Out and About

The last 2 weekends we've been out and about, Easter Monday out for the day near Yeovil, Somerset, just an hour's drive away. This last weekend we had a couple of days near Hastings, where we had a wine tasting experience that was bought for us as a Christmas present. Quite a lot of photos taken so may be more than one post.

Near Yeovil there are a couple of National Trust properties close to each other the first we visited was Montecute House then onto Barrington Court.  It was a really sunny warm day and unsurprisingly was very busy.

Montecute House had some really lovely gardens and around the back of the entrance was a bed of lovely tulips in the cut flower garden, though the high hedge behind cast quite a shadow.

The gates looking to a long drive

Montecute House

The Orangery with ferns, wallflowers

Ooh, more tulips

Just a few more!

After a tour around the house, it was deciding whether to lunch there or to go onto Barrington Court, just a few miles away and we decided on the latter.

As a lot of people were making the most of the warm sunny Bank Holiday weather it was really busy, but we managed to get parked.  As well as house, gardens, nice lunch and sunny weather it had some artist studios and incredibly a patchwork shop!  I was very restrained and to David's surprise I didn't buy anything, but just had a good look around!

Another bit of quilty inspiration came in the form of the brick pathway that lead to the house. Please excuse my shadow taking photos, perhaps I should have turned the other way!

Aren't those patterns fab?

Here's the house

A tudor building that was one of the first owned by the National Trust and was renovated at the turn of the last century by Colonel Tate, grandson of Abram Tate, of Tate and Lyle fame. 

 

 

The gardens were just lovely, considering it was April it was full of colour

And of course we take photos of each other, just to prove we've been there!

Playing With Headers

This afternoon I've logged onto Sew At Home Mummy's "Beautify Your Blog" weekly article and this time it's about Headers.

I have struggled with this one, trying to get the photo adjusted to fit the header and have ended up using the photo actual size which looks pretty small and weedy.  I've used the Pixlr Express editor that Erin recommended and have got the header that you now see.  I used it on a test blog to try it out, liked it and decided to use it on this blog.

I then decided to do a collage of the recent Mug Rugs that I sent to Pam in February

Oohh look at that! I think I've impressed myself!  This may lead to more playing about.

More blocks

Sunday and today, because of iffy weather I've stayed in and sewed.  I've taken a few blocks that I've made and decided to frame them so that I will later quilt as you go

I'm keeping the purple/red/pink theme on white on white background.  I've found I've got yardage of light beige tone on tone print which will be just right as it won't show through the light background.

I've recently seen a blog, Little Island Quilting, making quilts for children in Mexico City called Soy Amado and asking for quilted blocks.  I've pulled together some blocks that I've tried out with various methods, I wasn't sure what to do with them so I've machine quilted them.

And here are the backs

Today, I sorted out a panel of 8 jungle prints which I won in a raffle about a couple of years ago called "Jolly Jungle".  The print isn't true and with some steam ironing and starching to coerce the panels to square up a bit better, but cutting the panels straight this is what one of them looked like, not good.

See what I mean?  So I just cut around exact quarter inch from the edge of the frame instead of using the ruler to measure and cut straight.  Using strips of fabric to frame again I could straighten as best I can and trimmed the blocks to 12.5" square.  Now I have 8 blocks and could do with 9, so I'll have to find some inspiration to make a ninth.  I am thinking of using the striped and giraffe fabrics together either as arail fence or to cut wedge shapes to join together.

Feels good to be using up stuff.

Mug Rugs

I've taken part in the Easter Mug Rug swap forum on the Popular Patchwork website.  I was to make a rug to send to Carol, otherwise known as Thimble on the forum and I would receive one from Sylvia. All of us in the group were to open our Mug Rug envelopes yesterday (Good Friday)

This was mine to Carol

And this was from Sylvia

Enjoyable swap and lovely to receive!

Happy Easter

Blocks!

A few weeks ago I saw a post on Judith's blog here about Bee Blessed blocks and liking the look of the Asterisk block I had to have a go.  Seeing the 'positive/negative blocks made I knew I had just the right fabric to make it fresh and spring looking, so here it is

Jude has received and likes them, which is great.

I have been following Erin, at Sew at Home Mummy's blog and made 2 of the blocks for the Classic Meets Modern (link on the sidebar) and this week caught up with March and Aprils blocks.

March was Drunkards Path

April was Double Z.  Is it this way?

Or maybe this way?

What do you think?

Postcards

It's been a long time since I posted about postcards.  I have cut right back on making them because I want to make other things and felt that the time was right to move on.  I am still part of the BQLPC (British Quilt List PostCard) Yahoo group and signed up to the lottery swap that takes place this month.  There are 6 of us including me and this month I was the lottery winner, so no need to make a postcard but the other 5 sent to me.  Here are the lovely cards below.

Normally the members of the swap would post a photo of the postcard they send and because there was one missing in the group album, the moderator of the group asked me if I could take a photo of that was missing in the swap album.  No problem, I thought. Except that the lady In the swap didn't send a postcard, but another did who wasn't on the swap list! Confused? I was. So I posted in the group album the photo of a postcard that I have received but that wasn't in the group album (it was the one on the bottom right). I am really pleased with what I've got and the next time a lottery comes up I will be choosing a number for the moderator to pick the next winner.

When at the Quilters' Guild conference there were tombolas one of which was a postcard one, below is one that I'd won.  A pretty card but the maker is anonymous, which is a shame.

Pretty, isn't it?

Quilters' Guild Conference and AGM

As the annual Quilters' Guild conference and AGM was fairly local being held in Portsmouth at the Guildhall.  I attended on Friday and Saturday (the conference continued to Sunday lunchtime).  I had booked back in November last year just for the conference so I had the opportunity to hear lectures.  I decided to stay overnight in one of the hotels and unfortunately it was not one that I thought I had booked but another in Southsea which is just about 20minutes walk from the venue.   Normally when visiting Portsmouth by car we head straight for Gunwharf Quays shopping centre but not the city itself, and as I went around on foot it was a chance to explore a bit of the city.

The Guildhall

Charles Dickens, who was born in the city 

Ravelin Park gate, which these leaves over the gate

On Friday afternoon was a lecture by Maryke Phillips, who runs online store "Batiks and Beads" and her experience of patchwork and quilting, from thinking she knew no-one who did patchwork and quilting until she discovered other patchworkers in a new area. Then from embarking on a course which turned out to be a City & Guilds course.   She has a love of batiks and whatever is left from making quilt tops gets pieced as part of the fabric on the back so nothing is wasted.

I then took the chance to shop from the retailers there and came away with a creative pack of felt and fabric from Maryke's shop and also thread and fabric from The Dye Bag shop. Just look at the variety of colours, yummy.

After finding the hotel and later having dinner at the pub opposite the Guildhall the evening lecture was by Susan Chapman, who is a textile artist and teacher, who teaches City and Guilds and degree courses at Eastleigh College, so very artistic and contemporary stuff, but an interesting speaker nonetheless.

Saturday started early with a walk on a quiet Saturday morning back to the Guildhall when during that walk came across the Anglican Cathedral, not very showy, just tucked away. Just to the right is the top of the Spinnaker Tower

The AGM took place until lunchtime and afterwards had the chance to hear about a project the Guild has started to undertake called "Talking Quilts" which is currently in a few areas at the moment, but will spread to other regions.  Here's a link with info about it.

There were some meetings after, but just at the end of the afternoon I met up with David and with a short walk back to Gunwharf Quay it was nice to relax with dinner.

But I can't finish this without a pic of more quilty purchases. This time another ruler - a 45 and 90 degree ruler

Then these lovely new Janet Clare fabrics "Hearty Good Wishes" from Quilters' Dream, they have a lovely textural quality about it.

And just look at the selvedges!

Quilt in an Afternoon

My Mum passed some of her fabric scraps to pass onto Bourne Quilters to make scrap quilts for Project Linus but a few strips of a Noah's Ark fabric took my eye. I thought they would be good for a small baby quilt.  Yesterday afternoon, which was miserable and rainy, just the weather for retreating to the sewing room, I got out a fat quarter of pale yellow Spraytime fabric and cut some strips to alternate  with the Noah Fabrics.  Before I knew it a quilt top came together. Machine quilting in the ditch made it a quilt then with some striped fabric which toned with the top the binding was stitched on. All in a few hours.  

Yesterday evening the binding was slip stitched while watching the telly and this morning I sewn some wavy lines in the yellow stripes and added a label on the back.  Job done.

And a glimpse of the back.

And yes, it is a different shade of yellow. The pale yellow didn't stretch to covering the back of the quilt and I had a darker yellow in my stash, but I think it goes quite well.

Knitting to show

Linking with Wool on Sunday.  My socks have progressed to almost a pair, just the grafting on the toe of the second sock to do. On my last link up post at the beginning of March Catherine very kindly sent me a link to a You Tube video of doing Kitchener Stitch using knitting needles instead of a sewing needle, which makes sense, just need a little quiet time to sit and concentrate, but I'll get there. Here's my progress.

A few weeks ago I bought a book called 20to Make Knitted Beanies and last Saturday when I was in Southampton at John Lewis I bought a couple of balls of Sirdar Crofter yarn to make the beret design that's shown on the front cover.  There are a large number of stitches so have used a circular needle but knitting in rows rather than in the round.  Nice bit of knitting to do while watching the telly.  

Since the photo taken above was yesterday morning, I have since finished knitting beret while watching The Hobbit last night.  This morning it was all sewn up and ready to wear.

Woohoo! A finish! Now for those socks!

New ruler

In my post yesterday I said about a new ruler that I bought having seen it demonstrated on Saturday. It's called '2 Peaks in 1' and I had a go at a block on Sunday.  I made a nine patch which also included half square triangles and a square and auditions some settings

This is what the ruler looks like

The angle of the big triangle is less than 60 degrees, so can't get away with using the 60 degrees mark on a normal ruler. I took a photo of this on top of an equilateral triangle as a comparison.

From the demo on Saturday rectangles can be made from using the half triangle bit of the ruler with a square in the middle.

As you can see I had fun playing with this. 

That was March, now here's April

Another month has flashed by but well into Spring and some warmer weather.  The big thing that has happened is that I'm not working as of today I am officially unemployed, or as some may say 'a lady of leisure' having given up my job.  I hope to take a couple of months off, there are a lot of things to sort out, before going back out into the world of work once again.

Looking back over this month I have made a few bits and bobs. I've made and finished several bookmarks using up scraps of fabric, pelmet Vilene and  Bondaweb (they will go towards crafty makes for the special school where the quilt group meet) and I've made a small pouch for David's camcorder.  I've also made a mug rug for an Easter Swap (which I can't show here yet). In progress is my landscape picture, which I have progresses any further. 

I've also been to quilty events, the IQD day two weeks ago, a lovely day with a lovely group of ladies in a village hall in the Dorset countryside. On Saturday a group of us visited an open day of White Orchid longarm quilt service in Wimborne, with a visit from Pam Lintott of the Quilt Room. She was demonstrating quilt rulers and their uses mainly with jelly roll strips.  I succumbed to a triangle ruler which I will post about later.

Yesterday I helped a friend with a sales table at the Holt Quilters and Crafters table top sale.  The fine weather bought a lot of buyers and it was pretty packed out! There's also nice tea and cake so that was another attraction.  My friend must have sold half her stuff and I know that she made more money than expected.

So that was March.  What about April?  I've had an email this morning that I have won the April postcard lottery so I look forward to some lovely postcards.  There are 6 people signed up so I won't be inundated.  On the 11th April I will be going to Portsmouth for the Quilters Guild AGM and looking forward to that. A big sort out of my sewing room is needed and this morning have started out sorting books and old magazines to get rid and make room.  That's just the start.