Splendid Sampler 14

It's getting to that time of month and another round up of my Splendid Sampler blocks.  As at today the 81st was published so 19 more to go. 

Block 72 - Full Circle Star designed by Victoria Findlay Wolfe a mix of techniques, an applique centre and pieced star.  There were meant to be applique circles but I replaced these with buttons.

Block 73 - +Love. A pieced block designed by Jennifer Albough. A little fussy cut owl fitted nicely into the centre of this block.

Block 74 - Button Basket designed by Karen Soltys.  I'd recently bought this brown/red marbled effect fabric which contrasts well with the dark grey/black of the honeycombe fabric and red in the background fabric and on the buttons.

Block 75 is an embroidery block, which I haven't yet made. I am thinking of embroidered this by machine and using decorative stitches but will leave this for later.

Block 76 - Little Things by Jacquelynne Steves.  Quarter square triangles with cup and saucer appliqued in the middle square. I was able to use oddments of the red and white fabrics.

The next block, Prism designed by Sara Lawson is Block 77.  Another chance to use the little bits. And pieces left over from other blocks. The owl fabric and the white Dutch Heritage fabric were the ones that had to be cut out as the other pieces were scraps that were trimmed to fit.

Block 78 is Jersey, designed by Carrie Nelson. A pieced block and another chance to use the Owls again.  The orange fabric that have made an appearance in many of the blocks is now beginning to dwindle and I've just got little bits left, but a new orange fabric is about to appear in the next block.

Block 79 is Spoole of Inspirational Threads by Melanie Barrett. I cheated with this block as there should  be strips of fabric foundation pieced 'thread' but I utilised this selvedge fabric as the thread instead.

Block 80, Heartstring Stars by Elizabeth Dackson. Foundation pieced strips added to half square triangles and joined into a nine patch block.

Block 81 is With Love From designed by Cat Demack, which is the block published today and while having sewn the other blocks decided to get this done.  Ummm, I've cheated again. This should be foundation pieced but I layered the background and X and O fabrics with the pattern behind the background fabric and sewn through, cutting back the front fabrics.

Going back a bit this is my version of block 65. Stripe and Flowers by Siobhan Rogers. I struggled with this one as there were little triangles in the borders, which I have omitted as they weren't complete triangles and I didn't like that look.  So the above block is what I came up with.

Lastly a bonus block for this month which is Canning Jars by Joan Ford,  This made me think of sweetie jars rather than preserving ones, which influenced my choice of fabrics.

I added some ricrac under the lids of the jars, lots of little bits bit so long as they were kept in order it all went well and didn't take long to do.

I thought that was the last but no, I made one in October.  It could only be a pumpkin block by Pat Sloan.

The yellow fabric with the acorn leaves go just right with this pumpkin. That is definitely it. I'm now up to date with my Splendid Sampler makes.

Journal Quilts

 I belong to the Contemporary Quilters group of the Quilters' Guild of he British Isles and this year have participated in making journal quilts, small quilts that are made each month.  This year has a specific size and displayed in portrait format, with certain colours appearing in them.  So far as at yesterday I've made 11 with one more to be made for December.

My head was bussing with ideas following the West Country Quilt Show and seeing a number of textile artists there.  On Sunday after seeing Helen Howes tree technique on her website I decided to have a go. The colour to be featured in these quilts is Yellow and I chose a dark mustard yellow with gold highlights  for the tree.

I had a piece of batik which I thought was big enough but after cutting out, joining and re-cutting soon shrunk things, so a couple more pieces of mustard were added. Basic outline quilting on the batik fabric and a double layer of zigzag finished the quilt.

I also purchased Gillian Travis' book of Interchange Applique quilts, but instead of using one of her patterns my thoughts were of drawing my own and it made me think of rainbow carrots. A bit random, I know, but not completely mad as I'd seen packs of rainbow carrots in M&S.  I used my painted fabric as backgrounds on which to applique the colourful carrots and stitched down with straight line quilting.   It was finished by sewing the backing fabric and bagging out.

Just have one more little quilt to make that that'll be my year of journal quilts made.

West Country Quilt Show and a Couple of Finishes

Yesterday I went on a coach trip organised by Happy Patchers to the West Country Quilt Show in Bristol, at the University of West of England's Conference Centre.  The weather was really wet so I'm glad someone else was doing the driving.

I heard from last year that this was becoming a quite good show as it not only features quilts but also other crafts are represented too, such as spinning, felting, lacemaking and others and wanted to go this year.  It was interesting to hear demonstrators talk about their crafts even if it wasn't what you do.  There were quite a few textile artists, such as Hilary Beattie, I could watch her demonstrating the different colour mediums that she uses all day.  Needless to say that one of my purchases was her third book, Making it Personal, book 2.

There weren't many competition quilts and only a few competition cushions, but quite a few traders who had mixed fortunes showing at this show.  The aisles were quite wide so plenty of room to explore the the traders and demonstration booths too.

I took pictures of quilts, these were the modern mini quilts from the Modern Quilt section of the Quilters' Guild featuring white, black and another colour

Then there was a textile group with Sixties inspired quilts

Cushions and quilts

Competition Quilts

I made some purchases too, but as I'd only recently bought fabric at the Doughty's sale last month I resisted temptation.  I did buy books, Hilary Beattie's as above, and also from Gillian Travis, a crochet kit, textile brooch kit, a few more Aurifil threads and cards and contact details from other traders.

Now I can say that I have a couple of finishes today - yay!

A little while ago I bought a lovely skein of wool from Kathryn of Crafternoon Treats. It was would fairly quickly into a ball and I used it to make a Hitchhiker Shawl, a pattern by Martina Behm, which was a simple pattern which would show the hand dyed yarn to good effect.  It has been picked up and put down, but it was easy just to sit and knit while watching television, so it has taken a while.  When we stopped in Sherborne on our way home from the Motor Museum the other week the two ladies in the wool shop in the town were wearing Hitchhiker shawls and they looked so different in the different yarns.  Anyway it is finished today and all the sewing that was needed was weaving in the ends at the start and end of the knitting. This is it

And a selfie of me wearing it, sorry, looks a bit odd, didn't know whether to take a photo reflected in the mirror or not, in the end decided a selfie was a better option.

And a start and finish!  A journal quilt for October (I also have a November one in progress).  This was inspired by the tree quilts made by Helen Howes at the quilt show yesterday and the instructions are on her website here. 

I'd cut the background fabric to size with another thing in mind but it wasn't big enough so the size was expanded with the mustard yellow fabric on 2 sides.  The cutting and inserting was quite quick to do but its thinking in what order to do piece this.  Quite enjoyed this, as I do like to take time out to play with a different technique.

While I was out yesterday David, who volunteers on the Swanage Railway, did a stint of signalling at Norden, near Corfe Castle and had to stay to operate the level crossing for a visiting engine that travelled down on an excursion from Sussex to Weymouth which was stopping overnight at Swanage.    It was night time by the train arrived and the engine was travelling to Southall from Swanage today so we went to Poole station to see it go through. The engine is called Braunton, but as it is Remembrance weekend it was temporarily named Lord Dowding.

That was my weekend, hope you had a good one too.

Keeping Busy

I haven't posted for a week but I've been kept busy in spite of having a couple of days holiday from work.  This is the last of my holiday until Christmas.  Wednesday is my day off and David and I decided on a day out and went to Sparkford, near Yeovil to visit the Haynes International Motor Museum.  This was about an hour's drive enjoying the sunshine and the autumn colours going through the Dorset countryside, worth going out just for that.

Recalling when we last went there we went as a family when the children were children (they're all in their 30's now!) and the museum had changed a lot.  There were not just cars from before our time but also ones we remember growing up with too.

There was a red room with red sports cars, this lovely MG was made in 1955, so it's as old as me!



I've done a collage of just a few of the many cars here (and a scooter from the 60's)


Thursday was to help my daughter Sarah with her choice of wedding dress for her wedding next September.  She wanted to see if I liked it and I think she made the right choice, its lovely.  So that was Thursday taken up.  Also the gas fitter had capped off the connection for the old gas fire in our lounge and we now have a lovely flame effect electric fire instead.



Friday was to see friends for what we thought would be a nice lunch and walk at Hilliers Gardens near Romsey.  It was not to be as it was chucking it with rain.  So we got our phones out to search for the nearest pub and had a lovely meal and catch up.

As for making things I had a catch up with some recent Splendid Sampler blocks of course, more of that in another post.  I've also been busy with secret knitting too.  I bought the latest Crochet Now mag. and could not resist doing a little crochet.  This was done last night while watching Strictly Come Dancing and hearing the noise of the fireworks outside.

I love the little 'granny' flower which didn't take long to do and I used some glittery Christmas yarn to make a Christmas tree.  I like trying out little bits like this.

This week I've also received a couple of craft boxes that I subscribe to.  One is from The Bramble Patch (I am so thankful that I don't live near this shop, it is my favourite quilt shop, it wouldn't do my bank balance much good!) which has an English Paper Piecing project in this month's Box of Delights.  Another is from the Craft Club Box with some Christmas decorations.

Oh yes, and another little thing I've tried is folded Scandinavian Stars.  This was a link that was on the Quilters' Guild Facebook page (so its all their fault) there were several photos on Facebook following this and I had a go on Thursday evening at Bourne Quilters and couldn't get it to work, but I did this morning


The top and left were made with folded strips of fabric and the bottom right as made with ribbon, though that was a bit slippy putting that together but didn't have the bulk of folded fabric.   Here's the website that started it all off - Crafting a Rainbow.

All these different crafts reminded me of this

Adding to Stash

This month there's been a couple of events that have lead to fabric purchases. It's silly but I don't need to add to an already large (for me) stash. I know there are people out the who have got larger stashes than me, but I am limited by space. While I am working I might as well spend because when the work stops I might not have the finances!

A couple of weeks ago Sewing Saturday, promoting sewing and fabric shops, which I think is organised by one of the sewing magazines, lead me to go to Christchurch.  There is an online business, called My Sewing Box, had an open day in a small office complex near the station. Run by two ladies they sell a small range of fabrics, yarn and haberdashery from their website. They use social media and I learned of their open day through Facebook. I bought some Christmas fabric from there.

I couldn't resist the owls in the top fabric.

Nearby in Bargates there is another sewing shop, The Little Sewing Company, which has a variety of craft fabrics and haberdashery and they also run sewing lessons.  I may book to do an introduction to dressmaking one in the future to gain more confidence in dressmaking, which I've not done for years.  Here I bought some Makower fabric, Radiance, which I could not resist.

Lovely, wonder what I'll use that far? Maybe I'll just stroke the fabric for now.

Not far from there is a new wool shop, They Crafty Knitter, which was probably needed after the long established one in the town, Honora, closed.  This is a lovely airy shop and their yarns nicely displayed and I bought a couple of balls of multicoloured yarn for my Mum as she wanted to try out the Corner to Corner crochet that was in a recent Crochet Now magazine.

But yesterday was another fabric opportunity. I needed to get some fabrics to add to my Splendid Sampler Collection as some are running out as I've usually bought fat quarters, but that's to the variety in the blocks.  Doughty's were at New Milton yesterday so went their with Mum and she wanted to get some backing fabrics for the Linus quilts that she makes. Perhaps we were fabric-ced out as Mum felt a little disappointed by the choice and I bought a bit too

I went for the green and white/red along with the cream and mustard dotty fabrics to go with the Splendid Sampler fabrics and I may use the grey/white spot too.  I bought the sausage dog and the rust/grey ones to add to stash.

In a couple of weeks I go on a trip to the West Country Quilt Show. See what happens there.  I must seriously go on a stash diet next year!

Catch Up and Splendid Sampler 13

What has happened to this month?  Over halfway through already and being kept busy I had no idea until today that I hadn't posted anything since the beginning of this month.

A couple of months ago I started subscribing to The Bramble Patch's Box of Delights, similar to the quilt boxes that are offered to quilters in the US.  This is only the second box that they've done and this month contained Tilda fabrics and linen with instructions to make a rabbit cushion.  It was a fairly simple appliqué pattern and the cushion has an envelope backing to it.

It looked really pretty sat on the chair in our lounge.

Ive also been doing some knitting in the evenings, some of it is secret.  I can share this photo though of something I'm knitting for me:

This is a Hitchhiker Shawl, a pattern I've downloaded from Ravelry by German designer Martina Behm.  The yarn is from Kathryn Senior of Crafternoon Treats who hand dyes locally spun yarn and I treated myself to this.  With the variation of colours in this yarn it didn't need a fancy pattern and this pattern fitted the bill nicely.  I found the yarn bowl in the Tiger shop in Bournemouth which contains the ball really well.

I've done quite a few blocks for The Splendid Sampler, which has now at Block 71 today, so well over two thirds through now.  Although there are a few blocks I haven't tackled I may save some of those to the Christmas holidays as I'm only working one day out of the 3 working days between Christmas and New Year.  (Gosh, that's less than 10 weeks away!)  Talking of which I bought some Christmas fabric yesterday in Christchurch.

I digress - back to the Splendid Sampler

Block 63 - Icing on the Cake - designed by Kim Christopherson.  A simple appliqué block, I thought the pink fabric looked like sprinkles on the icing!

Block 64 - Rising Star - designed by Kathy Brown.  No it's not the name of a pub, I think you can just see the little star points in this nine patch block, the bright green really complements the reds.

Block 66 - Happy Thoughts - designed by Vanessa Goertzen.  Made a variation on this block, where each of the outside butterflies were there should have been 2 Flying Geese blocks in each square, but I didn't want to make tiny geese, so I fussy cut butterflies instead. I think that sometimes there's just too much packed into a 6.5" square.  This I've found with block 65 and this will be block to be tackled later.

A bit of a throw back with Block 56.  Appliqued but not stitched down.  This was At Home Anywhere  by Jennifer Keltner.  Had a lot of fun pulling out fabrics to go on this.  I found a shell that I fussy cut for another block but didn't use so it went on the house instead.

Block 67 - Bobbin Chase by Scott Hansen. A simple foundation pieced block and a chance to use some of my Dutch Heritage fabrics as I fussy cut the red for the centre.

Block 68 - Wild Roses (though this block is supposed to have one rose) Designed by Pat Sloan.  An appliquéd block the light grey was a good background for the vibrant reds and orange.

Block 69 - Full Circle - designed by Holly de Groot.  This block went together surprisingly easy, no seam ripper required! Although the finished size came to 6.25" so I had to trim to 6" so i wish I cut the outside of the concave semicircles a bit bigger to trim back to 6.5".  The blue fabric was a good choice as it looks like a whole piece instead of 2 halves.

Block 70 - Bows - designed by Jane Davidson.  This was originally a foundation pieced block and the printer seemed to have printed the pattern slightly small so had to think carefully how to execute this one.  Some people have opted for traditional piecing of the bow tie blocks and I found this was the best way for me too.  The cream fabric was a bit of the stretchy side and I had a few frustrations with that.  I won't be using that for future TSS blocks.

Lastly, Block 71  - First Stitch - designed by Kerry Green.  Again I had problems with printing, the inch measure of the bottom of the pattern page was correct, but I found the block was slightly smaller so I was not going to foundation piece, so working out the measurement of the strips I pieced these blocks, which are meant to represent large cross stitches.  This worked out well as I found this was a simple block to piece so long as the centre point of the strips were marked.

Nine blocks in all since the last TSS posting.  Blimey, I have been busy!

I have just updated my Splendid Sampler page with links to posts about previous blocks, right up to linking this post there.  I also post onto The Splendid Sampler page on Facebook as I've completed the blocks.  If you are on Instagram go to my page @suewilduk where I also post photos of my completed blocks.

One Little Sheep

Weekend before last was Yarndale at Skipton. I couldn't go (I will one day) but contributed by sending a crochet sheep to Skipton as part of a fundraiser for the local hospice.  Apparently over 700 sheep were received from individuals and groups and from different countries.

I found my sheep amongst several pictures on Pinterest by searching for Yarndale Sheep and spotted mine quite easily. Please excuse the screenshot that I took on my iPad of Lucy's photo. Mine is second from right, second row up. There were some really fantastic sheep, a lot of imagination was put into them.  

Here she is again.

From reading about Yarndale from Lucy at Attic 24's post about the event (do pop over and have a look), I also found there was a list of the contributors from which I took a screenshot here

No 359, that's me. I did look to see if there were any other Sue's in Dorset, but no there isn't so that's definitely my sheep listed.

Good to know she was received safe and sound and hopefully has gone to a new home. Good to have done my bit to help charity funds. 

Crossroads

Had I been born 5 years earlier I would have been retired by now, but I have to wait until I'm 66, another 5 and a bit years away, to get my state pension. I can get my Local Government pension now, but it would be reduced and isn't a lot anyway.  So at present I keep working four days a week, but at least I'm fit and healthy enough to work, so I'm lucky in that respect. David took voluntary redundancy at the end of last year,  it was the right thing to do, but it doesn't stop the frustrations that come with one working and one not.  I have the money to spend on craft stuff but not the time and snatch the time I have to create, be it knitting, crochet or sewing but things do pile up somewhat.

Above is some crochet, a corner to corner thingy, which I saw in Crochet Now and had to try.  I've also started knitting a Hitchhiker scarf with hand dyed yarn from Katherine of Crafternoon Treats.

Today is my day off and David volunteers at Swanage Railway so he was out today, so baking was the order of the day.  Coming home on the bus from work yesterday and idly looking at Facebook on my phone I saw a recipe for tea bread; hadn't made that in ages, I had to bake.

I started with some bread, I've not made bread in years, the dried yeast was old, but put it in some water and there were some bubbles so it would do.  It didn't really so I've got a couple of solid looking loaves, and I'll have to buy some new sachets of dried yeast and try not to let that get out of date!

A few weeks ago, just before our holiday, our oven died and we left it until our return and it has since been fixed and is working again. Having to use the combination microwave to cook some of our meals we then discovered the things that could be cooked including baking scones and had a go at fruit ones.  This time I made some cherry ones which cooks rather brilliantly.  I've since used the microwave to blind bake a pastry case for a quiche that we'll have for dinner tomorrow which it also does well.

Above are cherry scones and a couple of flat loaves of bread.

The aforementioned tea bread was also made and baked and I've also made a chilli, that's tonight's dinner. It's not baking but that's what was planned.

There is still time for some sewing and on Monday evening I've managed to make a couple of pouches. Some that I made a few months ago went down well at a craft sale at Cherry Tree Nurseries in Bournemouth so I've taken to making more of these when I can.

Marking and layering four Dresden Plate blocks

Back on Sunday (when I usually get to sew) I made a start on my journal quilt, which is to be finished off.

It should be turned 90 degrees, but never mind.

So I think if I was retired there'd be plenty to keep me busy. Just got to wait a few more years to get there.