HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Haven't done much sewing, in fact none at all recently, so have nothing much to show at the moment. I'll be going away for the Christmas holidays and spent much of today getting ready for the off tomorrow.

On the left is a lovely photo of my grandson Leo. This was taken by my daughter-in-law, Carly. He does look cute in the little santa suit.

I wish everyone a

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Haven't blogged for a while

I haven't been blogging lately as we've had another family wedding. None in 20 years then within 2 months there are two! My youngest son Jamie was married to Carly in October and this picture on the left is of older son Alex and his wife Mary was taken at their wedding last week. They were married in the parish church in Billingshurst, West Sussex. The weather was pretty awful earlier in the day, but then the rain stopped and the sun even can out until they reached the reception. It was a lovely afternoon.

But I've also been getting Christmas presents for family as we were meeting up for this family occasion and would be the last time to see each other before Christmas, so most of the present shopping is now out of the way. I'm not normally this organised for Christmas.

Yesterday was also mine and my husband's wedding anniversary, we've been married 30 years now. Although we didn't go out to celebrate, we will be going away to Derbyshire for Christmas, so now Christmas cooking for me!!

Talking of Christmas, I could not resist taking a photo of a giant snowman lit up at Tower Park, just north of Poole. He is situated between a fitness club and the bingo club and must be about 18 to 20 feet tall!

But I did manage a little bit of sewing, I made a couple of stars for a swap in the Yahoo embellisher group and these are on their way to Kandy and Lynne. Using sparkly red felt as a base I needlefelted some shiny nylon fibres and added some Angelina and sequins. I finished the edges with some Kreinik thread which looks a little bit like tinsel.

Glitzy Sunflower

Another item that I've done, which I started 3 weeks ago at my local quilt group, Quarterjacks in Wimborne, is a sunflower, which I've just downloaded straight from my phone (no editing done here). This was demonstrated by Hilary who's done some flower themed journal sized quilts.

It started with a layer or background fabric, I've used a green/purple batik, layer of organza. The cut pieces of petals and leaves placed on top , with some Angelina strands. Another layer of organza, after which the whole thing was placed onto wadding then stitched around the petals with multicoloured thread and other quilting done with metallic thread. Thought that I overdone the quilting as it looked wavy, but after trimming and adding organza for the binding of the quilt it looked really good. I hadn't tried free machining using zigzag stitch before I tried this in the middle of the flower and it worked well. Might have another bash at that some time.

Brooches to go

Here's a couple of brooches that I've made using my Embellisher for the UK Embellisher Swap Group. These will be going to Lorraine (on the left) and Lynne (on the right). I now found an opportunity to use some little silvery charms, which I'm quite pleased with.

Lorraine's brooch is using some slubby yellow/red yarn on a red felt base which was wound around the middle and then up and down around the circle, holding the yarn down with a hand needlefelt needle. It was then finished off with the embellisher and red fuzzy yarn was couched down behind.

Lynne's was from a pack of felt, scrim and fuzzy yarn which was needlefelted down and used more fuzzy yarn around the edge. Thought it looked like a birds nest so adding the charms it became a Magpie's nest. These are going out in the post and hopefully Lorraine, in the US should get hers before the end of this month!

Brooches received

Look at these lovely brooches I've received in a swap in the Embellisher Yahoo group that I belong to. I've almost finished them and will post later.

I received Amanda's (on the left) today, a padded felt flower with little purple beads surrounding the centre of the flower. The one on the right is from Lorraine, a gold coloured face on a poinsettia made with layers of felt, fabric and netting. The photos don't do justice to them being taken in artificial light, but such are the dark winter evenings.

Postcards received

Here's some postcards I've received from recent swaps. The first 2 being the Letters swap in the BQLPC groupThe top one from Kate with S's in different formats including braille dots, embroidered and a tag, the bottom one from Caroline with scrabble tiles printed and on the right from Sheila.

The next two are (top) from Wendy using different fonts for her S's and (bottom) from Ruth with Sue on a quilted letter fabric background.
The last two are from the confetti swap with the Arts in the Mail Yahoo Group. There are 4 cards but received two so far. The top one is from Dawn with some lovely rainbow fabric scraps and the bottom from Flicsha with little bits of fabric and sequins.

I enjoy making postcards and even more so receiving them, its great to see them on my doormat after getting home from work.

More Postcards to Go

I made another batch of postcards which are going in the post tomorrow. These are for the theme of "Confetti" for the Arts in the Mail Yahoo Group that I belong to and will be winging their way to Wiltshire, Turkey, US and Australia.

I made one large piece of calico with some Steam a Seam fusible web. I chopped up some trimmings of Kaffe Fassett fabric which I sprinkled onto the fusible. On top of that was some bits of shiny gift tissue (that's the shiny bits you see in the photo, knitting ribbon yarn, Angelina and shiny yarn. I'd covered this with black tulle and ironed the whole lot. After covering with free machining I then cut them into 4 postcard sized pieces and edged with fuzzy yarn. The second photo shows confetti tissue which wrapped a present I received a few months earlier which I glued onto craft Vilene which again was trimmed into 4 pieces and glued to the card backs.

I'm starting to like working all the cards in one whole piece - it is so much quicker than working each individual one. I worked this way for the letters postcards that I made earlier this month. So far that's it for this year for postcard swaps unless there's a swap that I really must make. With my other son's wedding near Christmas and other things going on with the run up to Christmas itself I'm now going to concentrate on the unfinished stuff that's hanging around

Felted Purse

Back at the end of June when I went to the National Patchwork Championships exhibition at Sandown I bought an Embellisher. The workshops were very popular and I didn't get time to go on one so after a dem0nstration on the Janome stand I bought one, a Janome Xpression. I've not shown anything on my earlier blogs as I've been playing about but have joined a Yahoo Group to swap embellished items. An earlier swap was an ATC and I'll show a pic of one I made during the summer on a later blog. However this latest swap was for a felted purse which I made for Lynne.

Looks big, doesn't it, because I cropped the picture but it's about 4 inches x 3 inches approx. I took several photos and they came out a bit fuzzy, so these are the best of what I took. I had some green wool roving given to me by a friend plus some hand dyed roving from 21st Century Yarns which give the colours a lovely muted look.

Postcards

I've completed 6 postcards on the theme of Letters for the British Quilt List Postcard Group. I decided to take the letters that are found on the selvedges of fabric. Digging out as many fabrics as I could that had names on the selvedge I gradually built up on a 13 inch piece of Vilene. After ironing onto the Vilene I then used varied sizes of zig zag with orangey variegated thread. Then ironed onto Bondawebbed craft Vilene and backing before cutting up into 6 postcard sized pieces.

Using some rub on letters, which I first tried out on a piece of fabric and thought it would work, I used these to highlight the names of the recipients and also the first letter of Postcard. Took a bit more work but the effect was worthwhile. I also used the colour samples on the selvedges by Bondawebbing these between the message and the address portions of the cards. These will be posted tomorrow as they are due before the end of October.

Christmas is coming!

Been shopping in Poole today and found this just as I walked into BHS. A toy dog about 5 feet (just over 1.5 metres) tall! You can see in the background more plush bears and other animals and right behind it are boxes of Christmas cards.

Sorry its nothing to do with sewing but had to upload this photo. I couldn't resist taking a photo of him with my phone. I did turn the photo so he was upright and saved it too, but Blogger didn't want to know - oh well publish and see what happens.

A Wedding in the Family

On Saturday my youngest son, Jamie was married to Carly in Bournemouth at the Wessex Hotel. The above photo shows them at the reception just before they cut the wedding cake. Today they went off on their honeymoon together with baby son Leo. This was a lovely picture just had to share.

Neat Feet!

On 1 Sept I posted the postcards that I made for the Footwear swap for the BQLPC group. In the first photo are from top left, clockwise, flip flops from Kandy, fluffy pink shoe from Dawn, Victorian boot from Ruth and sneaker from Wendy. The second photo shows a horseshoe from Janet, more flip flops from Michelle (they're decorated with beads, flower and brad) and trainer detail from Caroline.

All lovely shoes which graced a shelf in my living room through September.

I also took part in a challenge for Arts in the Mail called "Slash and Burn" which I posted a little while back and are linked here and here

The card on the left is from Kate with lovely pastelly colours and on the right from Priscilla and the photo manages to pick out the texture in hers.

Another Bowl

Not being able to resist doing another bowl as the first one was easy, this was even easier. I made a square drafted from a square ruler onto freezer paper marking out the position for the middle square and making darts from the points where the square's corners are. Making the bowl itself from bonding the fabric onto bondawebbed craft Vilene to finish took an hour and a half. Quite please with the result though uploading the photos taken with my phone I think the light was too bright coming from the patio window so it looks a little pale.

Fabric Bowls

Here's 2 pics of a fabric bowl that I've made. It was demonstrated by Jenny at Quarterjack Quilters last night. And yes, it is Christmas Fabric. I thought that I would use this filled with baubles and pine cones as a table centre during the Christmas holidays. One the fabrics were "sandwiched" together with fusible stabiliser in the middle and the template drawn it was quite easy to sew together which I did this afternoon. Nice to see something started and finished in such a short time! The first pic is looking into the bowl, the second is the outside.

Little needlecase

Playing on the embellisher last week, I needlefelted some slightly sparkly rainbow yarn onto black felt and added some black tulle netting over it. After sewing some felt "pages", I added some flower sequins and button with loop fastening. I presented this to my friend Penny who gave this yarn to me, which came from her friend's collection of yarns.

Fancy Footwear

I've been a member of Yahoo Groups BQL for some time and signed up to a Postcard group nearly 3 years ago and have been making postcards since then. Of course I joined another group earlier in the year and find that postcards are a lovely size to work with, not having the opportunity, or time even to make many larger quilts.

The latest swap that I signed up for was the theme "Footwear". Inspired by my own shoes, that I have rarely worn but they do look lovely I made my party shoes cards. Using metallic thread on black felt I used the fancy stitches on my machine and cut out shoes shapes to go on the shoe fabric that I already had in my stash.


I enjoyed making these postcards although I thought I only had 6 to make. Having checked the list again it was a good job that I did - there were 8 on the list so a 7th postcard had to be made!

Going for the burn

Carrying on the "Slash and Burn" theme for the Arts in the Mail challenge I decided to layer up some fabrics and heat them up with a heat tool. Layer of red silk, yellow/orange lame, pieces of gold and multicolour netting with some crinkly organza, topped with organza. The first pic shows the stiching and burning back having added sequins afterwards. The second pic shows the card trimmed back and torn organza zig-zagged on around the edge. I've quite enjoyed distressing the fabrics this way.

Slash and Embellish

I had a go at using some unusual fabrics to make this postcard for a challenge for this month on Arts in the Mail, in the theme of "Slash and Burn" . Haven't done the burn bit yet, but here's photos of the slashing. I layered up some hand dyed cotton, fine muslin, silk, lame and organza. The layers were sewn together with metallic thread. Then slashed. I further distressed this with my embellishing (needlepunch) machine.

I liked the front (above) but also liked the look of the back as well (below)

I joined the back of the work to some craft Vilene and used some ribbon yarn, also distressed by the embellisher and zigzagged onto the postcard.
Think I impressed myself with this one, think I might try another!

Been Busy

I've had several things to finish and send. Having got an embellisher machine, a Janome Xpression, and played around with it, I've joined a Yahoo Group, UK Embellishers. Having been too late to sign up to their challenges I managed to sign up to a flower ATC swap with 4 others in the group. I'm quite pleased with these 4 little cards. I'd made the petals and leaves from a piece of wool rovings trapped in matching coloured organza and cut out the shapes and needled them onto a felt background. Dark coloured chiffon was used for grass and fuzzy yarn used for the centre of the flowers.














Next on the agenda was to get 4 postcards done for Art in the Mail Yahoo group. The theme was pink and purple. Doesn't look much like that in the photo's does it? Started out as crazy patchwork, but decided to do something different with the other 2. I enjoy sewing bits of embellishments. Lot of fun with this swap.

Got a quilt done!

Nearly 4 weeks after my grandson, Leo, was born I've finished his quilt! As it was a lovely afternoon the last binding strips were put on and I spent time in the garden hemming it to the back of the quilt. I've really pleased with how colourful this is and just had to photograph this straight away. Please excuse the garden ephemera and catching the sunlight on the top right corner.

I've now got a few pink and purple postcards to finish and post off and will put those on the blog in the next few days.

New arrival

Following on from my previous posting about waiting for my new grandchild due on 4 July, he arrived yesterday (9 July). Born in Poole Hospital at 11.24 weighing in at 7lbs 13.5 oz, his name is Leo James Wild. His parents Jamie (my youngest son) and girlfriend Carly are over the moon. I went to visit them last night, so here's a pic of me holding my lovely new grandson.

New Quilt

I've started to make a quilt for my second grandchild who was due on 4 July, however we are still waiting! I bought a pack 5" square blocks from Strawberry Fayre in March which had mainly animal prints and added some of my own to make up the 25 blocks needed. I added strips to 2 sides log cabin style then the blue print sashing. In the top right corner are 2 of the green setting triangles that I've used as the quilt is on point. At this point I've still to added borders in the blue print. Seeing as I've only put this together in 2 days (last Saturday when it was tipping down with rain and this afternoon) I have to say its looking quite good. I'll take another photo when I've progessed further.

Picture Frame Postcards

I made four postcards quickly this weekend for a swap that I forgot about. I signed up to an "Arts in the Mail" Picture Frame swap which was due to be posted this week, before the Ribbon Weaving one due in July.

It was when I received a couple of cards from this swap from Kate and Evelyn that it fell into place. I already had the picture blocks attached to background fabric but never used them so I'd orginally made "picture frames" from Bondwebbed fabric. However when I went to the National Patchwork Championships at Sandown one trade there, Glitterati had a "loot bag" with an assortment of trimmings. The braids and ric-rac used made really good picture frames and finished of these picture blocks nicely.

All are now in the post to London (Kate), Germany (Evelyn) and USA (Kaye and Sue)

Holiday in France

Last week David and I have been on holiday in the Loire Valley. Last Tuesday we returned home to Poole from Cherbourg on Brittany Ferries ship the Barfleur. It has to negotiate going through the narrow channel leading into Poole. I could not resist taking some photo's (although it was getting dark) but have managed to get them in the wrong order, so here goes.

This is a view of Brownsea Island with its castle and cottages near the landing bay. The island is famous for the first scout camp run by Lord Baden-Powell a hundred years ago this year.

The pic to the left is of the Purbecks, the area around Swanage in Dorset. It was a lovely site to see when coming home.

Our time in France was spent in the Loire Valley, visiting chateux and other sites. A lovely time, lots to see, lots of walking and we did get some nice weather though a lot of rain too. I might seek out some pics later to post.

Ribbon Weaving

Some postcards that I've recently completed and will go in the post tomorrow. Two of them are off to the U.S. adnd a third to New Zealand. Hope they get to their destinations, while we're off to ours. Good to be ahead of some things as these aren't due to be posted until 7 July.

The them of this swap is ribbon weaving, which I quite enjoyed doing. Various types of ribbon are woven over felt. Black tulle was placed on top and then free machined. Ric rac tidied the edges and finished with sequins. Lots of glitz here. Great fun.

Tissue paper printing

I've not posted for a little while and will be away for a week on holiday in France, hope to post some pics when I get back.

Today, I thought I would have a go at tissue paper printing. I had an assorted pack of coloured tissue paper and dampened calico. I laid the tissue paper on top and dampened a bit more with a spray of water in the first picture. The colours bled out onto the calico and this is the result, in the second picture when dry. Like it, not sure what to do with it.

Latest TAST stitches

Having fallen a little behind with the TAST stitches in recent weeks I took time to practice the Woven and Whipped Wheels, even made a few "roses" from this (but don't look too closely at the leaves of one of them!). I also tried the Basque stitch too, which I found easy to pick up. This was edged with up and down buttonhole stitch to hold the front and back piece together. Made a nice little bookmark.