March Catch Up

Its been 22 days since the last post and in between then and now there's been more snow which has come and gone, International (or Worldwide) Quilting Day (which I didn't end up celebrating with some sewing ;o( ) and I'm a few weeks nearer to my retirement date at the end of April ;o)) .

As Spring progresses there's a bit more plant life to see and lighter evenings to come home in.  When it was Mother's Day I bought a plant pot display for my Mum and a different one for my Daughter Sarah, who's a Mum to be. I could not resist the Primroses, which I thought looked different

 These are Zebra Primulas, I bought one for me, one for Mum

 At another garden centre last month I bought some tulips in a pot which were half price.  They're all in flower now.

 Surprised to see the rosemary was in flower already

 And there are a lot of daffodils in flower in the garden

Yesterday I took a photo of the hyacinths in a pot along with a small budealea just coming out in flower.

About a week and a half ago I went to the West Country Embroiderers Dorset Day at Canford Magna.  They have a morning of traders and mini exhibitions to see.  The Christchurch group of the WCE organised the event and their banner had this lovely collection of Dorset Buttons sewn onto felt Paisley shapes.

There were also some hooped embroideries that were inspired but the Sea, which I also saw when I went to the Craft for Crafters show last autumn.

This was followed by lunch then the afternoon speaker, Jennie Rayment.  I've heard her speak before quite a while ago now and she is a very entertaining speaker talking about her travels and the tweaking a tucking that is her quilting speciality.  She mainly uses calico, which in the USA is known as muslin and has the moniker of the "Muslin Mistress" I took a photo after her talk when she was signing her books and I also managed a photo of one of her quilts.  And yes, she is wearing thigh high books and frilly knickers!!

She has such energy travelling to and fro that I think would leave youngsters exhausted!

Sunday afternoons are usually a time I like to spend in my room to sew and I have been trying to progress things to finish this month and I have succeeded with my small hexie table runner.  It's been on my Finish A Long list for a while as it was a slow project with English Paper Pieced hexies sewn together and appliquéd onto a background fabric which had several rows of quilting.  I felt a need to finish off and machine sewed the binding on.  It's only 18" long by 10.5" wide, but much smaller length than the pattern that came with the Bramble Patch Box of Delights and I also preferred the dark grey Grunge background fabric.

 There's the back view for which I made a hexie label to go with it.

 And heres a view on the table with the primrose.

Other sewing projects I've done has been a couple more pouches. which brings my pouch total this year to 6.  I made these last Sunday (for the quilting day that I missed out on the day before).

 Trying something a bit different with binding two opposite sides the quilted square with some ricrac underneath on the pink one.  To the green one I added some ribbon on a couple of the strips.

There they all are.

Another item which I hope to finish this week as I've put on the binding and just got to slipstitch that down is the Frivols quilt, another thing on my Finish A Long list.  Good to see the end in sight for another long awaited finish.

Two sides have been slipstitched already.  So I'm please to be getting this done.

Sock progress - this was taken a few days ago, but the second sock is not far from the toe shaping so not long to go for this now.

So that's it for now.  Still keeping busy.....