Weekend Retreat at Home

Due to the lockdown the quilt show I was going to go to in Exeter was cancelled so when I read about a virtual quilt retreat a few weeks back the money I would have spent on entrance and coach fare went on joining the retreat instead. The retreat took place on Saturday and yesterday.

This was run by Jo Avery and Karen Lewis of The Thread House, who have run retreats near Bristol and in Yorkshire in addition to their own businesses.  This was the first virtual retreat they’ve done and was done via a private Facebook group with a mix of live and pre recorded videos

There were two projects to make over the weekend and like a normal retreat there was some preparation ahead of last weekend and requirements list.  There were a few videos in advance about getting ready.  The two projects were tendrils and leaves pouch on the Saturday and a foundation pieced butterfly/New York  Beauty block on Sunday.

Jo is well known for her use of tendrils in her work, seen on this storage pot tutorial here and with stage by stage videos helping along there were soon fabric leaves and bias strips appearing on prepared quilted pieces. Here’s my efforts below.  I decided for my quilted piece that I would strip piece and rejoin low volume and turquoise fabrics for a fresh look and used a dark blue Moda Grunge  fabric for my tendrils.

The afternoon was for making up the pouch by Karen, and there was a bit of confusion (then named ‘zippergate’) as her method for inserting the zip was different from Jo’s but that was quickly sorted and it did give participants the chance to follow one or the other instructions. So by the afternoon I had a large completed pouch.  This would comfortably hold a small quilt/embroidery project and I might use it for holding my Sew4thesoul project.

I had printed off the pattern for Sunday’s workshop for the foundation piecing,  I’m not a fan of this method of piecing,  but I following the video instructions from Karen and Jo it was easy to follow, with making up the New York Beauty blocks, which was the beginning of the Butterfly piece.

 By lunchtime I managed to get both the spiky panels done and the butterfly tail.

For some reason I managed to muddle up two sides of the head and antenna bit, my fault rather than the instructions and couldn’t match up the seams.  Fortunately I had a busy background fabric so it didn’t notice too much, so I didn’t go back and try again. So this was the end project.

I’m pleased with that and it was good to see other participants butterflies emerging too.

The good thing about the virtual retreat is that you haven’t got to pack fabrics, sewing stuff and machine and the ‘kitchen sink’ thinking whether you had enough of the right stuff and sewing in the comfort of familiar surroundings.  The only downside is the chatter and community spirit that you’d get at a workshop or retreat, but seeing as no one can go anywhere at the time being, we would not have that anyhow,

The workshops were well presented, seeing as it was the first time Jo and Karen had done a virtual retreat and apart from one or two glitches the processes we were well  explained. I’d definitely recommend this and would probably do another in the future.

Patchwork of the Crosses Mini Quilt

If you've been following my blog in recent months you may have come across pictures of the mini quilt in progress.  I've now finished the quilt top and layered up to quilt it, so here's the story so far.

I bought the quilt as a kit from The Bramble Patch at the Festival of Quilts in August last year.

Here it is on the bottom right of the picture.  I saw the mini quilt made up on the stand there and this was the last kit left so I had to have it.  It was a spare kit from a subscriber club that The Bramble Patch ran last year called Mini Treasures by Hand Mystery Club 2019.  As well as the instructions it contained the pack of (350!) honeycomb hexagons, squared card and 'house' shape pieces, cream fabric and a charm square pack, which was called Sweet Violet, designed by Jan Patek.  This kit's design is based on Lucy Boston's Patchwork of the Crosses.  It is a design that lends itself to fussy cutting, to use the best elements of the fabric design.

The pieces are small.  The honeycomb papers have ½" sides and are ¾" tall.  Here's a comparison with a standard 1" hexagon.

I started on this project soon after coming home from the Festival of Quilts and quickly realised that to work small you have to think small.  To help with the layout of the tiny pieces I made a small 6½" square layout board, which is a piece of mount board, with wadding and a small fabric border.  I then used binding clips to clip a piece of netting to help stop any small hexies disappearing.

So the piece slowly started to grow, starting with a flurry in August (the enthusiasm of a new project, of course!). The two pics below were taken on 6th and 10th August.

The two square soon became 4 squares

Then the little squares ½" were attached between the blocks and you can see just one purple 'house' shape in the middle. This was taken in mid October.

It was then adding the small squares around the edges and adding the half blocks so that the square shape above turned on point. The pic below was taken in January.

And more added

The finished top

So the top was finished on 11th April. Yes, it has jagged edges but they will be squared off after quilting and will measure 15.5” square.  It has been a really good pick up/put down project -albeit a small one.  I have now layered with wadding and backing fabric (Cream Moda Grunge fabric). I found fabric for the binding, which is a tonal violet William Morris patterned fabric which will go really well and in keeping with Sweet Violet design.

April’s Musings

A third into April and week 3 of lockdown and it’s the Easter holiday this weekend.  The weekend won’t feel much different from the weekdays, as people have to stay at home and only go out if it’s to work (if work can’t be carried out at home), shopping or for daily exercise.

We are lucky that the weather has been good to enjoy time in the garden. Not that I do a lot of gardening, but it is the outside space.

So I must be getting a lot of stuff done, well yes I have, but it’s all bits.

David and I have started Spring Cleaning.  Starting upstairs and the bedrooms, bathrooms and the office.  Cleared out packaging that’s been taking up space in the loft, so there’s been a lot of cardboard to go in the recycling bin.

When it can to cleaning my sewing room, I managed to tidy a lot of stuff but just don’t look in the wardrobe/storage cupboard! While cleaning I thought of another project.

 To give my sewing chair a makeover, from boring black

To bright.  After asking members of the UKQU Facebook group about how to cover I found this was easy.  It was a case of just pushing the fabric into the plastic base of the seat and backrest of the chair and it holds in place! No tools other than a flathead screwdriver to push the fabric in.  I used pins to mark where the black fabric goes into the plastic and cut a 2” margin around the pinned area.  A big difference made with not too much effort. Great.

Earlier this month I made a small present for a friend whose birthday was on Sunday. As she is isolation I can’t visit so it had to be posted (that’s part of my daily exercise- a walk to the local sorting office to post) so I made her a pouch and matching needlecase.

The ouch is the Lola pouch, designed by Svetlana Sotak and this the third one that I’ve made.  It’s a well explained pattern but I still find the binding round the zip a bit difficult but getting better at it.  I found a teapot button in the button box which went just right for the needlecase as kettle goes on when I go to visit her, so it seemed appropriate.

 UKQU postcard group posted a new theme of butterflies and dragonflies, so decided to make a butterfly from two layers of organza bonded together and stitched to make the wings.  Placed on a flower and sky background with another fabric butterfly.  This will be sent in an envelope so I am able to sent something with dimensional decoration.

Back onto the crochet and this is the latest tutorial from Lucy of Attic 24 (link in sidebar) of Polyanthus flowers and leaves. I had a go with some of the remaining yarn from the Dahlia blankets. A bit fiddly as they are small but fun to make and play around the with colours.

Have a happy Easter 🐣 however you enjoy it.  Stay safe, take care ❤️

March's Furtling

March started busy and ended up a bit blurgh as I can't seem to settle to anything. Doing a bit of this and that to keep my mind off things as much as I can.

In my last post there was a trip to Kent, which is here and a start of a new pair of socks, which is still first sock in progress - half way down the foot.  My standard go to pattern is Hermione's Everyday Sock by Erica Leuder although I may not necessary use the stitch pattern, but I like the Eye of Partridge heel turn on this.  I decided to do a rib pattern so its a skinnier sock than usual.  I used Crafternoon Treats yarn in Pistachio and my seemingly endless ball of West Yorkshire Spinners turquoise yarn for the cuff, heel and maybe toes (when I get there).

My cardigan, which I hoped to have finished has stalled as I try picking up the stitches for the front and keep getting the stitch count wrong, so that's pushed aside for the moment.

For sewing I made a Project Linus Quilt from a fabric pack I picked up to make a Disappearing Nine Patch quilt.  I bought the fleece just before the lockdown and it was end of a bolt too, so that was lucky.  This must be aimed at an older child as this was the biggest PL quilt I've sewn at 54" square.  Not sure when our local PL co-ordinators are going to get it, but it's packed in a bag ready.

I've made good progress on my mini quilt as there are now 7 half squares around the edge (though there are 6 in the photo below. Just the eighth to do now and a decision about how I 'square off' the quilt to to make into a mini quilt.  I had thought of not making it a quilt at all but to put into a square picture frame - any ideas??

One afternoon I got fed up with my knitting needles being in a utensil pot so I made a cover for it with strips of fabric from my scraps.  Fits like a glove and brightens up the yarn corner, see the before and after pics.

Another couple of small items I've made have been a small pouch from some hexies, so good to make something use out of them.  More about that here along with a fabric twine bowl that was also made this month.

I've been enjoying some embroidery recently, as I learnt about stump work, not as tricky as I thought, and made this little scissor case with seahorse at West Country Embroiderers.  I got in the groove and got the seahorse finished and scissor case done the next day!  One less UFO.  Perhaps small projects are the way to go at the moment.

Another bit of embroidery I've got into is #sew4thesoulhannemade which is a good pick up/put down project to do when I feel like it.  It is a long strip of wadding (I used a trimmed off piece from some quilting) and added fabrics pieces and stitches.

Some of the sewing last week was also taken up with plane spotting.  Apparently as main airports are closing Bournemouth Airport has become one of the local airports to park the planes that won't be going anywhere for a while.   Views from the sewing room window.

And below is a Jumbo Jet - I remember seeing those flying out from Heathrow Airport and looking as though they hung in the air back in the seventies.  They still look too heavy to go in the air, all these years later!  But I think there won't be any more planes coming in to land now, the skies are all quiet.

 So that was my March Furtle.  Joining in with Mini Archie's Furtle Around the Blogosphere.