Aren't these winter cabbages gorgeous. I could resist taking a photo of these when we went to a garden centre last Saturday. The Wentworth Garden Centre is between Barnsley and Rotherham and it has gardens for the public to enjoy that are currently being restored to their former glory. While there we saw some deer in a paddock, and the stag below, looks rather magnificent.

And there was another small fallow deer feeding from the vegetation growing just outside the fence.

Just to show I have been sewing this week, here is the BQL Challenge Quilt. If you go to my side bar there is a link to see more lovely quilts that has been made for October so far.
Not sure if you can see clearly (click on the photo to get a larger image) the pink pinwheels are 3-d folded a lovely effect in real life that doesn't quite come out in the photo. I didn't have enough of the batik to do a border, so I used and orange/brown one instead to keep with the autumnal look.

Just 2 more quilts of this challenge to go now. I have enjoyed the calendar quilts challenge a lot and like the bag one last year it's good to have something completed than being part of a larger article. I have been thinking about forgoing the challenges next year to concentrate on a large quilt. Haven't done anything big for sometime now and would be nice to do a project that I can "get my teeth into". I had cut out one postcard group and decided to scale down the postcards for now. So there may be less finished stuff and more in progress stuff instead.

C*******s

Sorry, had to say it - it's only just 12 weeks - less than 3 months to Cbristmas (and I apologise in advance if this depresses anyone!). So I have started early with some ideas for presents, but before that I had a stocking to make for my youngest granddaughter Isobel. As her dad, Alex, stayed with us this weekend, I made one for her ready for Christmas. A few years back I bought a panel of 3 of Nancy Halvorsen's "Peppermint & Hollyberries" Christmas stockings fronts from the Quilt Room, 2 of which have been used for stockings for the older two grandchildren. As we are expecting no. 4 at the beginning of December I needed more stocking fronts and found a similar panel from the same designer but slightly different designs which I bought at the Skep Mill in Pudsey. So I can get a 4th one in progress to a point where I just need to get the name embroidered before finishing off.

With each of the stockings that I've made I've outlined the shapes by hand on the fronts and machine quilted the backs before joining the fronts and backs with bias binding. I liked this design as it is cute enough a design for a youngster and hopefully will still be cool enough for when they get older.

September Challenge Quilt

Some sewing to show on the blog for a change. If you have been following my blog I have been making a 12" quilt each month as part of the BQL challenge (see a link to the challenge quilts on the sidebar. This one has taken a little while as there were 16 x 3" log cabin squares, which given their size I found easier to foundation (paper) piece. These blocks were an exercise in colour value having the coloured centres against a light or dark background.

It was another opportunity to use my black and white fabrics as I love the contrast between both and the bright coloured centres add to the contrast. I used Stitch 'n' Tear for the foundations, as although I had to draw on the stabiliser took time I could leave that in and not have to tear it away so saving time that way.

Here it is in its glory - and yes I did know that 2 orange centred blocks were next to each other - never mind.This last weekend we went to Saltaire as David went to a model railway exhibition in nearby Shipley. As part of Saltaire's Art Week, where there were open studios, there was also a festival taking place, with market and live music entertainment. A very lively place and it seemed that best part of West Yorkshire were there it was so busy.

I then met up with David at Salts Mill and a chance to see the arty stuff there. David Hockney's paintings have a display there and it is a nice place to have a meander.

Sunday afternoon we decided to make the most of the warm sunshine (why didn't we have any of this in summer?) by going to Old Moor RSPB Bird Reserve near Barnsley to have a wander. Above is the totem pole near the entrance and there were more wood sculptures at the reserve. Not only did we see birds but there were a lot of dragonflies, one of which landed on this gate. Think I should have used macro mode to take this, but it turned out ok.There were several bird nesting boxes decorated by children dotted around the reserve and couldn't resist taking a photo of the de-luxe accommodation.

(Grand) Day out in London

It's a very rare occasion that we go to London. Find it far to hectic, but a suggestion earlier this year that my daughter, Sarah, reminded us of was to see the Wallace and Gromit exhibition at the Science Museum, which we were keen to see. David and I went down to London by train, just one and three quarter hours from Doncaster, quicker than had we gone there from the south coast where we used to live, even though Yorkshire is further from London.

So arranged with my sister Wen and Sarah we met up with them, Wen's husband George and son Tyler and the six of us went to visit the London Eye as well as the Science Museum. We hadn't been on the London Eye before but before going on this there was a 5 minute 4-d film show, which was quite impressive with a flying seagull appearing to fly just in front of us.

Here's some pics from the London Eye (a mix of mine, David's and George's photo's). Below is the London Eye (from the Golden Jubilee Bridge after our ride). Following this is the view of Big Ben, then St Paul's Cathedral - now dwarfed by the office blocks that surround it.



Charing Cross train station is above with the BR Tower behind it. I remember the BT Tower once being the tallest building in London.And a time for family photos. This one above of David, me and Sarah taken by George.
Then Wen, Tyler and George taken by me.

We were quite enjoyed the Wallace and Gromit exhibition and also had a chance to see a few other exhibits within the Science Museum.

As we returned to Kings Cross and our return to Doncaster, David and I went to see the newly refurbished St Pancras rail station, which is the new terminus for the Eurostar trains. It is now a very sophisticated place to start a journey to Europe with designer shops and bars on the forecourt. There were also some notable features like the large clock, previously abandoned and now restored and in it rightful place. Also found a bronze statue of Sir John Betjemin, who wrote quite a few poems based on railway journeys.

Post received & something made

Some postcards I've received recently, on the left from Sue, the last of the foundation pieced cards and from Janet the first of the Trapunto cards.

Above is an ATC (artist trading card) sent by Anne for a swap in the Embellisher (needlepunch) group. It may look big in the photo but this is only 2.5" x 3.5". Below is my own effort, which has turned out a slightly bigger than Anne's, maybe because I'm more used to a postcard size. Supposed to be a reminder of the poppy fields that I'd seen locally (see my post here for the photo of a poppyfield). The yellow French Knots are the odd oil seed rape flowers that grew amongst them. This will be going to Jenny in Wales.

I've had some time to sew too.

BQL calendar challenge this month is half square triangles and if you saw my post earlier this month (here's the link) I tried some different combinations before settling on this star. Here it is all completed. It was simple so I kept it simple with stitching in the ditch (in the seam lines) and finishing the quilting with fancy machine stitches along the white strips.

The reverse of the quilt top before being hidden with wadding and backing fabric never to be seen again

And this was the backing that I used. Some shibori dyeing from ages ago which makes an interesting backing.

I've also made some postcards for the BQL postcard group on the theme of Trapunto and this time I took a leaf shape and added stitched veins before adding further wadding to do free machine quilting on the background. Keeping things simple again, it only took the morning to make.

And here's a close up of one of the cards.
I quite like Trapunto and may explore this technique further later on.

Three favourites at Festival of Quilts

Last Saturday I went to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham, which has fast become the place to go in the UK's quilting calendar. There's quite a big European presence there too as the exhibition centre is right next to the airport. Other blogs and websites will have had plenty to say about this so I'll keep my post short.

I took 169 photos of quilts and here are just 3 of my favourites from this show. The first one is this one by Helen Godden from Australia with this really gorgeous potter which started as black fabric but with bleach painting and free machine stitching produced this wonderful quilt.The next one was this bunch of fabric flowers. I love cut flowers and quite often have some in a vase and these would be just perfect - colourful and low mainentance! Seriously, the photo does not do these blooms justice they were just stunning.

The third was not one in the main exhibition, but in one of the galleries from the European Quit Association, this was "Excellence in Europe" and this lovely circular quilt with stained glass type detail was really eye catching. I know it is Hungarian and I think that the maker is Katalin Szekely and she calls it Cyclorama. It is so unusual.

I could show more photos there was so much to see and I was hard pushed to do it all in a day, but my purpose was to go there for the quilts, so came back with hardly any shopping to show for it.

It was also great to meet up with friends. Shirley and her husband in the morning when I arrived there and later in the afternoon with Chris and Lesley. I also met up with some of the ladies who belong to BQL which was nice to put faces to names that I see on the messages.

I think that next year will need some better planning and fortunately have the dates for next August. But I have another quilting and shopping opportunity coming up on 6 September as I'll be going to the Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate, just a bit closer to home.

Beningbrough Hall

David was due to work today, but the work having been cancelled, we decided to go out. We're members of the National Trust and found that just an hour's drive away, just north west of York is Beningbrough Hall. The Hall has part of the collection of the National Portrait Gallery and has some really lovely gardens.To greet us when we first arrived was this giant teapot. Created from various 'tiles' made as a millennium project this must stand at around 6 foot tall. Some of the sections were edged in cups and saucers stacked in a row and I found one of the teapot shaped tiles had buttons embedded in it. There was quite a few textured tiles to appeal to those who are sight impaired.

After a wander around the gardens, which have pear trees trained around arches and a mix of pear and apple trees edging the grass areas, we looked at the vegetables growing on the borders surrounding the garden. There is a view down one path of perennial flowers, which look good this time of year.

After having lunch and visiting the house (oh yes, and enjoying rhubarb crumble ice cream, yum) going through to the shop I found there were 3 felt hangings on the wall. I had to take photos of those, aren't they great?

August Challenge

After a busy week when my son Alex, daughter in law Mary and their two little girls came to stay I had to keep my sewing stuff under wraps out of harm's way, so not much sewing done. It was lovely to have them stay with us and a rare chance to see them since our move up north.

However a quiet afternoon this afternoon meant I could get to my sewing machine and fabrics once again and with just half of August left I thought I would crack on with getting this month's BQL calendar quilt challenge - half square triangles. For those not familiar with this two squares of fabric are placed on top of each other and a quarter inch seam is sewn each side of a central diagonal line. The sqaures are cut along the line so that 2 squares with 2 triangles of fabric are produced. I kept things simple and used just 2 fabrics.

These 36 x 2.5" squares could be arranged any way we chose. Here are a selection of those I photographed to help choose the arrangement. The top one had zigzags top and bottom with a pinwheel either side of a central square on point. The one above had pinwheels either side of 3 on point squares

This one above created a star and the one below had lines radiated out from a central square. Asked David which one to make...

and we plumped for the star shape. I'll post the pic of the finished article soon.

If you want to look at what others have done go to the link on the sidebar.

Meanwhile I have some postcards and an embellished ATC (artist trading card) to get done too. I hope there will be enough of the month left.

Festival of Quilts

Just a short note to say that I'm going to Festival of Quilts at the NEC, Birmingham on Saturday 22 August. If you are reading this and going there on that day, get in contact! My e-mail address is suewilduk@yahoo.co.uk.

More foundation pieced cards

It's been a while since posting (again) and we have been busy recently with visiting my parents in Christchurch weekend before last and last weekend with friends visiting us. And there's a little matter of a full time job, leaving not much time to sew or blog. Suffice to say that I've been late with getting out my foundation pieced postcards for the BQL postcard group swap, but have received 2 more, so have tried to get on. These lovely ones in the above photo are from Judi and Jacquie.

This photo above is my effort, I abandoned the cat idea (see my last post) and went for this heart shape from Quilting Works.com. I may come back to getting the cats right using them for another occasion.

I thought you might like to see the back of these cards before I addressed and send to their recipients. A while ago I bought a wood mounted rubber stamp which I designed myself for the postcards from this site. I've also got some small narrow stamps (the type that sticks to an acrylic block) to stamp the division between the message and address. I think this looks quite neat.

After this I'll have to clear my sewing room thoroughly as I will have more visitors next week, my son Alex and his family, so my granddaughter Sophie will be staying in that room. I'm really looking forward to their visit as its been some months since we last saw them, it'll be lovely to see them.

More postcards and foundation piecing

Following my last post (seems quite a while ago now) I've received my black and white cards. From left to right from Rita in Alberta, Canada, Norma from California and Nancy from Oakdale, CT (is that Conneticut?). I like black and white as a theme because its so striking a contrast and these cards are really gorgeous.

It isn't often that I miss deadlines or have forgotten to have signed up for a swap but I was taken aback by receiving a foundation pieced card then another the next day until I looked at the database on the Yahoo group and sure enough my name was there. The two below are from 2 in the BQL Postcard group - one the left from Janet and on the right from Jacquie. This is a British group so both are from the UK. Pretty summery colours aren't they?

Now I will have to make 5 foundation pieced postcards before the end of the month, but that is just over a week away and I have apologised in advance that my cards will probably be late.

I found a cat foundation pattern on the internet and it wasn't quite the size I wanted so have adapted it - I found the pattern here - Erika's Craft & Sewing website.

I had one go at it and it hasn't quite turned out how I expected so a fair bit of unpicking and resewing was involved so I gave up while I was losing yesterday evening, but managed one postcard sized marmalade coloured kitty (which will need some stitched embellishment). So its a start.

Postcards made and received

This weekend I posted off 3 postcards, 2 to the US and 1 to Canada. This was a Black and White swap, for which I used Bargello again, but not thinking that I would need as many strips as the 12" quilt that I'd made shown in the last post I managed enough fabric to get 2 cards and a wide strip. I then edged the sides of the top right hand one with a couple of strips of white/black dash fabric. They were all finished with some narrow black lace around the edges.

I received some postcards week before last from another swap, this time the BQL postcard group in the theme of Printing on Fabric. My cards were shown on an earlier post here. They had some pretty good photos and were lovely to receive. I ought to do more photo printing on fabric sometime, it's very effective.

From that same post I'd shown a pic of a field near our house with oil seed rape and poppies. This was the scene just over a week ago when the rape flowers died down and the poppies were coming into their own. It was an amazing sight coming home from work seeing this bright red field. This week the poppies are dying back and the field is now looking quite green again.

Quilt in a Morning, Quiche in an Afternoon

This is a sewing blog so I ought to have some sewing to show and I was rather productive on Sunday, following receiving instructions for the BQL Calender Quilt Challenge for this month. This months challenge is Bargello where strips of fabric are sewn, cut in various widths and rejoined , giving a wave like effect. I chose greens for this as it's a colour that I don't use that often (I don't think so anyway). Above is the right side and below the wrong side which looks more interesting.
And this pic below shows the quilt trimmed and layered ready to quilt. I used a walking foot with a slightly larger stitch and used the contours of the wave as a rough guide.
Here it is all finished. I've trimmed with a narrow ribbon type yarn which I zigzigged onto the edge. I started this first thing on Sunday morning and it was all finished by the lunchtime. Not a bad morning's work.
So I had time to make this (I know it's not sewing!)
And I thought that quiche and rock buns were not bad for an afternoon's work! It's not like me to get all domestic and do baking, I have to be in the mood to do this, but it was quite enjoyable to do something different.