Purple Quilt As You Go Quilt

 Believe it or not this quilt had been ‘work in progress’ since 2014!  I’ve written a post last year as I made more blocks to go with the ones that I made that way back. The patterns for the blocks came from Sew At Home Mummy blog series called Classic Blocks Made Modern.  Anyway I got as far as making and quilting the individual blocks and they had been lingering on the spare bed until we had visitors recently. It was time to put them together.

This is how the blocks were on 7 May

Over the last weekend and this week I’ve been putting them together.  Initially joining the fronts of the blocks together in rows. Yesterday and today I’ve joined the rows and although the backs aren’t sewn together at least they are trimmed and pinned together.

And here’s the back.  

I didn’t try to get a pleasing arrangement to the back. As you can see from the photo I still have 2 rows to slip-stitch the backing fabrics.  

I have joined the fronts by machine stitching, trimmed the wadding pieces and whip stitched together.  When I’ve done the last bit of slip stitching I will have to sew in he ends of the quilting threads and remove the tacking threads.  I’ve also got the think about the binding too and I think I will use as much of the fabric that I have in keeping with the scrappiness of the quilt.

It will be good to get this finished at long last.

Missing in Action May

 Over half way through May and I haven’t blogged at all until now.

This is my monthly marker for this month, a portion of knitting of a sock.  I now have a pair 👏.

And with 53 grams of yarn left I started on a pair of fingerless gloves using my favourite pattern, Fingerless or Not by Snapper Knits. With no matching of stripes I should get that done easily.  The sock is a plain one but using the Hobbity Sock pattern by Kay Jones for the heel and toe shaping.  You will see from the photo above that I twisted the stitches in the rib, which I’ve also done for the gloves. This was the last photo of the first glove, which has now progressed to the finger section, but I left my knitting bag at my daughter’s house. I’ll get that back next week.

The end of last week until halfway through this one I’ve been laid low by a virus, which started with a sore throat and cough at the beginning of last week.  I tested and it wasn’t Covid, fortunately but it was still pretty horrible. 

On Monday I was still feeling a little tired but went along to Dorset Creative Embroiderers, which I always look forward to and this time it was a lot of hand stitching.  This was based on an embroidery one of our members sewn over 20 years ago and is based on a picture from an old Inspirations magazine from 1999 (another member of the group had the magazine). 

Below is a photo of the bag she had sewn

This is what I’ve sewn so far. I think I have a little way to go, but it is a project that can easily be picked up and worked on whenever. There’s a heck of a lot of French Knots in the Delphinium! When made up it will become a pouch with the embroidery on the flap.

Going back to the beginning of May (sorry it’s in the wrong order) I visited Wimborne Model Town with some of the ladies from Townswomen’s Guild.  We had tea and cake (of course) followed by a wander around the model town. I’ve been there many times before, but this time there were a couple of new sections.  It is 1/10 scale of the town set in the 1950’s. A lot of the businesses have gone, but some are still there and it was easy to recognise what was there and what is there now.  Along with the model town are models of the model of the model, in even smaller scales.

There are also indoor displays of a model railway, older toys and the Wareham Bears (though I didn’t take a photo of them) who live in a dolls house setting. So below is the railway which is behind glass and controlled by waving your hand over the sensor in front.

There was another room with old toys on display which was called life before Lego.   I think there used to be a small toy museum at Arne, near Wareham so I’m wondering if the display came from there.  It’s not long before you spot “I used to have that when I was young “ and for my this was the Airfix building blocks version of Lego, called Betta Bilda.  Although next to that was some early Lego sets.

After that we went across town to enjoy a small pasta lunch at the local Italian.

So that’s been my May so far.

End of April

As it’s May, I’m doing a round up of what I’ve been up to in April craft wise,  at this end of the month I started and finished a Linus quilt.  My friend has some sight problems at present so was unable to sew together this quilt so passed the pack onto me.

The pack came with all the fabrics cut out and ready to sew so I got going, this was Friday. On Sunday I quilted using the wiggly stitch on my machine and sewing across the diagonal, in the afternoon I sewed on the binding.

This is a view of the back.  I finished off hand stitching the binding to the back on Monday.

It helped to listen to podcasts while sewing this up.  It was good not to have to make decisions about the choice of fabrics or making the block arrangements and just sew.  A really good quick project.

At the beginning of this month at Dorset Creative Embroiderers there was a tutor demonstrating a landscape with a murmurstion, but I made the decision to sit this one out and finish off the project from the previous month, but I ended up adding a murmurstion to what I was doing, so in effect had two projects in one picture! 

This was my landscape from March

Above is the picture made by the tutor

This is my embroidered landscape with the murmuration.  I added a stem stitch border around and next month I will get a frame for this. So that’s another finish.

I am continuing with hexagons, which gives me a bit of slow stitching time. I’ve decided to make a cover for my stitch book with some low volume fabric hexagons and will make a wrap around cover.  The hexagons from last year’s 100 hexies 100 days are being added to and making up 6.5 inch squares to sew ‘flowers’ of hexies on to. I’ve got 25 blocks so far.  It might take me a while to make a quilt.

I’ve been adding to my crochet cactus from last month with making another succulent, this time a String of Pearls. This is from the book of Crochet Succulents by Emma Varnam.

Here’s the succulent in situ.

Last month I was working on Florrie the Fox which I finished before going away on holiday.

Isn’t she sweet? You can see why I wanted to make her and she makes me smile when I see her.   Florrie is a kit from Lucy Locket Land, although the pattern is by Julie Williams of Little Cotton Rabbits.  I’m hoping a sheep one will come up in Lucy’s Year of Little Cotton Rabbits.  But I might just get the sheep pattern…..We’ll wait and see.

While away on holiday I took some sock knitting with me. I’ve only made one sock so far, A plain vanilla sock but based on Kay Jones’ Hobbity Socks, but only for the heel and toes shaping. The photo was taken on the river somewhere between Rotterdam and Kinderdijk and we had the sliding door open on our cabin. 

I have one completed sock and another to go.  The yarn is a hand dye from Cuddlebums, that I bought from Yarndale, year before last. 

Also on the needles is an Aran cardigan for David.  This is a long running project as I started this last year.  I’ve got as far as the raglan shaping on the back, finished a left front, and up to the armhole on the right front.  It’s trying to keep the pattern right while making he decreases.  Having just finished one front, I’ll get the second done before finishing the back. I hope there will be progress next month. 

The ATC I’ve made this month is on the theme of Red and I made a fabric one this month, with strips of red onto red felt with additional stitching and couching. I added adhesive gems in red and finished with red sari silk ribbon.

Before the ATC Zoom meeting there was a crafting one that I don’t often take part in but this month did.  It was to make a presentation box. After being given the size of the pieces to cut out it didn’t take long to put together.

Outside

Inside

So despite taking time out this month I’m still keeping busy.

Let’s see what May brings (brighter weather I hope!).