May Bag and Bank Holiday

As the Bank Holiday has been a wet one, well Sunday and Monday mornings were, I decided it was a good time to make the May bag, part of the BQL Bag Challenge (see sidebar).

The design used bow tie blocks and the pic above shows the chained pieced blocks draped over my machine.
Then joined together ready for quilting
I decided to put a pocket in the lining, with what remained of the Japanese style fabric. This was yet to be ironed so it looks a little untidy here.
At last finished and photographed. The colours are autumnal but I know someone who might like these colours.

I am managing to use fabrics in my stash, but somehow I don't have any more room in the storage drawers no matter how much I use. How does that happen?

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.

This week without a sewing machine

This week should be cancelled, I decided. After the Bank Holiday on Monday (5th) I went back to work for one day, then I've been off sick since. I'm suffering a cold/flu virus so have done bits when I can and rested when I can. Today still finds me still very achy and tired so I think the weekend can be written off too.

When I've been able to do stuff this is what I've done, below. I've got a little pouch done for my i-pod Shuffle, which literally took minutes on the Embellisher felting some lovely silk waste onto purple felt. Added a covered button with a popper fastening underneath.Front

and back. See that I did a couple of circles from the back so the purple showed in the front.

Another "little" job that took all day off and on was sorting out my fancy threads onto card bobbins. Got most done, still a lot to do. To the right of the box is a little pile of thread snippets which will be cut smaller and used to embellish or sandwich with Bondaweb and fabric.

Another bit of sewing that I did was to make an A4 journal size quilt for Alzheimers fundraising in Salisbury. This used some of the fabric that I used transfer paints on. I used thread and fabric snippets (this was before I sorted the thread box), layer of Misty Fuse, and fused together. I then laid petal and leaf shapes with white tulle on top and fused together before hand stitching. I've got to put a hanging sleeve on the back of this, but I think it looks quite good.

My sewing machine is not back yet from the dealers, I hope it comes back soon.

Not much sewing done again..

..that is because my sewing machine has gone to hospital! I've had some problems which have got worse, the main one being that thread was being broken of while I was sewing, so must be catching inside the machine, but of course I can't get into the machine to find out the cause. Off it went to the machine dealers to sort out and give it a service too. Hope its not away for too long.

Meanwhile it's been May Bank Holiday weekend and nice to have a 3 day weekend (still isn't long enough, work beckons tomorrow. Spent some time on Saturday and today out in the garden.

Above is my camelia, called Baby Pearl, which is flowering at present. This was an anniversary present from my parents, when my husband and I celebrated our Pearl (30th) wedding anniversary last December.
This is the first bloom on my Arum Lily, which was only planted last year, please do excuse the weeds around it - I've yet to get to that corner!
This is an Erysimum, or perennial wallflower. I love wallflowers. This one is Patchwork something or other (I'll have to look that up) but I love the variety of colours from yellow to pink and mauve just on one plant! To the left of that is a hardy geranium which will soon be covered in white flowers.
Another plant thats going well is the Euphorbia, this one's called Fireglow, because of the bright orangey-red bracts. To the right of that are the bright leaves of my small magnolia which have just come out.

I hope that another plant that will come into action soon will be the Callistemon, bottle brush plant. I've got 2 of those a red one and a yellow one, they've got masses of buds on them so am hoping for masses of flower.

April bag and other bits

On my last post I said I would get some sewing done and here it is, the April bag. Looks quite good in the pic, but I did agonise over the colour choice and didn't go together as planned. Think it does look good though and the Suffolk Puffs (Yo-yos) with the shell buttons does set it off well.

I cut the bag gusset and the front and back to size and of course it shrinks when quilted so mistake no. 1. and so had to juggle the size of the gusset with cut away bottom of the bag. Then instead of doing the lining separately and inserting into bag I put both together, which I realised when the instructions said "Attach the lining gusset to lining fabric in the same as you did with the bag outer..." argh! Mistake no.2. Lessons to be learned there and some tidying up of seams inside the bag. I've had the password for a "sneaky peak" of the May bag and I like the look of that one and thought of a recipient for that too, looking forward to making that one.

On Saturday I took a trip to Brockenhurst in Hampshire with my mother to the Needlework Fiesta organised by the New Forest Embroiders. We are sadly lacking in Hampshire and Dorset with suppliers of threads and fabrics that people can visit so you can imagine that the event was extremely busy. Being mainly an embroidery event means that there were not many patchwork and quilting people there but I did manage to get some fat quarters of fabric. I'd also bought some silk roving for use with the embellisher to some lovely colours. Also I'd bought some transfer dye, that is painted onto paper and transferred onto poly cotton fabric with an iron.

It was nice to get back home in the afternoon and paint several sheets of this. The pots of dye, though only 10grams each will go a long way as a small amount of the dye is mixed with water. Here are the results below. Left are the papers that I painted along with one piece of fabric and on the right are the four pieces of fabric after ironing. Some look a bit pale but could be livened up with some stitching. But it was fun.















Lastly the pic on the left shows part of the magazine article in Patchwork and Quilting magazine that I mentioned a little while back taken on the retreat at Villavin Crafts. Here we are proudly displaying the quilts and bags in progress with Jo sitting in front of us.

My friend Brenda has suggested we might go back there February next year - I hope we can!

More photos of Brittany

Here's a few more of my photos from my hols in Brittany. I managed to take one of Mont St Michel from my phone. As you can see the tide was not long out and later people were to park in that area later. Mont St Michel is very commercialised which coachloads of tourists and lots of shops to relieve them of their money on the way up to the abbey. At the abbey we let the tours with their guides go through first before going into the rooms there.
There were a lot of stained glass windows, but I liked this one in one of the chapels best with it lovely pastel colours.
And I could not resist taking a pic of one of the pillars, wonderful detail in the carving. Looks as though it was replaced fairly recently.
Another day we went to Quimper. Just outside the cathedral there was a courtyard leading to the Breton Museum. There was an exhibition of the Breton costumes as worn in the different areas of the region. The photo above show the metalwork in the arches of a walkway with stems and leaves.
And another door. This is at the bottom of the Rohan Tower at the museum. Very interesting pattern on the door.

I will get around to posting some actual sewing stuff very soon.

Pictures of Brittany

I thought I would post a few of the pics that I took in Brittany when there a couple of weeks ago on holiday. Although my husband took charge of the camera, these I took with my mobile phone camera. We visited Dinan old town, part of the medieval town within the town walls.

Above is a charcuterie (delicatessen) which had painted views on either side of the shop door, really does look like shop windows, but their not.

I really liked the fancy ironwork on the front door of this house.
This was in the ticket office at Dinan station. There's the equivalent of our conservation order on these painted murals. This one shows the town of Dinan. The station was built in 1932, so is in Art Deco style.

One town we stopped at (can't remember the name) we found not a quilt shop but a display of quilts and paintings by local groups that meet in the townin a shop window. These photo's were taken through the window, so there are reflections. Quite like this little fish quilt below

and those little ladies with their umbrellas...
and the lovely table runner with the colourful leaves.

Fame at last!

I'm back from my holidays and back at work this week. Yesterday I bought the May issue of British Patchwork and Quilting magazine which has an article about Villavin Crafts and the retreat that my friends and I went on back in February (see here). The bag I made is a good size and well used, but I've still to finish off my quilt (just the binding to hem and some machine stitching threads to be tidied up).

I hope to post some pics that I took in France over the weekend, but I just had to share this news.

Fastenings postcards

Here's the latest set of postcards that I've sent out in the post this week. These were a swap for the BQL Postcard group on the theme of fastenings. I've used poppers, buttons and ribbon for the fronts with paper fastener brads for the reverse (as the pink didn't go with the other colours on the front!).

Above pic are the fronts of the postcards
Next is the flap open (it's held down by the popper) which has a shell picture underneath. Think I must be influenced by the grandchildren's board books.
And finally the reverse with the brad in the corner.

I only needed to have 5 postcards and made 6 so there's one spare which will go in my personal collection of ones that I've made. In the swap I've had 3 in return and when I have the full set I'll put a pic on the blog.

I will be off to Brittany from this weekend for a week and hope I can post some photos on my return. A bientot.

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.

Pictures loaded

Further to my post yesterday here are the pics I was going attach yesterday. The first one shows the goodies that I bought at Exeter on Saturday. The second shows the bag that I finished as part of the bag challenge. Looking forward to the next month's challenge.

Exeter Exhibition and Another Bag

On Saturday I went with other quilters from Poole and Wimborne to the Spring Quilt Fair at Exeter. A nice clear area to view quilts and plenty of room around the traders, local as well as national it made a lovely day out. I've taken a photo of my purchases and you may wonder why I got a Christmas book when it's only March. There were some quirky items which could be adapted to any time of the year, not just Christmas so I think that this book would come in useful. I couldn't resist the "tape measure" tapes and thought they could come in useful on postcards and that fabric with quilters' sayings on, I just had to buy it but not sure how I'll use it just yet. And of course fabrics - I found some with calligraphy, and a dark pink batik. Also some quarters of Japanese fabric which was on special because the designs were discontinued. I've now found that Blogger doesn't want to upload photos, so I'll try again tomorrow.

This evening I've just finished the March bag, well ahead of schedule. Using black and white strips using the "flip and sew" method, with a narrow red band to separate that panel from the top of the bag which also makes the lining. I've enjoyed doing this one as I quite like the quickness of flip and sew.

This week will see me getting ready for the International Quilting Day which my friend Brenda and myself have organised for the past 3 years to celebrate quilting. This will take place on Saturday 15 March (gosh, halfway through March already!)at Sturminster Marshall near Wimborne, Dorset. Here's a link to the photo's from the previous IQD days.

February Bag

I seem to be trying to catch up with myself and in the process have been late with deadlines. I missed an embellisher swap earlier this month and had to drop out, which I hadn't done before. I'd also managed to be late with the February bag challenge on BQL (see the link on the right). Had the month been 31 days long instead of 29 I might have made it! Anyway here it is, all done without the hearts that feature on most of the bags for Feb. A batik fabric, like January's bag, decorated on one side with some couched metallic stranded thread. Already in use, I've taken it to a committee meeting this week and just the right size for folders.

So far I've made 4 bags this year and am on a 5th with the BQL March bag which will feature black and white fabrics with a bright red strip. When I went to one of my quilting groups last night the others there were also working on a bag, but although a nice design I think that one will wait.
This year definitely seems like the year of the bag!

First Postcards of 2008

I've been a little tardy with posting on the blog lately please do excuse me but I have been productive and more will come later. I've made postcards for a Scraps and Stitches swap on Arts In the Mail Yahoo Group. I had 3 to make with 2 going to the US and one in the UK. Having made a batch as one whole piece before I decided I would take this approach again.

In my scrapbag I used odd square of fabric and tried to look for pieces with pictures on them. I've used selvedges before and added them in too. I also found some triangles and made them into quarter or half squares.

I thought how the back looks more interesting than the front and took a pic of that before it was covered with Bondaweb, Pelmet Vilene and backing fabric.

The next pic shows the cards separated and with false binding on them. I hadn't tried this before as I normally use a zig zag or close buttonhole stitch to neaten then edges. The technique was easy, though fiddly but left a nice neat edge so I'll use that again sometime.


The 4th pic shows a different card which is a
February challenge card, using a plain fabric and one thread for the same Yahoo group. I cut the fabric 7" x 5" and marked a 5" x 3" rectangle and stitched twice around it in variegated thread. I then made a wave pattern in the smaller rectangle. With fusible tape around the edge of the fabric this was fused onto the back of the Pelmet Vilene before the backing fabric was fused onto that. A wholecloth quilt on a postcard!

It was great to get back into the swing with cards again and there will be another swap this month
for a different Yahoo Group and that'll be fastenings. Will have to get my thoughts together on that one.

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!

Visit to Bristol

Last weekend saw my husband and I going to Bristol. Not a fast but can be a scenic journey. After going through Blandford, Dorset heading to Shaftesbury we stopped at a National Trust viewpoint which overlooked the valley towards Compton Abbas. Of course, what does one have a camera for but to forget it and leave it at home! So with my trusted phone I took a photo of the fantastic scenery. The next photo that I took as a bit of fun was of our shadows as the sun was still quite low in the sky (I'm the one on the left. This was looking towards the hill just before Melbury Abbas.

The purpose of our visit was to see our daughter, Sarah, who lives in the city. She works at Bristol Royal Infirmary and on Monday the 28th was her 27th birthday. We decided to explore the city going from Clifton down Park Row to the centre. This was the view at about 5.00 pm on the Millenium Bridge looking across the River Avon towards the Waterfront with its bars. We had a lovely weekend and of course lovely to see her too.