The End of July Already

 July seems to have gone very quickly despite it being a 31 day month and I don’t seem to have achieved much, let alone any finishes. All my makings are work in progress, so let’s gather up what I’ve been making this month and crack on.

At the beginning of this month David and I went away to Chatham for a few days and visited the Historic Dockyard followed the next day by the Royal Engineers Museum.  Fascinating places both, the dockyard (famous for the scenes from Call the Midwife but we didn’t do the walking tour as an injury to my knee meant that walking was a bit slow. We followed the break with a stop at Arundel Castle, where we met my son and family, who live in nearby Billingshurst. You can read more about our trip here.

A rather large tag hanging from the rafters at the Chatham Historic Dockyard.

A biscuit sent by a soldier to his wife at the Royal Engineers Museum

A view of Arundel Castle.

I took some sock knitting with me and I’m currently knitting The Fairground socks by Kay Jones of The Bakery Bears using Zig Zag sock yarn by King Cole in Clown colourway.  I’ve lost my way with this, perhaps I should have made plain vanilla socks instead.  I’ve undone and knitted up again.

In progress is a crochet lap blanket made with odds and ends from previous blanket kits.  It is now draping over my lap, so that may be a finish next month. It’s currently 27” long. With the warm weather it’s just a bit difficult to work on, so that will wait until the weather cools a little.

As for quilting the orange quilt is in progress with having been layered and some machine quilting done.

And my mini Patchwork of the Crosses quilt has had some hand quilting with some green perle thread (which you can see in the bottom left hand corner.

And new this week is a Project Linus kit with all the squares and strips cut ready to sew.  I like a kit at times as there’s no agonising of what fabrics go with what and do I have enough of it. It’s all there and ready to go.

I’ve started on sewing the backstitch detail on my Dad’s cross stitch. My Dad passed away over 6 years ago and he and my Mum used to sew cross stitch pictures for a time.  My Dad completed the cross stitches but not the back stitch detail and I can understand why as I can only work on this for a short time and my eyes can’t take much more, so this will be slow progress.  This is a DMC kit of the Aston Martin DB5.

I’ve done some paper crafting this month with making these button cards. One is for a birthday coming up soon.

I’ve made an ATC for August but hadn’t made one to swap this month so there’s nothing to show here.

So I’ve been quite busy this month and hope that I have some finishes to show during August.  I’m not going to Festival of Quilts that’s happening this week, but there is a local Arts and Crafts fair going on over this long weekend in Wareham. 

Honey, I’ve Shrunk The Craft Room!!

 This is a long one, so get yourself a beverage of choice first (I’m writing this while having a cup of tea 🫖).

Several years ago I would have said I was a quilter and my room was a Sewing Room. Nowadays it’s a Craft Room as over recent years (due mainly to retirement and wanting to keep busy!) other things have crept in. It started with knitting and the craze for sock knitting which I started while working at my last job. Being small and portable, it just needed a small bag to contain yarn, knitting on a circular needle, a small pouch to contain stitch markers, tape measure and other bits and bobs.  It would fit in my rucksack and easy to pull out and work on during my bus ride home.  The knitting soon became bigger as I started making cardigans, jumpers and toys in the evening when watching TV. So a yarn stash grew in my room.

Along with the knitting, I also started making crochet blankets, tempted by the likes of Lucy of Attic 24 and Rosina of Rosina Crochet.  At the moment I have a Neat Ripple (Attic 24) lap size blanket with remnants of yarn from previous blanket projects.

I’ve always enjoyed some embroidery and hand stitching so when I retired (6 years ago) I joined West Country Embroiderers Poole Branch, which has since become Dorset Creative Embroiderers and I really enjoy then monthly meetings.  But of course it means there are projects made (and I enjoy making them) and a slowly growing collection of items with nowhere to put them, so they’ve stayed in my room.

Another group I wanted to join was my local Knit and Natter group which met at the local cafe. The cafe closed after lockdown but reopened when new owners took over some months later.  Meanwhile the group meets at the local pub just along from the cafe.  Meeting people there I got involved with the local Townswomen’s Guild, then on the committee.  Last year I became treasurer so the paperwork was in my room for a while, but that’s now moved to the small bedroom we refer to as the office.  However I enjoy the Hotchpotch crafts sub group and making items they’ve also accumulated.  While in lockdown TG made members aware that there were some Internet Groups, one of which was an ATC swap group and recently the crafts group, usually making cards.  Locally there is a card crafting shop and I’ve taken occasional workshops there.  So, you’ve guessed I’ve got drawn into card making.

The other week I went to my Mum’s who is no longer sewing and has a collection of cross stitching, patterns, fabric scraps (she also made quilts for Project Linus) and I have bought all that collection back, which I am currently in he process of sorting.  

All the above to say that my Craft Room is Shrinking!! 

I have got projects to finish off.  The quilt below is going to Project Linus (West Dorset), which started out as L blocks (I think this may have been inspired by a recent Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine)

I didn’t have enough fabric for the backing so added a strip of orange fabric to pick out colours used and I’m machine quilting this. I must get this done as I bought home a Linus quilt kit to make up, but I’ve got until September to get both done.

I dug out this mini quilt that I started in 2019 (so it’s not an old WIP). It was a paper piecing kit from The Bramble Patch and the design I’d 16” square. I wasn’t quite sure how to finish this, so this week I backed it onto a square of neutral coloured Moda Grunge fabric. Instead of wadding, which might be too bulky on this I’ve layered 2 layers of cheesecloth muslin and backed with a cream fabric. I found a quarter of Makower linen texture in a dark purple which matches the purple in the quilt to border.  It’s a difficult pattern to know how to quilt but I’m using a fine green perle thread in the white fabric around the blocks.

It’s going to be fiddly.

So that’s the quilting.  This has gone on for a long time (and you’ve probably finished that cup of something) and I will catch up with the knitting and paper crafting projects soon.

Beginning of July

 

We have been away for part of the first week of July to Chatham, Kent.  Quite a long journey going across the south of England from Dorset.  David and I have wanted to visit the historic dockyard there for quite sometime.  Another day and we visited nearby Gillingham for the Royal Engineers museum, which was far bigger than it looked and took a long time to get around.

Is that ship’s propeller big enough?

A dockyard crane built by Stothard and Pitt of Bath. We remember passing the factory many times when driving from Bristol to Bath years back.

One of the lifeboats displayed there. This one was named Queen Elizabeth II.

A battleship, HMS Cavalier

And a monument outside the ship

The prow of HMS Gannet

Another lifeboat, Grace Darling. This was at an exhibition of 200 years of the RNLI.

And a Morris Minor advertising the Call the Midwife walking tour. Some of the scenes are filmed at Chatham but we didn’t take the tour. You could walk miles around this place. We managed to dodge the hefty showers that day.

It didn’t rain the next day but it was very windy.  The Royal Engineers Museum was mostly indoors and arranged in a route that told the history from the English Civil War up to the present day.

Some crocheted/knitted poppies and cushions near the World War I memorial.

As you can see from the description above, a biscuit that was posted!

Embroidered postcards soldiers sent to their loved ones during World War 1.

A quilted coat worn under armour. 

Sunday we returned home but en route we met up with my son and his family at Arundel Castle, home of the Duke of Norfolk in Sussex. We’ve passed this place a few times but never stopped before. I was immediately taken with the windows, different designs and glasses (must be to do with quilting).

The sky looks lovely out there, but earlier when parking the car there was almost torrential rain.  It stayed dry afterwards.  After exploring the house we went out into the gardens, which were just lovely.

A lovely place, we may be visiting again.