All can be revealed….

 The past few months I have been working on a secret mini quilt. I have been a member of the UKQU (UK Quilters United) group on Facebook for some years and earlier in the year announced a secret mini quilt swap and opened up a sub group for this.  There was a form to complete with likes, dislikes other distractions (besides quilting), colour choices, etc and I soon received the name of the person I would be making the quilt for along with her preferences.  As a group we were encouraged to ‘stalk’, not in a creepy way but to look at any clues through social media which would encourage me to make a quilt that my partner would appreciate.

I was assigned to Cathy.  She lives further along the coast from me in East Sussex. I noticed that she is taking part in Focus Cutting Sewalong run by Naomi Clark-Mordy. There is an Instagram hashtag #focuscuttingsewalong to follow if you want to know more. It highlights certain aspects of fabric prints in shapes, which this year is a pentagon crown of which three of these shapes put together make a hexagon. See this image from Lina Patchwork below that I took a screenshot of.

I bought the pack of pieces but never made any, but it got me thinking of hexagons.

I already had assorted hexagon papers and I also had a card die of hexagons in different sizes and a few Ashmead Designs hexies too.  Using various novelty and patterned prints in my stash I got together quite a few assorted hexies.

Next I had to make the quilt background.  Cathy has a love of colour but I thought of a slightly more calming but colourful background for the hexies.  I had a fat quarter of rainbow stars in Lewis and Irene Over the Rainbow range (from 2021) which was perfect and I also had some rainbow ombré fabric for the binding.  

Above is a small corner of the quilt, which I converted to greyscale as a teaser on the group page, just to show there was a quilt in progress.  The rainbow binding were two strips of fabric going from the middle point of the quilt to the top and bottom with both strips meeting in the middle of both ends. As you can see  I quilted with wavy lines of straight stitch, some lines with white thread, some with a white metallic just catching the light.

With that done and adding hexies as and when. I turned my attention to the ‘extras’, a little gift to put with the finished quilt.  I thought as she was gaining these pentagon/hexagon shapes, Cathy would need something to put them in, so I made a Lola pouch (pattern by Sotak Handmade) which I’ve made several times.  As we both live in different towns on the south coast, common to both places would be gulls.  I have some Gulls in Breton Jumpers which fitted that theme. 

I have a yarn subscription this year with Blue Fern yarns and there’s always a tea sachet, coffee stick and Lotus biscuit with that, so I popped those in the pocket and added a pack of  Percy Pig sweets in too, Cathy’s favourite sweets (didn’t know how many varieties there were!). Also in the bag was a postcard (made in 2018) of sunflowers and a crochet coaster (designed by Sussex based designer Eleanora Tully of Coastal Crochet). Picture below by Cathy on her Facebook post.

Back to the quilt and I had the pleasure of putting on the hexies to the quilt. I had the idea of tumbling hexies, getting bigger and joining together at the bottom of the quilt.  Taking the focus cutting in mind (some would call this fussy cutting) I used the various sizes of papers. By the time I got to the 1” hexies at the bottom they looked enormous compared with those in he rest of the quilt! 

Anyway I finished at the end of August and it was waiting patiently through September to await sending to Cathy this month.  I had a bit of a panic as I learnt she’d gone to Paris, but that was only a day trip, so she was home to receive her quilt and she was delighted! So here it is

Do you want to know what I got?

Following me was Janet, who also got that I lived on the south coast and was inspired to make this lovely underwater quilt

She also included a handy pouch with a fabric marker (that’ll come in useful) and machine needles (definitely useful!). I’m not sure where it’ll hang yet, but there will be a home for it. 

It was fun to make although I felt a little overwhelmed at the beginning when the members of the group were putting up posts of do you like this or that to get clues about their partners.  But once that calmed down and ideas were gathering it was easier to get on and get it done.  I might do it again next time…..

October Out and About

 Last weekend on Saturday David and I visited Kingston Lacy near Wimborne to see the autumn colours.  There is a Japanese garden which has some lovely acer trees which turn into some gorgeous colours this time of year.

The next two photos are in the tea garden.

Going to the kitchen garden, it was lovely to see late summer flowers 

And harvested pumpkins in the greenhouse 

On display between the tea room and shop

On Sunday, an early start from Wimborne, I went with the Quarterjack Quilters on a coach trip to the Knit + Stitch show at Alexandra Palace in North London.  It’s quite a trek from Dorset (about 3 hours each way).  It has a variety of needlecraft suppliers, with workshops (I didn’t take part), demonstrations and exhibitions. 

I enjoyed the Anne Kelly’s exhibition.  The stitching on objects, like embroidering over and old quilt

Adding stitching details to a work box and cases

The Embroiderers Guild had an exhibition of the works of past embroiderers in their collection 

On the exterior walls of the gallery were artworks by current members of the Embroiderers Guild, on the theme of Land and Sea

I love the texture in the photo below

Near the entrance was the exhibition of winners from the Festival of Quilts, here are a few below.

An enjoyable if a shattering Sunday. I made some purchases including some Christmas presents.

It was lovely and sunny so I had time to enjoy it before heading home on the coach.

Beginning of October - Getting Very Autumnal 🍁🍂

 

I love the stitch pattern on my Lewes fingerless mitts that I used this as my monthly marker. 

I didn’t have any knitting to take with me to the local Knit and Natter group so I took some yarn from my stash to start to knit a pair of mittens for my granddaughter as the day went on I finished knitting one! 

The pattern is from Sirdar’s Bumper Book of Accessories, no. 2, with gloves, mitts, socks (2 needles and seamed!) and leg warmers. I’ve used the remains of some plain blue DK and Aurora from the last jumper that I knitted her. I’ll start the left mitten ready for this week’s K&N.

Another thing I’ve picked up recently has been the Yorkshire Blanket, which I decided had been hibernating for long enough!  This is a pattern from Ravelry by Emyleah Newbery of Meemamakes. I started the squares last autumn to use up some Stylecraft Special DK yarn from previous makes and ended up buying four balls more while away on holiday in Amble last year.  I had one half finished square, which I finished off (the red) and then started on another square (the green).

I’ve enjoyed the different techniques in this blanket, very textural which has taken me a little out of my crochet comfort zone.  

Let’s hope I can make some progress on this blanket.

End of September

 A month of finishes and almost finished.  

For the finishes - I finished of my ‘Crème Egg’ socks, so called because the yarn colours looked like the colours of the Crème Egg wrapper. Plain vanilla socks, didn’t need to be fancy. The yarn is by King Cole, a Zigzag colour that is no longer available.

I also started and finished a pair of fingerless gloves. I bought the pattern from The Southern Wool Show last month and it’s by The Wool Barn, called Lewes. It’s a great pattern for small amounts of yarn. (But lots of ends to sew in!).They’ve been washed and blocked so they’ll soon be ready to wear.  There might be more pairs of these.

A knitting nearly finished is my cardigan with just the front bands and sewing up the side and sleeve seams.  I hope to get this done before the end of the week.

A crochet finish this month are these two blankets. They’re lap sized versions of the Canalboat blanket design by Lucy of Attic 24.  She is changing websites so there are no patterns available currently.  These blankets hibernated before I got cracking on finishing the borders.

I have been busy sewing too as I’ve been working on some quilting squares to make into pouches.  Some have got as far as having the zips inserted and others are awaiting sew in. 

This is what they will eventually become. Ready for charity sales next month.

I made a vinyl pouch for my sister’s birthday, along with a little felted dog, similar in colour to one of her dogs. The felted dog was a small kit by Corinne Lapierre

And I also made a square bag for taking away with us as not so much is supplied at Premier Inns so we can take extra mugs, tea, coffee etc.  It is basically a bottle bag, the pattern from a book by Susan Briscoe.

As a change from the knitting and sewing I have made a card, a demonstration on a Zoom call.  This is a tower cards

I also made an ATC the subject being Hobbies.  I didn’t send it in time, so I’ve kept this.  David’s hobbies, volunteering on the local heritage railway and model railway making.

So that’s September.  For October I’m taking part in a Halloween themed knit along mystery gnome.  There are two options -pumpkin coloured Gnumpkin ( or the more witchy Gnettle). My needles and yarns are ready