Stitchery Stuff to Show

As promised yesterday I'm showing some stitching that I'm currently doing and some postcards that I've received recently.Above are some handbag blocks in progress for the BQL Calendar Challenge for this month. I've used a favourite fabric for the background, which is called Confetti and I have had this for a few years and is a nice contrast to the bright fabrics used for the bags. Each block is 4.5" square to make a quilt of 12.5". I'm at the point of tidying the blocks up before joining.

Another project that I'm doing is making a couple of cushions from a kit that I bought from The Bramble Patch recently(I've tried to put a link to Bramble Patch, but it's not co-operating). The kit (called Hanamoyo Cushion) had fabric to make one cushion but I found that I had enough of the blue fabric to make another cushion top but not enough of the cream to make the outside strips and cushion back so ordered more. That came on Friday so one evening next week I'll crack on and get the second cushion done.

And this pic above shows a couple of postcards I received on the theme of Folded Wonders (see the ones that I made in the post of 4th April). The top one of a folded flower tree came from Toni and the bottom one made from batiks with red inserts and beads came from Sarah. I'm waiting on a third card to come from Canada, which I guess will come soon.

Mellow Yellow

After a weekend in Dorset last week, the first time we've visited the area since we moved to Yorkshire 5 months ago (where did the time go?), we've returned to work and had to catch up with things all week. So it was lovely to receive a quilt in the post, a lovely sunshiny yellow one, isn't it super? DH was working at home on Thursday, so he was able to pick up the package from the Post Office. The quilt was from Lucy, of My Byrd House, who's taken part in the Four Seasons Quilt Swap in which I'd made a quilt that I'd sent to Vanessa earlier in March (here's the link to my post about that quilt)

Inside the package was also this lovely batik fabric. This is called Solo by Timeless Treasures, which can be cut up and arranged to make different patterns. Seems a shame to cut it up!

By coincidence, on a yellow theme, I met up with Quarterjack Quilters, the group I used to belong to in Wimborne. Pat , the chairman of the group, demonstrated making this little bag, from one on Kumiko Sudo's patterns, on a spring theme with green and yellow, isn't it sweet. The little bit of blue shining inside the bag is a foil wrapped mini egg.This last photo shows the resulting postcards that were in progress from my last post. Suddenly realising that the last posting date for these were tomorrow (though no post on Sundays) I had to get them sent today. I did make 4 but only 3 were needed for this swap, so one extra will be kept as a sample.

Visit to the Quilt Museum and March quilt

To anyone who is a quilter most will know that today is International Quilting Day (or to the Americans it's National Quilting Day). Last year Brenda and I ran our 4th IQD event in Sturminster Marshall - little did I know then I'd be on the move later in the year.Pauline (of Pauline's Patchwork) and her daughter Sarah are running this year's event, which Brenda and her daughter attended so I hope to hear something about today.

For my part I decided I would go to he Quilt Museum at St Anthony's Hall in York and see the exhibitions held there. I couldn't take pictures of the exhibits, to preserve them flash photography would not be allowed and the modern exhibits would probably be subject to copyright. There were some volunteers doing demonstrations and it was nice to chat to them. Here's some photo's of the outside, the building though old seems unassuming, but inside it's a very old building which has had many uses over the years including that of a school for orphans, which is depicted by a plaque on the wall outside the building. Going through the gateway there is a view to part of the city walls above the town. It is a lovely spring day (as DH pointed out, the weathers always been nice when the Quilting Days have been held).

This pic shows the outside of the Quilt Museum
This is the view across to the city wall

The plaque dedicated to the orphans to went to the school here in the 1700's.And just to show that I have been sewing this week here is my completed March Challenge Quilt. I used some Japanese style fabric and teamed it with some pink fabric which coordinated with the flowers in the printed fabric. I used the Cranesbill Geranium picture that BQL list moderator, Kandy Newton, supplied with the instructions for this quilt which was printed onto treated fabric. Not being able to resist a little bit of glitz, I put a few flower sequin/bead flowers on it. I'd also added some chain stitch around the fabric photo as some bits of the white edge showed a little.

Swap received and visit to Bristol

I can reveal the wallhanging that I made for the Four Seasons Monochrome Swap in its finished state and it's flown its way to the US and Vanessa was delighted to receive it and put it on her blog. It was posted to her just last Saturday and she received it yesterday - I was amazed how quickly it got to her.

I was inspired by Kumiko Sudo's book of Fabled Flowers and was able to use the various shades of greens to create this wallhanging of Lily of the Valley. I knew that Vanessa also liked blues so have fused a blue butterfly to decorate and also used blue green threads to embroider the stems and the shashiko pattern. There's a close up below of the flowers and butterfly and also a few sequins which I've used to represent dew on the leaves. I hand appliqued the quilt which I was able to do in the evenings.

And amazingly for me, I even remembered a label. How many of us finish a quilt project without a label on it - I'll hold my hand up straightaway!

This was also packed and posted last Saturday morning before a weekend visit to daughter Sarah in Bristol. Didn't take my camera so only 2 pics to show for a weekend away, both taken with my mobile. In the back streets near the Bristol Royal Infirmary (where she works) is the Bristol Eye Hospital. I had to take pics of two of the brick panel on the side of the building. This one of animals

and another of a mother and baby. Aren't they wonderful?

I didn't read the description on the panel and only just noticed that there was any writing when uploading. I looked for the Eye Hospital website and there is no mention of this work of art. I'll try and be more observant if I come across the panels again.

There is some more sewing going on and hope to post some more photo's soon.

Spring is on its way

The trouble with working full time is that the weekend goes so darned quick! After shopping, washing and other chores (which do need doing, no getting out of it!). We did have time to go into Wakefield this Saturday and see the food fair. Wakefield is in the area that includes Bradford and Leeds, is known as the Rhubarb Triangle, where traditionally rhubarb was force grown in large sheds heated by cheap coal that used to be mined. Nowadays there are only a few growers and this time of year is the forced rhubarb is in season so this was on sale together with other local food producers like bakers, cheesemakers, butchers and brewers.

Today we have discovered a couple of local large garden centres between Featherstone and Wakefield. It was lovely to see a lot of spring flowers - primroses, daffodils and lots of others and having a meander round. We do have a garden at this house, but it's all grass and being rented there's not a lot we can do about that, so it was good to have a wander to see what we could have in our virtual garden!

Thought that I would share a couple of pictures of some daffodils that I bought in the Simply Food M&S store at Leeds station. For just 99p I bought these daffodils in bud. By Saturday a couple had flowered (above) but by today most of them had flowered (below). Don't they look great.

Just to show that I have done some sewing (as I haven't blogged about any lately) here's a pic of what I've been up to below.

I've worked on a wallhanging about 17" square and this is the progress so far. I've used a pattern from Kumiko Sudo's book of Fabled Flowers to make this Lily of the Valley quilt for a Secret swap in the theme of monocolour quilts. I have progressed this since taking the photo yesterday as I've made more of the flowers and sewn them onto the quilt. This has been hand appliqued throughout so I've been able to do this in the evenings while watching the TV. I hope to have this finished during the course of this week to send out at on Saturday. The deadline is in mid March so I am on course to get this done and sent.

After this I'll be working on March's BQL calendar quilt. It will require a photo so I've sent off for some fabric sheets for inkjet printers, but I've got my fabric all ready to go with that.

My 2nd Blog anniversary

Hard to believe but I have been blogging for 2 years now. My blog anniversary was a couple of days ago. I started when I took up the Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge on Sharon Boggon's blog. I only got about halfway through this challenge but I do have some samples to look back on. Pictures of this are also on a Flickr site but with the blog I could describe more about what I've made. Sometimes it's been difficult to keep it updated but I figure if I could do that at least once a week it helps me doing stuff, whether its quilting, stitching or knitting, so I can record my efforts. I know that some other things like views of Dorset and later Yorkshire have crept in but I like to share some of my photos, hope that the one or two people that read this blog like them too!Hope you like my "Tete a Tete" narcissi which have come out in flower this week. I think I may have said that we have a garden in our rented house but it's just grass and a patio, nothing else. So we're keen to get some things growing in pots to try and overcome the blandness of the garden.

This week my "stuff" has consisted of putting together some disappearing nine patch blocks, which I started in Poole and has moved up with me in strips. I've put those strips together and got 2 sides of the border added on. I bought the fabric for this last February at Villavin Farm and it may look like it might be my UFO to take with me to quilt when I go there again next month.

Also my hope for this year was to get a job and I've been taken up with 2 interviews this week. One was unsuccessful, the other I'm not so sure about either, but all good experience, shows how much I need to improve my interviewing skills. Next week I have two more, the job description of one of them would really suit me very well so must pull out all the stops for that one!

The last photo shows the postcard that I received from Susan Lenz in March last year, which I'd mentioned in my previous post. It has loads of texture with a background of black velvet, chenille yarns couched with metallic thread plus more machine stitching in metallic thread.

Cyber Fiber Exhibition and New Challenge

Yesterday in Columbus, Ohio, Susan Lenz opened her Cyber Fiber exhibition and I am pleased to say that one of my postcards is exhibited there. Here's a link to the post with the picture of this and if you go to her blog here its pictured under the postcards section and mine is number 149. The are some lovely things to see, so do take a look. I realised that I hadn't posted the postcard she sent in return and as it's dark it doesn't photograph well in the artificial light, so I'll take a photo for the next posting.

I've not been idle the past few days as I've taken part in BQL's new challenge for this year which are calendar quilts. The quilts, one a month, are of 12" or A4 paper size journal type quilts and January's quilt is based on Kandinsky's circles in squares. Sixteen squares with 3 circles within circles, the fiddliest bit was tracing the circles, Bondawebbing them and sewing them to secure. Once that was done, putting the square together, quilting and binding were completed very quickly. The fabric that I've used is a colour graded fabric called Aurora which I've had in my stash for ages. One piece goes from blue to green to yellow, another from red to brown to peach, and the last piece purple to blue to green so they produced quite a variation of colour.

Last Saturday we went to a garden centre just outside Barnsley where I bought pot of hyacinth bulbs and another pot of dwarf daffodils in an effort to have a little bit of spring in the house. The house we've rented has a garden, but only a lawn so we can't grow anything, very boring. I can see that we'll be buying pots of plants this year. Here's a pic of the hyacinth in flower, lovely isn't it? The scent is rather nice too.One thing that I was dreading when moving up to the north of England was the cold weather and in particular snow, don't like the white stuff. However from what I've heard it has been colder in the south than the north and my friend Penny has e-mailed me pics of Poole Park where the lakes and the fountain have frozen. I looked at the Bournemouth Echo to find pictures of the frozen south including Sandbanks. Think I've had a lucky escape!

Catching up with old stuff

A couple of things have been lurking in the UFO bags. The redwork above I bought last year at The National Patchwork Championships at Sandown (think from Dandelion Designs?) and has been with me to quilt group meetings when there was no specific item to sew so has slowly been sewn. Finished off with a fabric border it looks quite good, just needs somewhere to hang.
I'd promised my daughter Sarah some cushions and I had some blocks made from ages and ages ago and put them together but didn't finish off. Checking that she still wanted them (and she did) I put that right. When I see her at Christmas I'll be able to give them to her. She has a red settee so they will go nicely.

Quarterjack Quilters Exhibition

You will have noticed that my "advertising" for the Quarterjack Quilters on the sidebar has now gone as the exhibition at Upton House in Poole took place last weekend.
I didn't have as much time to look at this as I would have done as I only had a quick few minutes with the camera on Saturday afternoon, so this a small selection of exhibits.

The first picture is of batik wallhanging together with a wacky star quilt draped over and a smaller wallhanging and reversible table mats.

The second pic is a corner log cabin in lovely autumnal colours.

The next pic is of a table based on the "seasons" theme with summer items including hydrangea wallhangings and cushions, sunflower journal quilts and fabric bowls.

The fourth pic shows girly pink and purple stars and log cabin strips quilt - they really are lovely colours.

And lastly the fifth pic is another table on the "seasons" theme - this time Christmas. What exhibition doesn't have a bit of Christmas. Here there are assorted Christmas tree hangings, reversible table mats, fabric bowls and Cathedral Window bell pulls.

Upton Country Park is a lovely setting with the House and large grounds with gardens. There is also a tea room with a gallery above which often houses art exhibitions. The group were very lucky to have good weather for most of the time with only one rainy afternoon.

Christmas already?

I know it's only July, but I've got Christmas fabrics out already! I'm currently demonstrating Reversible Table Mats over the next 2 meetings on Quarterjack Quilters using Sharon Pederson's method of Reversible Quilting from the book of the same name. To save trying to choose what colours to use, I dived into my stash and pulled out Christmas fabrics. The original pattern size was 14.5" wide and 40" long, which was a bit big for a table mat so have done a more manageable 9.5" x 19". Last night I showed how the blocks were made and at the next meeting how the pieces are joined by sashing.
Today I went to Romsey, Hampshire to the Romsey Quilters exhibition with my friend Penny. The main exhibition is in Romsey Abbey with more quilts shown in 3 other venues around the town as part of the group's 25th anniversary celebrations. This weekend only a 5th venue behind the Abbey grounds displayed pieces from an open competition. The picture below shows this spectacular quilt made by Ann Ohlenschlager inspired by mosaic floors whilst on holiday in Rome
Fantastic, isn't it? But then the quilts displayed are all lovely and it's difficult to choose a favourite. Took lots of pics and it was a lovely day out. Romsey itself was bustling too as there was a music festival as part of their arts weeks. At King John's House some jazz music was played outside in the garden as we were looking at quilts inside. The exhibition goes on to 20 July and they have a website.

Getting better

That is me and my sewing machine. I've had that back for about a week now and it's good to have it back. And today I feel as though I am getting over this flu, which has been around for over 2 weeks. I returned to work last week but it was a struggle and even this week has been a bit difficult, but can now feel it is going and looking forward to a long weekend this weekend.

While I was sick I couldn't go the the local Quilter's Guild Area Day on the 10th May, so armed with a bag of scraps, needle, thread and other bits and bobs I made a crazy quilted scissor case for my large scissors using an 8" square of calico as a foundation for the scraps. Above is the front...
and this pic is the back. In the middle I've used a long strip of selvedge that had a variety of colour spots. As you can see I've used small rectangles of fabric rather than crazy shapes. Still can't quite get my head around sewing crazy shapes, it's just not my style.
I took part in an Embellisher Swap making a tag. Looking at tag art sites they look nothing like luggage labels, so this is mine using pieces of hand dyed scrim which I fashioned into circles before punching into a base of black felt. Also used some silk roving and dark pink organza ribbon. After adding beads and sequins, the punched hole was threaded with fancy yarns. This is going to Liz in Stockport. I'd like to make this design again later as a picture, I had fun making this and it didn't take long at all.

Now the machine is back and back at work. I bought a pack of charm squares by Moda from Villavin Crafts, when I stayed there back in February. They made 4 nine patch sqaures which I've cut in the middle to make 16 split 9 patch squares (which I didn't take a photo of). At present they're sewn into rows and will update later with the completed top.

Tulips

Having gone through the Easter weekend and back to normal again, the weekend just whizzed by, how did that happen! We did see members of the family over the holiday weekend and managed to get a trip into Bournemouth, though the weather was awful with high winds, rain (some places had snow!) and cold. I did get a bunch of tulips from Peter and Diane (my brother in law and his partner) in lovely colours and this was the influence in a postcard that I made.

This postcard, which is a shadow applique sandwiched layers of organza and some Angelina fibres trapped is going to the US in a swap with Susan Lenz for the Cyber Fiber exhibition. She sent me a gorgeous card with velvet and chenille which is shown here.



I also finished off a hydrangea wallhanging, from Kumiko Sudo's book Fabled Flowers. It's only taken me since last summer to finish this. Because it is mainly hand sewing I've saved this project for when I've needed something to sew at quilt meetings. Having quilted it the last bit was getting the borders on. I pleased with this it has been worth the wait.

International Quilting Day

On Saturday 15 March my friend Brenda and myself held our fourth IQD at Sturminster Marshall near Wimborne. A very successful day with almost 60 quilters and 4 traders including Pauline's Patchwork and Winifred Cottage. We had 3 demonstrations - one about "fussy cutting" applique, another about the embellishing machine and the third about Suffolk Puffs (aka yo-yos). With lunch, show and tell, a raffle, people also found some time to sew as well! It is a nice sociable day meeting with quilters from different groups in the area. Any profit made from this goes to our chosen charity, which this year is Macmillan Cancer Care.

On a sad note, though, Brenda and I won't be organising another, however Pauline and Sarah from Pauline's Patchwork of Weymouth will be taking this on. It has taken a lot of organising to get to this day each year, so I hope that next year it will be our turn to sew with others.

I will be uploading photo's which another friend, Penny, had kindly taken of the day and they can be linked to here. Meanwhile here is one photo during the show and tell in front on Brenda's quilt with Brenda to the right and myself in the middle, while one of the ladies from Longmeadow Quilters describes her Willow Pattern quilt.

Quilting Retreat

Six of us went to Villavin Farm near Holsworthy, Devon to "test drive" the new workshop owned by Jo. She has been running 3 self catering cottages as well as a quilting business, Villavin Crafts and the workshop and shop have only just been constructed. Having looked at the website this evening I have noticed that there's photos of our efforts in the workshop already!

We had a lovely journey from Wimborne down to Holsworthy and the 2 cottages that we used (one of them in the first pic) had first class facilities and were really warm and comfortable in the cold February evenings.

In the second pic there is a view of the workshop with Donna setting up her machine. The view is out into the garden where a couple of days there were chickens and ducks wandering around.

The third photo shows the shop area with a lovely big Welsh Dresser decorating the end wall. The add to the fabrics being displayed there are a lot of little knick-knacks arranged here and there.

I made a quilt (which isn't yet finished) and also a quilt-as-you-go bag, which is in the fourth picture. The quilt was from a pattern called Nick of Time and I hadn't expected to make quite such a dark quilt but it all seemed to go well. Promise to finish of and blog later.


Whilst we were there Judy from British Patchwork and Quilting magazine came to interview Jo and an article will appear in the May edition of the magazine.

A wonderful time was had by all and we would have made any excuse to stay longer. With this unseasonal spring like weather there was no chance of being snowed in!! Hope I can get away to do something like this again; nice to have a large slice of time to do nothing but sewing!

Glitzy Sunflower

Another item that I've done, which I started 3 weeks ago at my local quilt group, Quarterjacks in Wimborne, is a sunflower, which I've just downloaded straight from my phone (no editing done here). This was demonstrated by Hilary who's done some flower themed journal sized quilts.

It started with a layer or background fabric, I've used a green/purple batik, layer of organza. The cut pieces of petals and leaves placed on top , with some Angelina strands. Another layer of organza, after which the whole thing was placed onto wadding then stitched around the petals with multicoloured thread and other quilting done with metallic thread. Thought that I overdone the quilting as it looked wavy, but after trimming and adding organza for the binding of the quilt it looked really good. I hadn't tried free machining using zigzag stitch before I tried this in the middle of the flower and it worked well. Might have another bash at that some time.

Got a quilt done!

Nearly 4 weeks after my grandson, Leo, was born I've finished his quilt! As it was a lovely afternoon the last binding strips were put on and I spent time in the garden hemming it to the back of the quilt. I've really pleased with how colourful this is and just had to photograph this straight away. Please excuse the garden ephemera and catching the sunlight on the top right corner.

I've now got a few pink and purple postcards to finish and post off and will put those on the blog in the next few days.

New Quilt

I've started to make a quilt for my second grandchild who was due on 4 July, however we are still waiting! I bought a pack 5" square blocks from Strawberry Fayre in March which had mainly animal prints and added some of my own to make up the 25 blocks needed. I added strips to 2 sides log cabin style then the blue print sashing. In the top right corner are 2 of the green setting triangles that I've used as the quilt is on point. At this point I've still to added borders in the blue print. Seeing as I've only put this together in 2 days (last Saturday when it was tipping down with rain and this afternoon) I have to say its looking quite good. I'll take another photo when I've progessed further.

My Mum's Quilts

I thought I would share a couple of quilts that my Mum has made. A friend at one of the local quilt groups, Freda, gave some novelty fabric to anyone who could make good use of it, the only proviso was a photo of the finished quilts. I passed some football (soccer) and basketball fabric onto Mum who's made a couple of quilts for the local Project Linus. Here they are.