Beaded Necklace

This is what I have been making since Sunday in any spare minutes available.

Unfortunately my pix do not do it justice. You can see it at the Bead Merchant its the deep purples.

9-Patch

This is what I have been doing creatively today.

Yes 2 x 9-patch blocks I didn't have a lot of time, they measure 6" when finished.

Not sure what I will do with them yet, I may even make some more, today I just wanted a little playtime:0)

Yet another little gem

This is the latest little gem.
Size: A4 (approx 11 3/4" x 8 1/4")

Techniques: Fabric weaving, machine quilting embellishment.

These are great for experimenting and playing with new ideas and techniques without too much commitment. I think am getting a little addicted:-)

Another Little Gem

Here is my latest Little Gem 'Pink & Pretty'.

Size: A4 (approx 11 3/4" x 8 1/4").

Techniques used: machine embroidery, applique and quilting.

Delights of dog walking

I remembered to take my camera when I took the dogs out today. We take them down to a long ago abandoned quarry, now reverted back to nature, and around the fields, hence the pics of the flowering hawthorn and gorse. It all looks very beautiful, the hawthorn is incredibly pretty and delicate unlike its thorns!

I took the camera with the intention of taking a pic of a flowering tree, wouldn't you know it that is the only thing I didn't manage to get a half way decent pic of, will have to take the camera again tomorrow and try again, hope it is still looking as magnificent.

Gorse

Hawthorn

Finished Little Gem

Here it is in all its glory my own Little Gem - 'Sunflower'

My Little Gem

As promised I sarted a little gem, I cut it out, and using bondaweb, I glued it down, then life, stuff and small boys though perhaps I should call them teenagers at 12 and 13, required feeding. On a side note just how did my baby get to be 13 so fast, it was only yesterday he was a toddler... wasn't it?!

Then my nephew needed taking home, relatives had to be visited with as I was in the area, and before you know it its Saturday already and my little gem sits all alone and lonely on the ironing board!

Now to cheer it up I'd best go find some wadding, backing fabric, do some quilting!

Littel Gems

I really need to begin making a Little Gem I have been procrastinating about doing this for weeks now. How hard can it be to make an A4 journal type quilt?
I have been procrastinating about a lot of things lately come to that, but my 'Get up and Go' seems to have got up and gone!

Click on the link to find out about the CQ Little Gems fundraiser.

In the meantime I really must go and start one.

Eye Candy

I know I know I don't 'do' pink, but they just go so well with the green


I've went shopping only went for a look and maybe get a new stamp, but I couldn't resist these fabulous buttons. Couldn't you just eat them?!
Buttons are soooo tactile I remember as a child routing in both my mother and my grandmother's button tins they had a unique smell which mine doesn't. Maybe I should put them in a tin, at present they are in a plastic container.
Now to think of a use for them other than drooling over them of course!

Austrailian bush fires - what we quilters can do

I have just read Jenny Bowker's blog about what we as quilters can do to help quilters in Australia after the devastating fires in Victoria. Please read Jenny's post and see if there is something you could send.

Thanks to Freida Oxenholme for posting the link on the cqgb yahoo group, I now feel I can help in a very small way, so I'm off to rummage through my stash!

Re-organising the house

Today we had the dining room chimney swept, and have had a fire going all day to warm the chimney and the room. Why am I telling you this? Well I finally bit the bullet and decided to rearrange the house. What was the dining room has now become the sitting room, the sitting room has become the dining room and (this is the best bit for me) I shall be able to use it as an extension of my sewing studio.

Some time ago I blogged about how my studio was too small or maybe my stash is too big, but lets not go there. After lots of thought, discussion, and procrastination we decided to have the chimney swept to see if the fire was viable, the house is old and cold the central heating does little other than take the chill off so a viable fire is a necessity.

As the fire seems to work just fine I have spent the day cleaning and moving furniture, the sitting room is now organised so I can go and flop later. The dining room is getting organised
and if I can rearrange the furniture some more tomorrow I will hopefully finally get a dedicated design wall. Ooooh I'm soo excited!

Why we have not done this before is a mystery as the new sitting room is much cosier and will be much easier to keep warm. Oh the wisdom of hind sight!

The dining room/studio is usually reasonably warm during the day as it gets plenty of sunshine but will be quite cool in the evenings, so I will have to organise my time accordingly.

Two steps forward one step back

Look what my little piles have morphed into, long piles of fabric.

Oh how I have cursed my original P&Q teacher today as I sat unpicking yet another seam. When she taught me to quilt we weren't allowed to proceed until every point matched as it should, and so we learnt the delicate art of unpicking, something in which I now consider myself something of an expert! As I removed each piece from the machine I held my breath as I checked the points did they match? Well most did but some were not quite there. All I could hear was Babs saying "would you like me to help you unpick that bit" grrrr, of course then I had to unpick and redo the offending bits!

The progress of the quilt

As you can see I'm a messy worker (I thought I'd tidied up before taking these pix!) I just shuv things out of the way as I go. I am always impressed by the tidy way most people seem to work when I am doing workshops, unfortunately it seems I'm just not made that way!

The tree outside the gate.

Welcome Signs of Spring

There are lots of snowdrops flowering in the orchard and the hedge bottom.

The daffodils are pushing through too, does this mean spring is on the way? It doesn't feel like it!

There's snow on them there hills!

Snow on Caldbeck

We had a good covering of snow on Monday, which it is mostly gone now but as you can see its still covering Caldbeck.

Puppies

Trixie

Tigger

The puppies are now 11 months old and still as excitable as ever especially when out for a walk. Cathcing them on camera is not easy, we have a lot of pictures of their bottoms!

Cerise quilt - update

Tonight I've been playing 'cut a few, pin a few, sew a few, and press a few'! I find it takes the tedium out of cutting out my fabrics.

Apologies for the colour of the cerise it is much more palatable in the flesh as it were.

Marmalade - update

Cooked and resting before bottling.

Toast and marmalade for tomorrow's breakfast me thinks yum yum!

A yield of almost 7lb of scrummy marmalade, I know its scrummy coz I cleaned out the pan!

As you can see I recycle any and every jam/honey jar that crosses the threshold! I know you are supposed to use those waxed disks and cellophane on the top but I don't, I used to until one year I made some jam then discovered I had non in so I just put the lids on, all was well so I haven't bought any since. I do discard any lids which are going rusty though.

I will freeze all bar a couple of jars, as I find it keeps longer and tastes like it was just made, I freeze my homemade jams too.

More quilt progress

Cut and ready for stitching.

Strips stitched together, pressed and ready for cutting.

Progress of the quilt

It began quite well and I cut out fabric strips, then looked at the fabric I had left - I was going to run out, but when I planned it out I had (shamefully?) enough fabric in my stash to make it.

Back to the drawing/working out board.

I use Quilt Pro to draft up most of my quilt ideas. Initially I had designed an 88" square quilt, however, once I started to manipulate the design I thought it would be fun to make it up in several different ways, so perhaps a smaller quilt would be a better bet. But did I inform Quilt Pro that was what I was going to do when I got it to print out the rotary cutting charts? Don't be silly, that would be the sane and sensible thing to do. Fortunately I hadn't got too carried away before it dawned on me something was wrong!

Making Marmalade

Delia's marmalade

By chance I spotted Seville oranges in the local green grocers so am now making marmalade (its in the simmer for 2hrs stage).

I usually remember that Seville oranges are only available for a very short time in February and consequently find when I enquire about them that I have just missed them!

This morning I was out with the food processor, it has a juice extractor thing which takes some of the hard work our of the process, unfortunately the bit that collects the pips and other gunk doesn't hold 2lb of oranges worth. Which meant some of the juice didn't go into the bowl for collection, instead it went all over the kitchen worktop! Hope it doesn't affect the marmalade too much I scraped what I could catch into the pan, and wrote a note in Delia so I shouldn't be making that mistake next time.
I never used to write in books I was brought up to think of them as in some way sacred, but of late it has occurred to me as they are my books and are available in such vast quantities that it really doesn't matter if I write helpful notes that save me some hassle, work, and my sanity!

I also decided to save more work by throwing the skins in the processor for chopping up, Delia is of the opinion that they should be quartered and then cut into thin strips, we are having chunks in ours this year!

The makings of a quilt?

I've put together these fabrics for a small pieced quilt.

Now to get on with it! But first I have to go and wash the cerise fabric.

Cuddle Quilt finished - go me!

After a very slothful Festive season, I finally switched off the TV and did something creative!

That is I finished this cuddle quilt which has been sitting in a box in the corner, all cut up and ready for sewing, since the summer of 2005! It's made using folded Japanese technique from recycled jeans, denim and fleece scraps, and measures 48" square.

Fabrications

Woo ooh... The instructions for making my quilt 'Hawaiian Snowflake' have been published in Fabrications Magazine you can see a small pic of it on the front cover too - the blue and white one.

There is also a pic of Pink Parfait in the review of the Scottish Quilt championships back in September. So I am double excited!!

Winter sun

The sun trying to break through the freezing fog.

Even the bin looks beautiful!

On a cold a frosty morning.....

This weather even makes the weeds look good! Oh and there's a tit on the fat ball feeder!

We have had 2 nights of very heavy frost it has barely got above freezing during the day, this is the atmospheric view that greeted me this morning.

Negatively Positive....

Finally finished the cushions (pillows) I mentioned a few posts back, they have been sitting in my projects box for quite some time!

They are the result of my messing around with positive and negative blocks, two different methods of applique and 'quilt as you go'. For the white on blue I used bondaweb the blue on white other was just pinned into place. The motifs were stitched into place and quilted at the same time using a machine buttonhole stitch.

I used the MicroStitch gun, for the first time, to hold the layers together instead of the usual pinning or tacking (basting). It was brilliant, apart from.... I used muslin as the backing fabric and the tacks slid back between it and the wadding when I was trying to remove them so I had some fishing to do before I could finish off the cushions.

And it would have been easier to get the tacks out if I had one of the tack removing tools, but so far I have been too tight to buy one, its now on my Christmas list:-) If you had a lot of tacks to take out, on a large quilt, it would be far easier, quicker and safer as you have to be really careful not to accidentally cut the fabric as you go, they are tiny and quite difficult to get hold of. Babs steered me to Lady Sew and Sew who has deal which works out well as you get the extra tacks, she also suggested I get the removing tool at the same time, should have listened.....

teabag folding

All are 3 1/2" from point to point

We did some teabag folding in the afternoon, something I never imagined myself doing but amazingly I loved it...

These are my first samples and no where near perfect please don't look to closely!!!

folded patchwork - log cabin

Log cabin 4" square

Folded Christmas Decoration/Coaster

Square in a square 3 1/2"

On Saturday I went to a Quilters' Guild members day where Janette Fairer taught us how to make folded Christmas decorations, though mine will be coasters, I'm not a big fan of decorations!

Reversible quilts...

The Pot holder was originally a block for a Project Linus quilt, but as ever I cut that one too small (how does that happen?) and faced with either cutting all the other block to match or making another I made another, so this one became an orphan.

The block was made using the reversible quilting technique in Sharon Pederson's book - Reversible Quilts - Two at a Time.

Pot Holder

As ever I didn't finish all I wanted to but I did finish the pot holder.

which is reversible

Real Sewing?

I got to do some sewing yesterday..... 6 buttons on my partner's shirts oh the excitement I could hardly contain myself. And what does he do to his shirts to require 6 buttons replacing all at once? OK I'll fess up the pile has been building on the table for a number of weeks.... well possibly months.....



Have done no other sewing for weeks, the machine has been put away whilst I do 'design work' which I love doing, just so long as I can jump in and make whatever when I am happy with it. But as this design work is for C&G I have to get approval from my tutor, it also has to be presentable, not my usual scribble, which I understand but the tutor wouldn't! It kinda takes the fun out of the whole process!



Got a couple of WIP's out after my success with the buttons and will finish them today and post pics later. Now when I say WIP's I do use the term very loosely they were experiments ie me trying techniques nothing very exciting, two of which I will make into cushions and one into a pot holder:-)

Feel obliged to leave you with a picture as I have written nothing of interest so here we have it:

Hydrangea's from the garden