April bag and other bits

On my last post I said I would get some sewing done and here it is, the April bag. Looks quite good in the pic, but I did agonise over the colour choice and didn't go together as planned. Think it does look good though and the Suffolk Puffs (Yo-yos) with the shell buttons does set it off well.

I cut the bag gusset and the front and back to size and of course it shrinks when quilted so mistake no. 1. and so had to juggle the size of the gusset with cut away bottom of the bag. Then instead of doing the lining separately and inserting into bag I put both together, which I realised when the instructions said "Attach the lining gusset to lining fabric in the same as you did with the bag outer..." argh! Mistake no.2. Lessons to be learned there and some tidying up of seams inside the bag. I've had the password for a "sneaky peak" of the May bag and I like the look of that one and thought of a recipient for that too, looking forward to making that one.

On Saturday I took a trip to Brockenhurst in Hampshire with my mother to the Needlework Fiesta organised by the New Forest Embroiders. We are sadly lacking in Hampshire and Dorset with suppliers of threads and fabrics that people can visit so you can imagine that the event was extremely busy. Being mainly an embroidery event means that there were not many patchwork and quilting people there but I did manage to get some fat quarters of fabric. I'd also bought some silk roving for use with the embellisher to some lovely colours. Also I'd bought some transfer dye, that is painted onto paper and transferred onto poly cotton fabric with an iron.

It was nice to get back home in the afternoon and paint several sheets of this. The pots of dye, though only 10grams each will go a long way as a small amount of the dye is mixed with water. Here are the results below. Left are the papers that I painted along with one piece of fabric and on the right are the four pieces of fabric after ironing. Some look a bit pale but could be livened up with some stitching. But it was fun.















Lastly the pic on the left shows part of the magazine article in Patchwork and Quilting magazine that I mentioned a little while back taken on the retreat at Villavin Crafts. Here we are proudly displaying the quilts and bags in progress with Jo sitting in front of us.

My friend Brenda has suggested we might go back there February next year - I hope we can!

More photos of Brittany

Here's a few more of my photos from my hols in Brittany. I managed to take one of Mont St Michel from my phone. As you can see the tide was not long out and later people were to park in that area later. Mont St Michel is very commercialised which coachloads of tourists and lots of shops to relieve them of their money on the way up to the abbey. At the abbey we let the tours with their guides go through first before going into the rooms there.
There were a lot of stained glass windows, but I liked this one in one of the chapels best with it lovely pastel colours.
And I could not resist taking a pic of one of the pillars, wonderful detail in the carving. Looks as though it was replaced fairly recently.
Another day we went to Quimper. Just outside the cathedral there was a courtyard leading to the Breton Museum. There was an exhibition of the Breton costumes as worn in the different areas of the region. The photo above show the metalwork in the arches of a walkway with stems and leaves.
And another door. This is at the bottom of the Rohan Tower at the museum. Very interesting pattern on the door.

I will get around to posting some actual sewing stuff very soon.

Pictures of Brittany

I thought I would post a few of the pics that I took in Brittany when there a couple of weeks ago on holiday. Although my husband took charge of the camera, these I took with my mobile phone camera. We visited Dinan old town, part of the medieval town within the town walls.

Above is a charcuterie (delicatessen) which had painted views on either side of the shop door, really does look like shop windows, but their not.

I really liked the fancy ironwork on the front door of this house.
This was in the ticket office at Dinan station. There's the equivalent of our conservation order on these painted murals. This one shows the town of Dinan. The station was built in 1932, so is in Art Deco style.

One town we stopped at (can't remember the name) we found not a quilt shop but a display of quilts and paintings by local groups that meet in the townin a shop window. These photo's were taken through the window, so there are reflections. Quite like this little fish quilt below

and those little ladies with their umbrellas...
and the lovely table runner with the colourful leaves.

Fame at last!

I'm back from my holidays and back at work this week. Yesterday I bought the May issue of British Patchwork and Quilting magazine which has an article about Villavin Crafts and the retreat that my friends and I went on back in February (see here). The bag I made is a good size and well used, but I've still to finish off my quilt (just the binding to hem and some machine stitching threads to be tidied up).

I hope to post some pics that I took in France over the weekend, but I just had to share this news.

Fastenings postcards

Here's the latest set of postcards that I've sent out in the post this week. These were a swap for the BQL Postcard group on the theme of fastenings. I've used poppers, buttons and ribbon for the fronts with paper fastener brads for the reverse (as the pink didn't go with the other colours on the front!).

Above pic are the fronts of the postcards
Next is the flap open (it's held down by the popper) which has a shell picture underneath. Think I must be influenced by the grandchildren's board books.
And finally the reverse with the brad in the corner.

I only needed to have 5 postcards and made 6 so there's one spare which will go in my personal collection of ones that I've made. In the swap I've had 3 in return and when I have the full set I'll put a pic on the blog.

I will be off to Brittany from this weekend for a week and hope I can post some photos on my return. A bientot.