2019 Wk 49 - Teaching

I was teaching on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning last weekend - both were great fun!

The adults at Chertsey Museum made these scrappy penny designs: I'm so glad I bought the black tote bags - the felt looks great against it

 And I finished my Secret Santa wrap

The children on Saturday had a great time, and made wreaths (pipe cleaners and beads), Christmas trees (and loved using the Sizzix to cut out the circles) and stick and pine cone mobiles

Fun but exhausting - I walked over 6000 steps just walking round the church hall checking that all the families were doing OK!!!!

After that I came home and put my feet up, while Lizzie stitched out gingerbread men for my boss, the Vicar, and his Finnish wife:

2019 Wk 49 - Mending and making

The lovely thing about Lizzie is that she is happy to chunter away with only occasional assistance!.

I bought a design of a gingerbread man holding a patchwork quilt.  The design needs 15 colour changes (it's here if you want to compare it to my version)  I decided I wanted just a two colour quilt.

My first one is on the left here:

But as I gradually made a few more I decided the pink cheeks could go, the icing wasn't essential, the eyes could be brown instead of black . . . . I now stitch the whole thing in one colour so all I have to do is occasionally add another bit for felt for the next applique, and I really don't think there is any noticeable difference between the two.

The mega shortcut has allowed me to stitch all of these for the lovely ladies at Chertsey Museum - it took two days

All while I was writing minutes from a meeting last night, and doing some mail merge to print Christmas card stickers for the vicar!

I also finished the Hexi swap flowers - just waiting to be allocated my swap partners.  I made another hexi for each and stuck it to a card, otherwise the card cost are going to mount up over the year!

I have made some other gingerbread men too but they are going in the post so I can't show them until they have been received

Friends of ours have just moved into a new home, so I embroidered this and sent if off

And finally some repairs.  My favourite coat is an Indian patchwork one that a friend bought at Camden market many years ago - she phoned me from the market to tell me she's bought it and that I owed her £30 - I'm rubbish at shopping so it's always a bonus is someone else does it for me especially if they do such a good job.  Anyway, the cuffs were looking very worn

And now they don't

2019 Wk 49 - Janet Clare Course and scrappy pennies

Richmond and Kew quilters organised a course at Janet Clare's studio.    It was the "Quilted memories to cherish" course, but it included drawing with the sewing machine - free motion sewing to draw pictures

I was well out of my comfort zone but really enjoyed the day.  These are my pictures:

I "may" have bought some of her fabric too!  My plan is a quilt alternating the medium fabrics with the light fabrics - and some of the dark squares will be the pictures rather than just fabric

She was also selling some felt:  So I had to buy some of that too!

On Friday I am teaching scrappy pennies and needed another sample, and on Monday I will be taking part in a Secret Santa swap at Richmond and Kew, so need to make something - for a while I was daunted by the work that I needed to put into both those events, until eventually it occurred to me that I could make a Secret Santa gift with scrappy pennies!!!

Do you remember the wraps we made a few years ago from Ikea fleeces?  I am now making another one, decorated with scrappy pennies!!!

I hope whoever gets it likes it!

2019 Wk 49 - A Productive week

If you';d asked me I'd have said I hadn't had much crafting time, but the evidence says otherwise!!!

The Kaffe Fassett squares have been joined to the grey to make a top

And have been quilted.  No KF fabric left so I'm not sure where I'll go with the binding, so this has gone to the to-be-dealt-with pile: I am seriously in love though, thank you Jackie, I LOVE the fabric!

The Crafty Church and the Stitch trees represented us in the Christmas Tree Festival (They may have lost some decorations on route, but they didn't look too shabby!

 A whole load of customer and charity patches have been embroidered

 And a whole load of hexies have been cut

ready for adding to this flimsy

The last of my swap hexies has arrived, and I've cut and basted the next set

And Niki sent me this pic - half her cross stitch completed - fabulous for a first go at cross stitch!

 

2019 Wk 48 - and breathe

I *think* I have recovered all the lost photos (or in a few cases removed blog evidence of them!) 

That's a few days of my life I wont get back but I'm glad I put in the effort!  I do like my little blog!!!

I can say the same about this gorgeous pair of finger-less gloves (being digitally challenged I do prefer mittens or finger-less loves to normal gloves!)

Jackie has knotted me some lovely pairs over the years and they are my every-day gloves but this pair was bought in Norway by a cousin several years ago and are my posh set.  Unfortunately they had perished in a few places, and this year I have finally mended them

Not excellent but better than holes - there were six places they needed mending!

I have bought some felted sheets and plan to line them and attached them to the felt, partly for warmth and partly so I don't pull on the knitting and risk them falling apart anywhere else!!

The pouch that was being "born" in the last post is now in use.  There are a number of vinyl pockets so it's spend a few days under a cutting mat to flatten it, but it's now a hexie project bag.

A place for needles, wonder clips and thread, and a zipped pocket for templates

A zipped pocket for strips of hexies attached to each other (let's say the large yellow area is decorative, not that I miscalculated the vinyl measurements!)

a big zipped pocket for tacked hexies

and a big zipped pocket for fabric, with elastic bands for holding the growing project

  and two grab handles so it can be taken out with me

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