Saturday and Reviewing UFO's

On Saturday I went with my friend Brenda to Parkstone for an event called "3 Corner Day", which is run by Jean. Originally as a Quilters Guild Area Day when she was an area rep but has carried this on as it's so popular.  There are 3 groups with 3 tutors giving mini workshops and the groups move around to each table after each mini workshop. This time Carol Dowsett was giving a mini workshop on making felt flower brooches, Becca from Becca's Quilt Emporium gave a lesson on using the Clover Yoyo makers in their different shapes and Barbara Cheeseman on making small triangle bags.   Its a very good day for catching up with friends, hand sewing and learning something new at the same time.

Here's the result from my efforts there.

Today has been a dismal day, raining most of the time and misty as well.  So time to go into the sewing room and start digging through my box of UFO's some things have been up to Yorkshire and back and not been touched and my thoughts are to do something about them or ditch them. Tough, but it has to be done.  First thing I got out was a cover that I made for my needlefelting machine.  Made from charm pack pieces of Kaffe Fassett fabrics into half square triangles I got stuck when making binding around the top and bottom of the cover.  Of course the top is awkward with a hole having to be cut out to accommodate the handle and in the first place I hadn't cut a with enough bias strip for this so cut another strip of purple fabric wider this time and that solved it.  So are pics of the front

and the back.  Job done, only took a few hours.  Why hadn't I done that before?

Another is an Ostrich challenge, like a Round Robin but you keep adding to the rounds instead of passing on to someone else in the challenge to complete the rounds. I think I started this  in 2005 as part of a BQL challenge. I lost interest in this and this remained a UFO.  I even had strips of flying geese (called Migrating Flying Geese in Karin Hellaby's book) to add to the strips.  I think this is all a bit bitty and I may undo the pieces and make them into separate items which may be more useable.

Another UFO this time going way back to 2001/2 is a single quilt size piece that was part of a birthday block swap - BQL offshoot.  The person organising this for 2000. Jayne, was celebrating her 40th birthday that year and as there were 17 of us (and only 12 months in the year!) we each had an "official birthday" and mine was March 2001.  We'd each requested a block and preferred colour/s and in some of my photos you will see a purple Flying Geese quilt which was made from the blocks I received.  Whilst making blocks for the other Birthday girls I made spare blocks and these were put together for this quilt plus some smaller ones as the middle block was 14" square.  It not a bad looking quilt but I hadn't got around to quilting it.  I must put that right if its been hanging around to 10 years so I'll make the effort and get some wadding and think about how I'll quilt this.

There are more things lurking in the UFO box but this lot will be enough to get on with.

A postcard revisited

Earlier today I went over to Kate's blog via facebook and was surprised to find one of my postcards in her posting here.  

2011 BQL Challenge

I belong to a Yahoo Group, BQL, and have been a member for many years.  I've taken part in challenges that have been set up the moderators of the group and one of them, Kandy, has set challenges in 2008 (the Bag challenge) and 2009 (the Perpetual Calendar challenge) and last year I took a year's gap.  You can see the items that I've made from these by looking at the photos in my Flickr ablum (on the sidebar). I've liked doing these because and item is completed each month rather than as an installment of an item in progress as I lose interest and end up with a UFO (Un-Finished Object to the uninitiated).

This year is with a difference a "Skinny" quilt challenge with a finished item to be swapped with another member.  I've not only got a piece made it also has a label too.  This challenge was to be made through January/February and amazingly there's still half of February to go.

So this is it, a re-visit to the "Ghost Images of the Orient" and more fans - smaller than the one I made in the workshop that I too at the end of November and this time in purples/pinks and I adapted to make 3 smaller fans for added quilting.

Above is a close up of one of the fans with one of the little fans.  It doesn't show up well in the photo but there is a rainbowy metallic thread used to couch the outline thread and also to quilt the little fans.

Talking of skinny (though I'm not the type that ever be that way) I have started going to a Rosemary Conley slimming class in Bournemouth.  My weight is the heaviest it has ever been (I was weighed in at the class with 12st 12.5 lbs, which at 5'2" is quite bad).  Going to class tonight and see if there's some progress).  Let you know how I get on.

Oder out of Chaos

This past week has seen some sewing, some job hunting and more sorting out.  I've been into Bournemouth to the branch of the agency that I was signed up to in Sheffield in the hope of gaining temporary or permanent work and wait and see what happens on that front.  I've also applied for jobs that have come up on the e-mail jobs alert, though ones through agencies have the note "due to the number of applicants if you do not hear from our representative assume that you have not been successful...." or something like that.  That's terrible keeping people on a string like that, but that's the state of things in the job world at present.  But meanwhile....

I've got 2 postcards sewn and sent out last week. A belated one for Lesley in Edinburgh (similar to one I made for Claire last year (see here).

This one I made for Pascale in Wiltshire who requested Red and White.  I've gone back to a technique which I've not done for a while - fabric weaving, which I think looks quite effective in these colours.

At the weekend some things were sorted out in the house.  David replaced a wall mirror in our en-suite with one that has lights either side and a shaver point (this one here) and it looks very modern.  He's also resurrected some of our lightshades which we originally had in this house including this one with little crystal balls.  We found that we can get another one of this design so may do that this week.

He'd also fitted a new light cluster in the dining room too. Looks posh, but it came from Asda where we found that it was reduced - bargain!

I've not been idle either and managed to tidy the sewing room so that I can try and be more organised (or as organised as I can be!) when working in there.  I promise I'll try and keep this tidy!!

In my nice tidy room I made a start on a BQL Challenge piece.  Kandy on BQL had started a Skinny Swap challenge and I've got until the end of February to make this.  Following on from the weekend workshop that I went to at the end of November I decided to make a smaller version.  The finished size of the small piece is 18" x 12" (not that skinny I guess the size might slim down as the year progresses).  You can see in the pic above the greeny blue piece on the bed and the pic below is a purpley pink version and as I only took a few notes of what I made in the workshop it was to remind myself of what I made.  At the moment I can't say why I'm attracted to fans but recent work seems to be that.  Am I being artistic and working in series?  Here's my effort so far today.

The fans look a little lost in this pic but I've yet to couch some thread in and around them.  Quite pleased with the progress so far.

Started Sewing

It's taking a while to get organised and I'm still not there yet.  I have, however been able to get the sewing machine set up on Thursday and do a bit of sewing and put borders on the curved pieced block that I made at the workshop in Barnsley a couple of weeks ago.  Here's a photo below of my effort.

And here's a view of my room now (the drawers at the front of the pic have been moved)

I've even had the chance to put up a couple of quilts

I have missed a birthday with the postcard swap and will catch up with that today (the birthday girl's day was last Friday) and there are a couple of birthdays this month so will get head (and hands) into gear to get that done.  Today's a good day for this as I've got to wait in for a delivery of a new washing machine - the old one (and it is old, about 13 - 14 year) has drum bearing wearing and sounded as though it was about to take off.  So here's a photo of a postcard I sent to birthday girl Janet which I sent before the move.

With our move to Poole came a strange twist in the tale of David's job.  From my posts last month I said that he was being made redundant and his notice finishes in March so he requested gardening leave to look for work and for moving back down south which was granted.  The evening before the removers came he had a call from his boss that his redundancy notice has been withdrawn as someone else had given notice to leave their job - we were shocked to say the least!  So as well as moving he's also had to work out how he'll work from home and hope to get a desk from a regional office to work from.  Meanwhile this week he's been headed up North.  Looks like a story that'll continue.