A September Furtle

 I don’t know where the time goes and just like that we’re three quarters of the way through the year.  September seems like a sort of a new beginning, even though my work life never involved term times. The youngest grandchild has started school and one of the older ones has started college and it’s good to see them move on.

Anyway, this is about Furtling.   I’m pleased to say I have a finish *ta-da*.

The cross stitch crocus bowl. A long standing project that hibernated for years, that I wrote about last month but I’ve yet to get mount board and a frame to put it in (I guess that’ll be next month’s Furtle!).

And another finish- a pair of fingerless gloves.  The pattern is a favourite of mine, by Snapper Knits and is  called Fingerless or Not. The yarn is Zig Zag but I can’t find the yarn online so I think it’s a discontinued one.

I’ve started a new knitted project, which is a cardigan for my daughter.  I found today though I’ve been knitting on the wrong size circular needle, 3.75 instead of 4mm, so there will be some un-knitting 😕.  I’m using pink yarn that I used for Flo’s cardigan and Stylecraft pattern which I’ve used before. So I’ll just have to bite the bullet and redo the part that used the smaller needle.

Another project I started this month is making a pair of crochet socks.  So I’m on the first sock, which is crocheted from the toe up and turned the heel (took several attempts but got there) and finished the leg apart from doing the ribbing and that’s where I’m stuck.  I may do the second sock and get to the same point after which I will have to have the ribbing mastered. I’m using the remains of some West Yorkshire Spinner yarn from stash.  The pattern is from Inside Crochet magazine.  Ooh, just noticed that my knitting and crochet projects are very pink this month.

I haven’t done much sewing this month, other than the finish above. But I have been. Hand sewing some hexagons.  I have been taking part in #100hexagons100days2023 on Instagram (I’m @suewilduk), but I still have a lot of hexagons from when I took part back in 2019 that have been sitting in a fabric bowl.  So I’ve taken the decision to join them together and I think so far I have 11 flowers. Below is just a few of them.  Not sure what they will become yet.

Talking of the 100 hexagons, here are the last few weeks

Week 5 - Rainbow - I think this one is self explanatory. I placed them on a white with rainbow coloured background 

Week 6- Pawsome. Well I ran out of animal with paws so there were a couple with claws 

Week 7 - Love.  I thought I was going off-topic for this one with selecting some favourite fabrics, but the range of fabrics were by designer Beth Studley, and the selvedge of one of the fabrics was “love from Beth”. So it fitted the bill.

Week8 - I Spy. Apart from the little bit of Tula Pink in the pink purple fabric (which would have had a lot of hidden things) I couldn’t find much, but the foxes and the hidden text were good ones and I figured that the dinosaur bones would be hidden.

And lastly for this month is week 9 - Magic.  That wasn’t an easy topic, so I used some hexagons from a mini charm pack called Saturday to show from these little squares, they became hexagons, then joined together to eventually become part of a quilt. I think that’s magic.

The ATC theme this month was Autumn, so I made a fabric one to illustrate Pumpkins, which are now quite visible in the fields. I padded out the orange pumpkin with a small piece of felt. I machine appliquéd the pumpkins and free machined the details and the word.  I meant to make another but didn’t get around to it.

I had some autumn leaves in return.

I’ve also been to a Kaffe Fassett exhibition in Bath earlier this week and the post about that is here.

So that’s my Furtle for this month. Looking forward to October and a bit of sorting out and de-stashing.  See how that goes. 

Meanwhile joining in with Mini Archie’s Furtle Around the Blogosphere. 

Trip to Bath

 Yesterday I went on a coach trip with Quarterjack Quilters from Wimborne to Bath to see an exhibition of Kaffe Fassett’s work from his book Timeless Treasures. There was a detour along the way to Midsomer Quilting in Chilcompton, near Radstock, Somerset. It has been a long time since I last visited this quilt shop, which has relocated to a unit at a farm in the village, which is considerably bigger than the previous shop. 

One don’t visit with purchasing fabric, even if you don’t have a project in mind! So here’s my purchases, only fat quarters, so didn’t break the bank.  

There was a lovely row by row quilt made of the local area in the workshop room.

Another couple of quilts were on the walls, this fishy one (in progress)

And this large one with small square blocks

We reached Bath at lunchtime (though we had our lunch on the coach journey). We were dropped off very near the Art Gallery for a timed ticket to the exhibition.  Before I saw the quilts I was blown away by this.

A beautiful Baroque style mirror, decorated with plates, tiles and pieces of broken china with porcelain flowers hanging from it, which was in the reception. You can see a couple of Kaffe’s quilts reflected in it. This lady holding up her phone features a lot in these photos. 😂

As usual Kaffe’s quilts are really colourful with simple shapes that makes the fabrics a feature.  They have been long arm quilted but it really isn’t a feature, the colours really shine.

His quilts were on the side walls but the end wall of the gallery were more mirrors, designed by Candace Bahouth, another American artist, who lives in the UK. 

I loved this mirror with blue china 

I took a close up to show pieces of Wedgewood and handles from cups and teapots 

Shells and pale coloured plates

A shrine on the wall with a display of animals in front.

And these repurposed china models

They were just beautiful. There were 2 more mirrors that I hadn’t seen in the reception on the background of Kaffe Fassett designed wallpaper

It was a colour overload but a lovely exhibition to see and lucky to see this before it closes on Saturday.

It’s September…

 

..and all of a sudden it feels like summer!  After the drab days of August, which were colder than usual, this month so far has been sunny and warm, maybe a little too warm, but summer is clearly not ready to give in to autumn just yet.

Following on from my Furtling post last month all 12 blocks have been basted with the wadding and backing fabrics and I’m currently contemplating how I will quilt each block. Here’s a photo of the back of 6 of the blocks 

I’ve also had the first finish of this month with the fingerless gloves, which have turned out really well

The pattern, a favourite of mine, is Fingerless or Not by Snapper Knits . As it’s a slightly smaller size I used 2.25mm needles throughout, rather than the 2.25 and 2.5mm in the pattern. 

I went to a card making workshop at Craft Bliss and as much as I keep telling myself I must not make cards, I went for this one which is a male themed card which I enjoyed making, for the colouring in by Distress ink and the cutting and construction.

I’m not going to make cards, I tell myself…

I’ve booked a table for a craft/stash sale next month, so it’ll give me opportunity to sell some craft books and other bits and bobs I no longer use.  I’m hoping that will work ok and I don’t bring all the stuff home again! I really thought I was going off quilting, but I still do enjoy making blocks, in spite of the knitting and crochet slowly taking over with papercraft sneaking in too.  But this latest quilt makes me realise that I do still enjoy the making but not to as greatly as before.

I think that over time things and circumstances change and recognising where that change is and adapting to it.

Now all I need is some room in my craft room, so a clear out is due….