Some Bits and Bobs

Yesterday I went to a small local quilt exhibition at Burton, near Christchurch organised by Winding Ways Quilters.  My Mum wasn't able to go because of the heat but I took photos so I could (sort of) bring the exhibition to her. It was a little difficult to take photos due to the lack of space, but there was some lovely work.  The hall had a garden in which you could have tea and cake and enjoy the small bunches of flowers at the table.  Never thought of using an old glass spice jar as a vase!

Inside were some lovely quilts too

And more outside too

 Even quilted kites arranged over hosepipe!!

And a baby quilt in amongst the trees!

It was a lovely show thats to Winding Ways

This week has also seen another (unexpected) finish as I dug out a project from a couple of years ago when I bought a pattern from Sew and Quilt called a Handy Huswif which is a long, hand sewing organiser.  I'm not sure why I let this project hibernate but just decided I would crack on and get it finished.  I was brave enough to manage to put in the two parts of a magnetic closure, something I've not tried before.  The Huswif was not difficult to do, just taking care to follow the instructions carefully. Inside, top picture in the left are two small pockets with a red felt needle minder, above the zip is a clear vinyl pocket next is a scissor holder with flap.  The bottom photo shows the Huswif closed up with the magnetic clasp.

I went to Bourne Quilters on Thursday evening having got as far as machine sewing the binding strip around beforehand so I could hand stitch the binding to the outside.  So I'm really pleased it's finished.

That evening I was hoping for more instruction about a pincushion project but because other discussions took over.  One Friday morning though after looking for ideas to finish this I just decided that I would treat the two parts of this separately and join together.

It's a pretty big pincushion and it wasn't easy to hold in my hand and take photo with the other!!

Last Weekend in Somerset

We whizzed to Minehead  Thursday  last week to meet friends and for David to visit the West Somerset Railway during the Diesel Gala and Beer Fest.  We returned home on the Saturday.

From the hotel we could walk into the town and the railway leaving David and his friend to the trains. Just across from there is the sea wall my friend and I walked along there to the quay, seeing some people enjoying the sunshine with their morning coffee.  We came across a metal sculpture of a pair of hands holding a map as Minehead is part of the South West Coastal Path which runs from Poole right around the coastline up to Burnham-on-Sea.

 This was looking from across the station towards the quay

This side is not so good a pic as I was facing the sun

After a wander through the town and a mooch around the shops we went back to the station and after lunch there got on a train through to Dunster and a visit to Dunster castle.  There is Jubilee walk along the river from the station to the other side of the main road, then a steep walk to the village.

 A really large Gunnera plant along by the river

 The Yarn Market (no yarn there now, unfortunately!)

 First views of Dunster Castle

 and the front

The gardens near the castle with the local church behind. As you can see it was an absolutely gorgeous day and just nicely warm.

We made our way back to the station and due to the train running late we didn't have a long wait.

I could write about a railway without including engines, but I usually get the names wrong so you'll have to make do with photos!!

 I got the backdrop of the town behind this loco

Saturday was our return home but before then David and I visited Porlock Weir, a small fishing village just west of the village of Porlock

 Not sure if this was something defensive, but this stone building has collapsed at the back and the gaps in the stonework looks like a face!

Time for a seaside selfie, okay we could have done that closer to home, but it's a different bit of the sea!

After a quiet rest of the weekend at home, Monday was the TG walk at Ham Common in Poole.  A walk I'd not done before, but treated to some lovely views of the islands inside Poole Harbour.  The Common is mainly heathland with plants that are familiar with Canford Heath. The weather was a bit misty so not much of an opportunity to take photos but here are a couple

 This is looking towards Brownsea Island

Above is the small pier on Ham Common.  Walking along the shore there were a few jellyfish washed  up so the sea must be quite warm for them to be on the south coast.

I will catch up with my makings this month in another post.

June's Musings

I should be outside enjoying what decent weather there has been of late, but instead I've been messing about in my sewing room.  Facebook made me do it.  There was a video clip of a woman making a 'rope basket' from fabric twine, you know the skinny lengths of fabric that are left after trimming off.
What fun it was to seek out the skinny bits from my scrap drawer and join up fabrics by twisting them together.  I also had a short go at coiling the fabric twine and trying to stitch together and I made a small coil until I got to a bit I couldn't join up!  Here's the result below, with the ball of twine on the left and the small coiled piece on the right.

I have now finished the strippy hearts quilt which I'm pleased with and is another tick off my Finish A Long list.  This quilt was started in October 2014, five years ago(in this post here)!  I woke it out of hibernation and as I had the backing for quite a while too.  From my last post I stitched circles in the main piece and in the black borders I used variegated thread to machine sew some wavy lines.

Next is my Kingfisher quilt, which was layered up last Friday, David was at Swanage Railway and it was a wet day so perfect weather for a job like that.

So this is how the Kingfisher looks

Pinned and tacked this will now be hand quilted using some variegated Perle threads to reflect the variety of colours in the hexies.

Saturday was a sewing gathering at Colehill and I didn't fancy taking the Kingfisher with me, so I had a couple of Project Linus quilt top packs to piece together, which kept me busy.

Yesterday, Fathers' Day, we had a gathering at my daughter Sarah's house, with a barbecue.  My granddaughter, Flo was born a year ago today, which last year was Fathers' Day.  At a year old she crawls at speed and is now standing supported by the furniture, but it won't be long until she takes her first steps unaided.  This was a photo that I took a couple of weeks ago when standing by the stair gate.

Its amazing how time flies!

I'll finish off this post with some flowers from the garden, which I took to Sarah yesterday, they were in a small vase until we went to hers.

The rain must be doing the garden a power of good.

June

My photo for this month is a look back at what I made 10 years ago.  This was Transitions and is a 12.5" square mini quilt designed by Kandy Newton and was part of a monthly mini quilt challenge that year on BQL Yahoo group.  It has contrasting coloured strips of fabric inserted and sewn one way to show one colour and in the opposite direction to show the contrasting colour.  Over the years this has been stored the strips seem to have been 'pressed' rather than the gentle curve of the changing direction.

Only 6 days in and it's quiet at the moment.  I've done work on my Hearts quilt, which on my Finish A Long listing and it would be good to get this quilted and done.  I haven't thought of a destination for this quilt as yet, so may ask the family if anyone would like it.  I have started the quilting with machine sewn circles, which I am now nearly at the end of sewing in the ends

You can just about see in the photo above - it's in turquoise colour thread, 3" and 6" diameter circles that I'd cut out on freezer paper which I'd sewn around.  I've also sewn half and quarter circles on the sides and corners of the patterned part but haven't decided how to quilt the corner squares.  Because of those there is also a deep black border to quilt and I thought I might do wavy lines in multicolour thread.

It's good to see progress at last on my Finish A Long list.

I hadn't mentioned that after the May Bank Holiday I went to a quilt exhibition by the New Forest Quilters in New Milton with my Mum.

The group celebrated its 40th anniversary with showing a lot of challenge quilts along with individual members quilts and it was held in the local school's drama hall.

I instantly recognised the one above as a Splendid Sampler quilt.  Mine are still blocks!

What I like about exhibition challenges - how different fabrics affect the outcome of the quilts - and even a different arrangement of the same blocks - half square triangles and four patch.  This was a mystery quilt challenge.

My Mum liked the Japanese inspired quilts, below is a photo of one of them

I rather liked these two red ones, one is certainly done with English Paper Piecing (EPP) and possibly the second one too.

I could have taken more photos.  Thank you to the ladies of the New Forest Quilt group - it was a lovely exhibition.