasn't a bad idea.

So I asked my friend Mr Google to help, and he directed me to this site and I can now get my photos watermarked ... for free.

So here, multitasking as a watermark example, is a photo of projects finished in the last 24 hours ... a skinny quilt for the BQL swap (that is NOT the required size, oops), two rug mugs that kind of go with the skinny quilt, and the completed rugby logo designed and stitched out for customer approval

Where did that week go?

Well, what with work, a day visit to Portsmouth, a three day visit to Florence, and all the normal washing and stuff I haven't managed much sewing in the last week.

On the plus side, I got paid for Myles's quilt, had a fab girly weekend in Florence, and a great day with mum in Portsmouth - so all's good in my world!

I received my first Pink Swap postcard today and got mine ready to go in the letter box on the way back to work. Aren't Pauline's flowers
awesome!















I also picked up a glass dish in a charity shop in Windsor, and thought it might look nice with buttons in it. Well at 5am this morning (I couldn't sleep as I was worried I'd miss the alarm and be late for work) I sorted all the buttons into colours and found more glass dishes to put them into. Don't they look great. Not sure what I'm going to do with them, but "enjoy looking" is a good place to start!














In Florence I started seeing letters in ironwork, stone, and other architectural stuff - and forgot to photograph friends or places we went, but got lots of letters ... not sure where this is going, but a novel way to look at a city!