THREADADDICT

I've been looking for fabric - again..

2012-02-15T16:51:00.000Z

Wasn't successful though. I wanted fabric to make a new table topper to go in our living room. I wanted neutral colours with a flash of something seductive (must be the Valentine's Day effect). My LQS is a good 60 mile round trip so we thought we'd make a day of it and go to Embsay Mills just outside of Skipton (about twice as far as LQS). First call was to dh's woodturning store, then mine. I was looking for creams, beige, white and perhaps lime or blue or something that had the WOW factor. I was disappointed, they did have creams, beige, white etc but naturally the ones I liked were very expensive, not cotton or I just plain didn't like them. So I ended up with some rickrack braid, magnetic catches and a Book of Baby Gifts (I did tell you didn't I that I'm expecting a great grandson - can't wait).

I also got the news yesterday that the CQ group want two of my button quilts for display at the NEC Sewing for Pleasure next month. The two I've chosen are December and January.

You seen them both before but I thought I'd just show which ones I was sending. Keep an eye out if you are going to the NEC next month and give them a wave so they can bring it back to me.

Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T17:47:00.000Z

Hope you have all had a loving Valentine's Day, I only just finished our placemats in time, phew.

I tried to get as many red and white fabrics as I could, my stash is now much smaller. I cut out the circles and hearts with my Accuquilt and sewed a different stitch pattern round each one, some I liked others not sure of. But I've got the done in time for dinner tonight.

One other thing I've finished is a Biscurnu pincushion. I've been looking at the pattern in the Embroiderers' Guild 'Stitch magazine for some time now. It was one of those patterns I wanted to do just for the fun of making something an odd shape. I even took it away on holiday with me but then never took it out of my project box. A friend of mine said she was making one and this prompted me to actually do something about it. It took me two evenings to complete and I used two different random threads, both perle 12 but sewn together with a matching perle 12. The fabric is 18 ct even weave.

I joined the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge and have completed it so far but not shown the stitches. This is because I haven't done much else but the basic stitches on a monoprinted fabric. But I will as soon as I get to the bottom of the piece of fabric, nearly there.

January Lace Postcards

2012-02-08T13:37:00.000Z

I've now got all my lace cards from my fellow swappers to show:

Pauline's card has a multitude of lacey bits and pieces and is very pretty, much more attractive than this poor photos.

Top card is from Marian who has had fun playing with her new embroidery machine. The bottom one is from Chris. I always think black on yellow stands out well.

Top set on this photos is from Carole and she has used lace both as a background and as a motif.
The bottom one I love, its Janet Boorman's take on Lace, just wish I'd thought of it.

Brusing from fall on Friday is much better, less like a contour map so not such a good design source. I've been amusing myself making a couple of Valentine placemats which I want to surprise his lordship with next week. Will sneek a piccy in before then though.

February's JP

2012-02-04T10:50:00.000Z

The second in the red dance series, this one Valentine Waltz. The first four JP's which are the red ones have the same woven fabric backgrounds but the values change as the months go on. This one starts out with the same as January then moves to a slightly light value, sort of dark to dark/medium range. The background has "I love You" and hearts embroidered onto it and the edges of the velvet hearts have real gold thread couched round the outline. Each heart has a waltzing line going from one heart to another.

I am supposed to be giving the vote of thanks this afternoon at our Embroiderers' Guild meeting but who tripped and injured her knee? Of all the silly things to do, I knew the steps were there just forgot to lift my feet. Result, one swollen knee, sciatica, and a bruised bum that could put itself forward as a design source. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow, what an excuse for sitting sewing.

First JP of 2012

2012-01-29T14:47:00.001Z

I wasn't 100% certain I would join in this years challenge as its based on colour. Colour isn't a problem just wasn't sure I wanted to make my pages from primaries. However if you include all shades, tones, hues etc then it gives you quite a wide pallet. So for my first 'Red' JP I give you:

Red One (aka Galliard - a Tudor Dance)

The actual JP is much richer and darker than shown here.

My intension for the first four red JP's was solely to create a set of JPs that had a gradient from dark, rich colouring to pale pink. I also intended that each JP would have some sort of surface decoration. Then I had another thought, the red fabrics, from cotton, silk and velvet that I was using plus the gold secondary colour reminded me for some obscure reason of Henry VIII. In particular his love of the Galliard a rather energetic courtly dance and so Red One (aka Galliard) was born. I hope to continue the 'dance theme' for the rest of the reds.

Here's a close up.

As you can see from this photo the background is woven and zigzaged onto a base. Hope to show February's soon, I know I'm supposed to do one a month but I just got carried away. DH says I should be carried away!!

Housey Housey

2012-01-27T15:04:00.000Z

I saw these houses on Retro-Mama's blog and couldn't resist making one or two, its become an addiction.

Then I made a 'house' cover for the BQL monthly challenge to keep the dust out of Keith's mini printer.

He takes this with him to family celebrations and prints out photos so that people can have a copy straight away. As a thank you he made me these:

A threadstand for the larger cops and a cute little bobbin boat to hold the large 830 bobbins. These won't fit into any of the bobbin stands I have. The eagle eye amongst you will notice that the bar has 4 thread feeds but the stand only room for two cops. That's because I found my old 730 stand and wanted to use the top but keep Keith's beautifully turned base. It works fine whether I put the cop on the stand or beside it.

I've almost finished my January CQJP -' Red One' and will post a photo in my next blog. In the meantime I'm off to make another house.

I've been FARTing!!

2012-01-20T13:24:00.001Z

No I'm not being rude I've been on a Fabric Acquisiton Road Trip. I needed some new reds in my stash, I may a Stash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy (SABLE) but still not enough reds in it for the CQ Red Journal Pages. This is the result:

Well, okay there are a couple of non-reds in there but what has a girl got to do when faced with so much choice.

Now for a confession - on Monday in a fit of pique I traded in my Bernina 830 for a Bernina 580. I know, I must be bonkers and all Monday night I tossed and turned and confirmed my suspicion that I was bonkers. As soon as the shop opened on Tuesday I rang and said I've changed my mind I'm keeping my 830. Unfortunately as I was talking the 580 arrived on my doorstep, all the way across country from Cardiff to the NE in record time. Well, I fell in love with it, so what's more is there to say. I've a very empty bank balance but a beautiful new baby to take to workshops. This is my 1630 replacement, which although alovely machine is way too heavy for me to cart around.

And here she is:

The first photo doesn't show the embroidery unit which came with it.

I like the accessory kit, just right for taking to workshops, not so good I feel for storage while sewing (if that makes sense).

Best thing though is the feet from my 830 fit, apart fromt he BSR (naturally) as the 580 has the new version. I was told that in theory they will work but in practise there have been problems. The BSR is an option, not included.

And I tried all the functionality out on my set of 'Lace' postcards for the BQLPC January swap.

I made all the lace butterflies on the 580, which I must say is quieter to run than the 830 and all but the Jumbo hoop fit both machines. Didn't actually need another embroidery unit but when I ordered it (along with the BSR) I thought I would no longer have the 830. Since bringing baby into the house my 'beastie' has behaved impectably. I'm going to do some sewing on her this afternoon just so she doesn't get jealous.

Phew finished 2011 Journal Pages

2012-01-16T12:44:00.000Z

Done it. It's not at all what I started out to do. My first inclinations were to created a journal page using buttons and buttonholes as the main focus of the piece. After three false starts I threw them all in the bin and no I didn't take photos they just looked like sewing class samples. However I came across the piece of sateen that I'd taken to Summer School and lost all the screen printing on it because it wasn't cotton. I also found some sheets of paper I'd transfer painted - Idea!!! I loved the fabric I'd created, it reminded me of that time in Winter when the tips of plants are just coming through. Well the JP has nothing to do with that..... I cut off some of the yellow from the piece and created flowers using my Accuquilt and appliqued them onto the blue part that was left over. I had great problems fmqing - the threads kept breaking, the needles kept breaking and I ended up shouting at my machine. I left it and went back the next day, all was calm and collected and sewed out beautifully.

As I'm sure I've said before I have an aversion to buttons, however, there are a few that I can handle with care. Some of these are the ones my dh makes. I painted them with an overlay of green, purple, blue, wiped it all off then painted interference paint to give some shine. Enough, here's the finished result.

Don't know why Blogger has turned the photo sideways, again!! It is the right way up in my albumn but you get the picture.

It's done the same with this one which shows the buttons a bit better. Colours are about right.

December Journal Page

2012-01-14T12:27:00.000Z

I've spent a busy few days just trying to catch up. I'm determined to get both 2011 and 2012 JP's done before the month is out and then I'll be back on line. It's frightening how quickly you can get behind without meaning to.

On the December JP I've been trying out the shadow/trapunto quilting. By this I mean I wanted the central image to be raised and shown against a different translucent background. It's the 'add buttons' feature of this challenge that is giving me problems. I don't like the feel of buttons, odd I know but it stems from those rubbery ones on liberty bodices I was forced to wear as a child, ughhhh. They still make me shudder. Anyway here it is.

I call it "Button Tree" after I heard there was an American wood called Buttonwood. I first drew out a 'treeish' shape and used this as a template. I placed felt on top of a cotton backing, drew round the template then sewed on the drawn line. Next I cut it back layered a sheer organza over the top and sewed it to the background. With wadding behind I then echo quilted round the piece. As I said I don't like buttons but made some embroidered and some Dorset ones to finish off the piece. Keith has made me some wooden ones for the January's JP which is on its way to being completed.

Work in Progress

In between these two JP's I've made a weighted pincushion to take to workshops etc with me. I never know what to do with waste threads etc and although I always pick up as many as I can I feel sorry for the cleaners who have to come in an clear up the mess some people leave.

I've also joined the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge - see sidebar - but so far have only done the first one, herringbone stitch on a very small project. I intend to be a bit more adventurous with this stitch but just wanted to make sure I'd done something. It's a covered tape measure which is very easy to do. I picked up one quite cheaply in the market, drew round the diameter and cut it out with seam allowance twice. I cut out a strip of felt to go round the outside of the tape, embroidered both top and bottom and buttonholed the two pieces together. Buttonhole stitch is the second TAST stitch but I wasn't going to use this as the TAST piece.

I'm a bad bad blogger

2012-01-07T22:46:00.000Z

It's almost a week into the new year and I haven't posted a thing. Just don't know where the time goes these days. I've actually found it very difficult to get down to doing any work at all after all the festivites. Hope you all had a good New Year and this year will be one of creativity, productivity and enjoyment.

I've got to admit that I'm behind on my journal page challenge for the Contemporary Quilters. However I've now finished Novembers and am making a start on December's tomorrow. That just leaves January's to complete. Next years challenge reverts to A4 but has a colour theme. The first four months are red, the next four yellow and the final four blue. I'll find this a real challenge but am looking forward to it.

Here's November's

I love Angie Lewin's work and bought her "Plants and Places" book last year. I have not done justice to her drawings. I didn't want to copy her work but to be inspired by it. My plants look nothing like hers but Angie's work is the source. The background fabric is a piece I made in Summer School last year then brought home and dumped it. I came across it by accident and decided to try discharging colour using a nappy liner stencil, again made at Summer School. I used Finish dishwasher gel as the discharge medium and it worked very well indeed. I shall certainly use it again.

I've used a photo of a thistle I took last Autumn, the background is a close up of the thistle 'petals' can you call them petals? I'm not sure what they are called but they give a lovely texture. I want to print this onto fabric and fmq it. However I've forgotten how I split the photo into four parts, poster printing I think but when I tried to do it tonight this is what I ended up with.

Not a lot of good, one is chopped off and the others are too small. I changed the print size but they remained the same size. So its back to the drawing board, I won't let it beat me.

Keith also has been having a play, he made me a 'boat' to hold bobbins or thread to take to workshops with me.

Cute isn't it.

Tomorrow I'm not sure whether we'll have a cooked meal. My cooker is beginning to heat the kitchen rather than the oven so tomorrow I'm having a smart new bright red one installed. However, they won't give me an exact time for the fitting just sometime between 8am and 4pm. Guess we'll have to eat sandwiches.

Getting close to New Year

2011-12-29T17:00:00.001Z

In this part of the world and I'm sure in others, the New Year must be met with a clean house. All the old rubbish is thrown out, cupboards cleaned, floors scrubbed well you know the rest. The next two days here will be dust bunny blitz time and I may be too tired to blog so I'll let you know what I've been up to.

Boxing Day I finished the Stitch In with 11 tray cloths for the local hospice made from my 1960's cotton curtain fabric. I first made a cardboard template from one of the old clothes, drew round it on the back of the curtaining and set off to sew.

I had to tape several sheets of card to make the template as I didn't have one piece big enough to cut it from.

And this is the finished result, 11 1960's style tray cloths/placemats

I forgot to show you my swish lighthbox and new rotary sharpener both of which I'm really pleased with.

And last but not least this is what I've been doing this afternoon. I followed this tutorial on the SewWeQuilt blog. I've made two but only have one left as Sy has taken one for Julie.

I'll try and pop in again before 2012 but if I get lost in the dust or thrown out with the rubbish have a prosperous and creative New Year.

I'm spending Boxing Day Sewing

2011-12-26T14:28:00.000Z

I saw on the net that a Boxing Day Sew In was being held here naturally I didn't see it until after lunch today but I'm still going to do a BDSI. A few weeks ago I offered to help a friend make tray cloths for the local hospice. They are three layers thick, no wadding just fabric, but must be washable. This is one of the hospice old worn ones. EG members made 20 Christmas themed ones but they need at least another 20 everyday ones. They are to put on the food trays of those patience too ill to go to the dining room.

One day last month an old friend rang me and said she had a bin bag full of new cotton fabrics and did I want them for patchwork. I thanked her and went to pick them up. This is one of the furnishing fabrics in the stash. All are rather dated patterns I'm afraid but I've made several shopping bags for charity out of them until this is all that is left.

These will be the tray cloths for the local hospice and my task for today's BDSI. Hope you approve.

Cut out, about to be ironed and sewn together. It's a rather straight forward job but it will give me the added opportunity to listen to one of my audio books.

Hope Santa was kind to you all, he brought me a very swish light box, one of the new rotary cutter boards, lots of cutting dies to play with and some lovely warm pj's from dh with hearts on them.

Last two Christmas postcards

2011-12-22T15:28:00.000Z

Snow is Falling from Pauline

Angels Sing from Jane

These are the last two postcards from the Christmas Song BQLPC swap now all I have to do is work out some way of displaying them all together. I love the snowflakes on Pauline's card and the linen background on Jane's embroidered angel. I'm sure if I tried to fringe linen I'd end up taking so much off that the angel would be clinging to the background for grim death.;

Well I'm almost ready for Christmas, last present is wrapped, last bauble beaded and last card posted. All I have to do now is clear up the mess and then sit back and eat the chocolates and drink the wine. Not too bad an idea is it.

Merry Christmas to everyone luv Annette

More Christmas Cheer

2011-12-15T14:32:00.000Z

Good news - some Christmas Angel picked up my postcards and posted them for me, three have found their way to new homes. A big bedraggled and looking as though they've been travelling the world but safe and sound. Thank you Christmas Angel.

More Christmas cheer came in the form of three more postcards, Lois's 'Shepherd and his flock' wandered onto my doormat, Jacquie's 'Ding Dong Merrily on High' bells arrived peeling and Barbara's Rudolph has lit up my life.

I've been busy making lots of beaded baubles and still have some more to go before Christmas Day.

So far I've made two each of the large ones and nine of the small blue ones all in different colours. I dream of beads.....

Christmas postcards

2011-12-11T15:24:00.000Z

I've received four beautiful postcards from the BQLPC group whose theme this year was "Christmas song or carol".

From Alice "It was on a Starry Night"

From Janet "The Holly and the Ivy"

From Carole "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"

This one is from Irene "Sew This is Christmas" her pun not mine, I just love the bit of tinsel.

Now for a confession - I've lost my Christmas postcards but I do have a picture of them.

Mine are based on the "Twelve Days of Christmas". I had them all ready to go, stamped, just to pop into the postbox. I decided to take them down to the main sorting office as I had a parcel to pick up. I had them when I left home, I had them in the car but I didn't have them when I got to the sorting office. We had had difficulting getting into the parking area at the sorting office, there was a log jam of cars all wanting to get into the same small area so Keith decided to drop me off and waiting a short distance away. I don't know if I dropped them getting out of the car in the confusion of the moment but I went back to see if I had dropped them but there were no where to be seen. There aren't in the car and they are certainly not at home. I just hope someone kind picks them up and pops them in the post for me. Failing that I'll have to redo them all again.

Ah well that's all for now folks, back to the bauble making which I'll show you shortly.

A cautionary tale

2011-11-30T16:38:00.000Z

I'd been to a very instructive workshop given by Philippa Naylor on applique and decided to try and redo some of the samples we'd made. I drew out the design onto fusible interface and ironed the interface onto the back of my fabric ready to cut out. When I looked down my design had completely disappeared!!! I had picked up the first pen (Philippa said pen worked better than pencil on copying designs onto iron on interface) I came to. It was a Frixxon pen which I had completely forgot disappears with heat... durrh.

Here's |Philippa showing how to turn a narrow rouleau strip the easy way.   I was very impressed with the technique which I am sure is not new to many of you.   Before you start to sew the strip you pull out both top and bottom threads to a length longer than the strip you want.   Then right side facing up start to sew 2 or 3 stitches only at the mid point at the top of your strip. It's very important that you stitch these threads into the middle of your piece. Then fold the strip lengthwise with the right side inside, sew down the seam.   Trim the seam allowance and holding the tube at the top end where you sewed the threads, gently pull the thread tails and your tube will turn inside out smoothly. I managed to sew a quarter in tube and was really proud of myself.

I mentioned last time that I was going to the Knitting and Stitching show in Harrogate. Well I really enjoyed myself there but didn't take any photos as I was too busying looking.   The exhibition devoted to Beryl Dean was outstanding, just wish I could sew a faction as well. I was dazzled by all that goldwork.

Keith bought me my Christmas presents there, I was hoping for an IPad2 but I think I'll have to save my pocket money for that.   I know I'm getting a lovely new lightbox and one of the new long rotary blade sharpeners and several books.   I bought lots of lovely Oakshott fat quarters for Philippa's workshop then never used them so I'll have to think of something else to do with them, ah decisions, decisions.

I've spent the last few days putting the final touches to Christmas presents and as my dil informed me she was looking forward to her's as she'd read my blog I am not putting up a photo until later.   Bought some beaded bauble kits at the show, all I have to do now is work out how to make them up.

I have finished my Christmas sampler, just half an hour ago, and here it is.

It was my nephew's 21st last Sunday and the family gathered to celebrate. His mother put on a tea for him which we all thoroughly enjoyed.

My sister Lesley and my nephew Chris.

Catch Up

2011-11-21T22:37:00.001Z

Although I have been working hard I haven't been able to post photos because most of what I've been doing are Christmas presents and I know the recipients check my blog occasionally. However my pre-granddaughter does not so here is something I've made over the weekend for her.

It's a small back cushion which I thought, being pregnant, she might appreciate later on. The buttons on the back Keith made so its a combined effort. I used my Accuquilt cutters to cut the basic shapes but the sizes were really too large onced I'd made up the blocks so I cut a piece out of each one so now the roof is a slightly different shape. I doubt Siobhan will notice though. Just hope she likes the colours as to my mind they are a bit dull however she likes browns, mustards and neutrals so hopefully it will be okay.

Matty came down to show us the 'scan' photo of our new great grandchild. To me it looked like a peanut but they are both really happy and I ended up laminating it for them.

Keith too is busy making wooden presents which he hopes to put inside wooden crackers but I think he's being a bit ambitious as he likes to take his time and do a good job.

I'm off to Harrogate on Thursday to the Knitting and Stitching show. Don't have a long list of 'needs or wants' but I'm sure I'll be tempted. My friend sent me a book on Beryl Dean's work which she bought when the K&S show was at Ally Pally and I'm looking forward to seeing her work.

Norfolk Noel

2011-11-18T13:16:00.001Z

We've just got back from Great Yarmouth where we spent a pleasant couple of days. The hotel was facing the seafront and the weather was sunny if a bit windy.

We stayed at the Imperal Hotel a short walk from the town.

View from our bedroom window

It's over 30 years since I was last in Great Yarmouth and the thing I remember the best are the sand dunes and the sea being a long way off.

Best of all from our window was the rising of the sun, it was very similar at sunset but I had to open the windows wide and hang out to get a picture without showing the window frame.

Another longstanding memory of Norfolk in general is the quartz stone walls.

Very pretty but I'm not sure what they would do to the skin if you fell against them. See how they've been used in patterns along the bottom of the church.

Our main intention in going to Norfolk was to see the Christmas Spectacular in Thursford (hence the title). We had heard about this show from various sources all praising it. We arrived in darkness and the lights were at their best. From outside the Fantasy Land building, where we were entertained by a 4D short film to the 140 ft stage in the main building the lighting was spectacular.

This waterfall of lights was constantly moving and was much better than my photo depicts.

The main 140' main stage (this was taken at the interval so there are lots of people wandering around) the ceiling and stage decorations change according to the scene and music.

I don't want to say much more as some of my friends are going to see the show.

November already

2011-11-01T13:43:00.001Z

Thought I'd share my recycling projects with you. I used a pair of old jeans and a remnant of curtain fabric to make these.

A couple of totes for the charity shop, a lunch bag for a family Xmas present, no names in case they read this blog. And a couple of shopping list wallets.

The bag has yet to have its beads added along the tendrils. Its the Poppy Bag from Quilters World magazine, February 2011 if anyone wants to make one for themselves. The pattern called for wool but I used a pair of old jeans and added the applique felt poppy. I'm quite pleased with it and might make another one for myself later.

A tutorial for these wallets can be found here I thought they would make good shopping wallets where you have a notebook and places to put your loyalty cards and money off vouchers. I always misplace my vouchers and then find them when they are out of date. You could use them for anything. Again I made mine from a piece of the old jeans and added a crazy patchwork puzzle piece I'd had lying around for some time. I didn't make the puzzle piece, it was part of a swap I took part in ages ago. The front of the second wallet (open one) has a swirl cut out of the curtain remnant with the Big Shot and bonded onto the front. As you can see the lining is also from the curtain.

Next job is to try and make a Domina Chix, I've been looking round for some shiney black fabric but couldn't find anything I liked so I'm now going to bond a bin liner to cotton and see what happens.

Bowes Challenge

2011-10-29T09:41:00.000+01:00

Our very small textile art group has challenged each other to create a piece of work based on photos we took of the outside of Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle. I missed the joint photo day out we had arranged but went along earlier this week to take my photos and get the creative juices flowing. I've been concentrating recently on quilting projects, mainly Christmas presents and now feel the need to do something else.

I've played a bit in Photoshop with this one, thinking of doing something on the embellisher and hand stitching.

Part of the gate ironwork

It was difficult to get a clear picture of the formal garden at the front because of the different levels.

When we set off the day was sunny but by the time we got to Bowes it was threatening rain so everything looked a bit dull.

One other piece of news, I'm about to become a great grandmother next year.

My grandson Matthew and his girlfriend Siobhan are to be the proud parents. I'm trying not to become too excited at the moment as its still a long way off but I am looking at baby quilts.

Jelly Roll Quilts

2011-10-20T12:51:00.000+01:00

I saw this on You Tube and was amazed at the speed these ladies can create a quilt top. I thought I'd have a go too.

I searched through my jelly rolls and decided to use one that seemed to have been hanging around for a while. It's a variety of batiks but when I unrolled it I I wasn't too keen on several lengths.

Thirtyfive minutes it took the winner of the Jelly Roll Race to complete her top. As for me - well it took me 3.5 hours just to piece all the lengths together and sew the first row..... and another 2 hours to finish the quilt top!! Guess no prizes there then. I think the race must have started once all the strips were sewn together as it was this stage that took up most of my time. I also made lots of mistakes at this stage. First once was not to sew them together one after the other. Instead I sewed them in pairs and then the pairs to each other. I found I had to repeatedly check where my seams were lying and I spent a lot of time unpicking them because they were on the wrong side. But eventually I finished it and here it is (sorry about the pegs the wind kept blowing it backwards). I must say I quite like it. All I have to do now is figure out what to do next. It turned out bigger than I expected at 64" x 60" so I might add borders and put it on the bottom of our bed.

Drunkards Path

2011-10-13T14:45:00.001+01:00

Sy and Julie bought me the Drunkards Path die for the Accuquilt last Christmas, so I thought it only fair that I make them a lap quilt using this block. They have decorated their living room in chocolate and lime so those are the colours I've used in their quilt. I bought 14 differing shades of browns and lime/greens and set off to cut out the pieces. I happily spent a couple of hours cutting all 104 pairs for the quilt (with some extra) then sewed them all into blocks of 4. The Accuquilt really comes into its own I think when cutting pieces that are more difficult to do than straight rotary cut pieces.

Once I got them to this stage the fun began. I had enough for 7 rows of 8 blocks but ended up making the quilt 7 rows of 6 blocks in a sort of sudoko pattern. Sewing these blocks together gave me a real headache much more difficult than sewing them all together. I used our bed to lay them all out and get the pattern correct. Then took each pair into my sewing room and sewed them together. Easy yes.... Well I put them down in the order I thought I'd picked them up but I'd actually put them down upside down - you following me? I'd lost the plot and a hour later and several unpickings I finally asked Keith to give me a hand to sort out the pattern again. Then I did the sensible thing and pinned the pairs together with a label (t for top).

This is the result:

I could only get part of the quilt in the photo but you get the idea. There were several blocks left over so
I made Buster a matching quilt to go on top of his new bed but I'll keep it until Christmas or Sy and Julie might guess what they are getting.

I've basted both tops onto fleece and hope to get one of them quilted before the weekend.

I've been chuntering on about the Big Shot machine for some time now as a complimentary machine to the Accuquilt. I must have gone on a bit more than I thought for when we were in Embsay Mills on Sunday Keith bought me one!!!! He also bought me a couple of dies and embossing folders. I've been watching videos on Youtube as well as Patsy Thompson's videos on using the Big Shot with fabric and am keen to play with it. However I want to quilt at least one of the drunkard path quilts before I start or they may never get done.

Almost forgot - Henny Penny has been refurbished, doesn't she look regal. I almost think if I added a whip she could become a dominachick.

Foundation quilting

2011-10-06T18:48:00.000+01:00

I've finished my second foundation pattern mini quilt I printed the pattern out onto tracing paper but I've just seen a method I'd love to try. It's here on Sewwequilt blog. Elaine is the lady doing the tutorial and she uses freezer paper. I've not tried that method but think I'm definitely going to give it a go.

And now for my not so masterful mini quilt, but I like it.

As for Henny Penny shown in my last post, well she's in pieces. In fact several of her pieces have been recut in a more suitable fabric. All she needs now is the quilt fairy to come along and sew her back together.

Come on now own up....

2011-10-05T11:27:00.001+01:00

How many of you have gone to a workshop only to find you have brought totally unsuitable fabrics?
My friend and I decided at the last minute to join a workshop to make a hen. The list of requirements was emailed to us but no image of what we were making. A hen, well how difficult can that be to decided on fabrics.

This was my selection of fabrics, I thought the leaf pattern could represent feathers and the other two contrasts.

This is Ann Bull our lady tutor for the day. She was very good and helped all of us even to sewing some of our pieces when we got behind.

Joyce Smith was our host and supplied us with tea, coffee and delicious cakes and acted as our goffor for the day. She is a long arm quilter and her Quilt Barn can be found here

Inside the Quilt Barn, small, cosy but light and airy. The lady in the purple tshirt is my friend Pat. She likes purple as you can see from her hen.

We didn't get round to finishing our hens but one or two did.

A previous project had been this splendid cockerell

And this was as far as I got before going home. My hen was becoming blurred in the fabrics. I had forgotten that random dyed fabrics would not easily allow identical parts to be cut out. My hen has jester legs, a hood that is green on one side and reddish on the other and merges with the body fabric.

And now this is the state of my hen - the sum of all its parts....

Ann glued the thighs onto the body but I prefer to sew pieces together. My legs looked like Nora Batty stockings so I've decided to recut some pieces. Watch this space.

Cooling down

2011-10-01T12:31:00.001+01:00

Go on throw it.......

Go on throw it , pleeeease....

There it is ........

I'm bringing it back for you to play with....

I'll just have a quick chew....

And a good shake... Oh sorry Mum.

Catching Up at last

2011-09-28T22:10:00.000+01:00

I seem to have done nothing but make samples for the last couple of weeks, that and chase dust bunnies. Our 'Dippy Day' was on Monday gone and as one of two of the members had recently purchased machines for workshops we thought we'd go back to basics and get to grips with our sewing machines.

First we started scribbling to loosen our stitching up.

Next we tried our hands at a few basic quilting stitches, first using straight lines then getting a bit more adventurous.

Next we tried sewing Zentangles. We first made a frame to work within and to make a border to hang onto when moving the fabric. These were quilt sandwiches we'd prepared earlier. Once the tangling was done we added a border using a decorative stitch.

We thought we'd like to try out the decorative stitches on our machines and make 'Stacked Stitches'. This is a Bernina term and several stacked stitch 'recipes' can be found here. There are also loads of other ideas.

This is one I made earlier (another Blue Peter job) its a quilted background and a piece of stacked stitches fabric cut into hearts and appliqued onto the background. I think this would look good using Christmas colours and perhaps a snowman, tree or even a house with snow on the top. Maybe my cards this year will look a bit similar.

This is another one I did earlier. The fabric is sheeting over which I placed a plastic stencil and sprayed die onto it. I layered wadding on the back and stitched round the petals then cut out the wadding to make the flowers puff up. I put it on top of a second piece of wadding and stippled in various sizes in between the flowers. Added some beads and a border.

We finally tried thread painting. I painted the skey then didn't like it so I cut it out and layered the remainder of the card onto another background. It gives it an almost 3D effect.

I'd been reading Karen Linduska's "Your Machine's Decorative Stitches" in preparation for our Dippy Day and made this piece using her technique. You can see her book here.

I have been getting on with my second mini quilt and should have it finished within the next couple of days so will post it then.

CQJP'S next bloc finished.

2011-09-14T11:25:00.000+01:00

Not sure why but Blogger has turned some of the photos upside down, so sorry you will have to stand on your head if you want to seem them the right way up!! Think I might have posted some of these before but not sure. Okay here goes, our task for these four JP's, should we accept the challenge was to include text. I based all four on electronic communications.

June - Texting
Hope you can understand my version of text speak...

July - Twitter (Tweeting)

August - Facebook (here's where you stand on your head)

September - Login
Digital images and text printed onto tshirt fabric. I did add beads but then took them off.

October - Chamomile Days
Another upside down one, I know I'm early but I got carried away. The next set of JP's have to include buttons.

Mini quilt finished

2011-09-09T15:48:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post today to show you my finished mini quilt (9pm curfew project). I enjoyed doing it but got it all wrong as I cut out the foundations minus the seam allowance - durr.... As a result not all of the blocks are the same size, my mind must have been on the tv than on what I was doing. I've started another one, this time I've cut the foundations with a much larger margin of error.

Keith has gone off to help Sy lay laminate flooring before they have their BBQ for Julie's mum's birthday tomorrow. And as for me I have four pairs of trousers to take up, not one of my favourite pasttimes but a necessary one as dh has short legs and hates shopping for clothes. I have to buy them while I have him cornered else he would go around in a tatty pair of trousers quite happily.

Bits and pieces

2011-09-08T21:25:00.000+01:00

Bits and Pieces is all I seem to have done recently. I've been catching up on all those odd jobs that need doing but get pushed to the back of your mind. Well I tidied up my room and decided to just get on with them and that would leave me free to sew later.

We went to Harrogate Quilt Show but I'm not posting pictures as they seem to be lots of them all over the web. What I have done is post a couple of pictures of the goodies I bought while at the show.

There were so many lovely goodies it was difficult to choose what I wanted but I had gone with specific buys in mind. After I bought those, freezer paper, threads, velvet and grey net - the latter I didn't get as there was none to buy, I went a bit wild. The photos aren't too good as they really don't show you the brilliant colours of the threads I bought from Oliver Twist's. I have a specific project in mind, something for my dil's birthday (although at the rate I'm going it could be Christmas) present. So I won't say anything about it but let you drool over the threads.

Arenh't they beautiful...... I love Jean Oliver's colours just wish I could dye something similar. Anyway apart from threads I bought some Egyptian cotton from the Egyptian tentmaker's stall, a bag of jelly roll offcuts on sale for £6 which I though might come in useful. I really splurged though on books. They were on sale for around the same price as Amazon but without the postage so I told my dh that they were a bargain and he believed me.

Amongst my stash of books was Susan Brubaker Knapp's new one "Point, Click, Quilt" and Isobel Hall's Textile Adventures. I also bought a book on digitizing, I can do pretty basic designs but sometimes thread compensation baffles me so I hope to do great things after I've read this one.
Last weekend was also the Embroidery Guild's first meeting after the summer recess. Philippa Naylor was the speaker and apart from seeing her absolutely stunning quilting she is a very funny lady. If anyone is looking for an entertaining speaker I can definitely recommend her. Her book "Quilting in the Limelight" is also excellent both visually and techniquewise.

Beadnell and old friends

2011-09-01T18:24:00.001+01:00

Yesterday we met up with Anne and Grant, good friends we'd not seen for several years. They were holidaying in their caravan in Beadnell, Northumberland. As it is closer to us than there home in Cheshire we decided to make a day of it and visit them. We took Buster with us as we couldn't get a dog sitter but he was very well behaved all day I'm pleased to say.

We took the direct route up the motorway for quickness but stopped at Amble to let all of us stretch our legs and do the necessary.

Buster was disappointed that the tide was out and we wouldn't let him play in the mud. That's Warkworth Castle in the top photo, not a very good picture though.

We arrived a lunchtime and Anne and Grant our friends insisted on taking us for a birthday lunch in Seahouses. As we had Buster lunch had to be in the beer garden but that wa fine as it was sunny and the garden backed onto the harbour. We also had a wonderful view of the Farne Isles.

Later we went back to Beadnell and finally allow Buster a paddle and play in the sea. He loves water, so long as he doesn't involve soap. He spent ages picking up seaweed from the water and depositing it on the rocks. I think he must have been a retriever in a previous life.

He really did not want to come out but we had to set off home.

We took the long way home via Alnwick, Rothbury across the moors to come out just above Hadrian's Wall. The heather was beautiful and we stopped to pick a couple of pieces and let Buster stretch his legs again.

All three of us really enjoyed our day out and apparently we'd worn Buster out as he took himself off to bed at 7:30pm and was difficult to get out of bed this morning - just like us.

Birthday presents

2011-08-30T15:26:00.001+01:00

I forgot to say yesterday that Saturday was my birthday and also Keith's - yes we share a birthday much to the disgust of the boys. My Tilda book from which I made the dolls was a birthday present from Keith I bought him some woodturning tools. I promised I'd post a photo of the second Tilda doll, the one for my sister and here it is (well actually its both of them).

I'm really not good with faces definitely need more practise but the real Tilda's only have two eyes and a bit of blusher. Don't ask me how I managed to get the legs different lengths from the same pattern, I just don't know but it doesn't seem to matter. I might add shoes but haven't made my mind up. The instructions for making the dolls and clothes are not sequential and I found I had to jump about a bit to get it together. You need to read all the instructions for all the dolls before you start to make one. I didn't and ended up trying to sew the bathing dress onto a doll with arms. Whereas if I'd followed the instructions for a different doll I would have know to sew the arms on last. I'm more used to making dolls with clothes that come off, these don't they form part of the body or are sewn onto the body. I didn't find it difficult turning the legs and arms but stuffing them was a challenge. Still we got there in the end and my sister is delighted with hers. She is going to sit on top of her cookery books in the kitchen. Mine will keep me company in my sewing room.

Now as I said earlier it was birthday time on Saturday and the family took Keith and I out to lunch on Sunday. They took us to a local inn for a carvery the meal was so large none of us could finish it and pud was definitely not even considered. It took both of us until the next day to feel hungry again.

Keith also bought me from the Quilt Museum these goodies while I was looking at the exhibits and I thought he was sitting in the Members kitchen drinking tea.

I haven't read the books yet, just browsed through them but I know I'm going to enjoy them. And look at the lovely threads I was really surprised and delighted with them especially as we said we weren't going to buy any presents other than those we'd already had. I too cheated though and bought him a 3D Nintendo.

He also made me this sweet litte vase for a single flower (there is a glass tube inside to hold water).

In addition, because it was a special - one of those big O's birthdays for me, a basket of flowers and more flowers from the family. These are just some of them I've now ran out of vases to put them in and they are standing in a bucket. Who was a lucky girl then....

Sorry its been so long

2011-08-29T20:17:00.000+01:00

Again not sure where the time has gone. My son and his finance' have moved into their first home during my 'off' time and naturally we've been helping them. We went to see the exhbition at the Quilt Museum in York and I really loved the "Made in Yorkshire" exhibits. Pity you aren't allowed to take photos. What else have I done while not talking to you well I've finished six hexagon flowers.

These are for the Hex Along (see button on side bar) at Lily's Quilts I thought I'd join in. The centre hexies are supposed to have more of a curve on them, instead they look a bit like baby blocks. Oh well must do better next time.

Three of us decided to make a bird from the 'Artful Bird' book and mine was a Raptor or at least it was supposed to be.

He's sat on my windowsill frightening the moths away.

I've also been making a couple of Tilda dolls, finished one and just got the face to put on the second one which is for my sister.

I got the book for my birthday, along with other things its this one and the one for my sister is in a bathing dress. I'll photograph it tomorrow if I get the chance.

I've decided my 9pm curfew project (9pm being the time I usually give up sewing and Keith gives up his woodturning to actually sit and talk to each other) will be a miniture quilt. I saw the pattern in this month's Magic Patch and is based on foundation blocks. Its a while since I did any foundation work and as all the design side has been done for me I can just sit and sew. Although knowing me I will probably change something.

I've started a new challenge over at Stitching Fingers Surface Design group which was started by Margaret Ramsay some time back. The challenge is to make a wallhanging, one block a month using a different technique in each block and post a photo at the beginning of the following month. At the end of which we should have enough blocks to make a small wallhanging. You are welcome to come and join us.

Last of the postcard swaps

2011-08-12T18:03:00.000+01:00

My last two Oriental Images have arrived from Sue and Lis which I'll show below. I'm taking a break from swapping for a few months to catch up with Xmas bits and bobs and to do other textile things. I want to do more digital imagery and some more digitizing, maybe both together who knows.

For my curfew time I've joined the Hexalong at Lily's Quilts which you can see what its all about from here or from the button on my sidebare. I usually stop whatever I'm doing around 9pm and join dh for the rest of the evening, otherwise we are in danger of not seeing each other as we are both in our different craft areas. So far I've only done plain old hexies but I did try to disect one of the hexies to create a sort of curved baby block only I haven't really made enough of a curve. I've not taken any photos of my hexies so far but will tomorrow and post them later. You can all then have a good laugh at my efforts. Its eons since I made any hexagons but I downloaded the grid paper from Lily's blog.

Oriental fan from Sue Wild and

Kimono from Lis Harwood. Lis's Kimono comes off the card and can be used as a brooch or used somewhere else such as a bag.

I've been busy buying first Leah Day's "From Feathers to Flames" book which can be downloaded and which for this week is reduced. Quilting Arts also had their 2010 Gift book on offer for 1 dime (7p) but I can't find the link again, think I've deleted it in error.

Got to go, fish and chips are ready, speak soon.

Inchies Tutorial

2011-08-10T12:52:00.001+01:00

Okay, here we go, I've not done this before so I hope everyone understands how I made the inchies once I've finished....

My software is Bernina Artista V5 (can't justify the cost of an upgrade). This is not the definitely way of making inchies but to me its the easiest. If you have another software make I'm sure there will be something very similar so this tutorial can be used by you.

Open up a new screen and set your hoop size (I used a large one as I wanted to sew out as many inchies as I could get in one hooping). Set your grid pattern, I made mine 1" so I could draw out the inchies easily.

Select 'fill' and choose which type pattern you want inside your inchies and click on the rectangular tool (highlighted in orange on the left hand side).

Click on the Object Properties page (last in the orange block on the top bar) and select the pattern you want inside your inchies. There are lots to choose from and you can alter the size of the pattern by changing some of the settings - play with them. Click 'apply and ok'. Note: make sure the rectangle box is still selected, if not select it again, sometimes it clears and you don't realise its not active.

Draw a square by using the grid lines. To do this click your mouse point in the corner of one of the grid squares, hold the shift key down and pull your mouse diagonally until the square covers the grid lines. Let go, press enter and your square now has the pattern you chose inside it.

Next stage is to put a border round it so that the whole thing doesn't fall to pieces if you sew it out on a soluble fabric, ask me how I know!

This time change the stitch to 'Outline' and select satin stitch, change the colour so you can see whats happening. Go to the Object Properties page again and change the width of the satin stitch to a small one. I used 0.10in but you can choose whatever you think appropriate. Click OK and draw a box round your pattern square by clicking your mouse in the top left corner and pulling your mouse diagonally until you reach the opposite corner. Press enter and your inchies now have a satin stitch border round them.

At this point you have a choice. If you want your inchies to sew out as one piece, ie all the same colour then you need to group the two squares. To do this press Ctrl A (to select all) and press the group key which is (on my software) at the bottom of the screen 1st one on the left.

If you would like your inchies to have a different coloured border then just save the file and the software will stop once the pattern has been sewn out ready for you to change the colour of the border.

Save your finished inchy, I've saved mine to the usb stick but you can save them directly to a folder if you wish. I forgot to take a screen shot of the finished inchy but you can see what it looked like with the border from this save screen.

I repeated the process to make enough inchies to fit into my hoop then grouped them together and saved as one file.
Have fun and I hope you could follow the tutorial.

Treasure box finished

2011-08-05T14:57:00.000+01:00

My last swap for a while with the Surface Design group is a box for Deb Cragan in Australia. I've decided to dramatically decrease the amount of swaps I do so I can have more time to play and experiment and hopefully do more design work.

First I created the fabric for the box by fmeing in various threads, including some thicker threads in the bobbin. The background was a piece of paper fabric which I'd made some time ago and liked the colours. This was covered with a sheer fabric before I began to sew. Once I was happy that there was enough thread play on the piece I took a heat gun to it to create more texture.

Next I digitised some 'inchies' using Bernina V5 software and sewed them out onto soluble fabric covered with iridescent film. I wanted the inchies to have a gleam of treasure. These are very simple to make and doesn't need digitising skills to create them. If anyone is interested I'll show you how I made them.

Once I'd sewn out a hoopful I separated them and washed out the sabiliser. I quite liked them when they were finished and I might make some more later. Not sure what I'll do with them but I did think they would make a bracelet or a cuff if beads were interspersed between the inchies.

I added some beaded beads I'd made earlier and some beads in toning values to the inchies and this was my treasure for Deb.

I created a cardboard template for the box. I had to keep adjusting it so that all the sides met up properly. Once I'd got a template I liked it was used to cut out the fabric I'd made earlier. I satin stitched round all the pieces then sewed them together to form the box. It was a treasure box so I put a few hot fix gems on the top before closing the lid with a piece of velcro. The latter was intended to keep the box shut and stop the 'treasurers' from falling out en-route to Australia.

Fountains Abbey

2011-08-01T17:20:00.000+01:00

The day was beautiful, sunny but not too humid and on arrival at Fountains Abbey we discovered that it was a 'medieval' weekend.A Medieval camp had been set up on the Abbey Green with all sorts of local skills (medieval times) being demonstrated. Keith was very interested in the weaponry and was shown how a cross bow was made, the different types and uses of bolts (or quarrels) and much to his delight was allowed to handle one. There were people spinning, weaving, making chain mail as well as brewing barley beer (none to test though). In the middle was the camp fire over which several people were slaving away making the camps evening meal. It looked very appetising and we asked if we could join in but health and safety rules don't allow for visitors. Pity. Later in the afternoon there was dancing. At this point I tried to insert a video I'd taken of the dancing but Blogger was taking so long I thought it might have crashed and cancelled it. I'm posting photos instead.

Fountains Abbey is at the bottom of a valley and all you can see from the top is the top of the Abbey tower.

The walk down is fairly steep but when you come to see was small but really exciting and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Pity though that photos weren't allowed. The Focus group had all previously taken photos, drawings etc of the abbey to use as the source for their work. It was surprising how different people approach the same subject. The exhibition was entitled "Focus on Fountains" and many of the pieces were based on the abbey's arche. I hope to use my photos to do something creative later.

Oriental Image postcards

2011-07-29T20:30:00.000+01:00

It's been a strange week, I've been busy but there's little to show for it except this set of cards for my version of Oriental Images.

Omiyage means 'gift' and my Omiyage is loosely attached to the card. She can be taken off and by opening up the back seam and filling it with rice turned into a small paper weight or key fob. I hope the recipients enjoy her.

I've received four Oriental cards from the BQLPC group this week.

All very different images, Sunrise over the Mountain from Jan, Sashiko quilting from Sue, Bonzai from Alice and a wonderful Geisha from Carole.

I've decided to limit my card swaps for the foreseeable future, sadly postage is beginning to hurt a bit when I have several to post overseas. I have one box to make for Debs in Australia and after that I hope to concentrate a bit more on digital art and quilting with the odd UK swap to keep my hand in.

I'm off to Fountains Abbey tomorrow to see the Textile Art show, which finishes on Sunday. I hope to take some photos and perhaps incorporate them into journal pages.

Painted hands, painted nails

2011-07-24T14:08:00.001+01:00

Why is it that despite wearing rubber gloves I still get paint all over my hands and nails? Answer: because I'm stupid enough to take off the gloves when washing the plates, brushes and rollers.

Sewing has gone out of the window recently as I've had the urge to create lino blocks. I love stylized plants and lowers and recently bought Angie Lewin's book "Plants and Places". It gave me the source and inspiration to create lino blocks of stylized grasse. First I tried my hand at drawing a sun, and clover and plantains and carving out a negative block. However, when I printed it out I thought there was too much paint and not enough detail.

So I tried to create a positive lino block by stamping the negative block onto another piece of lino and removed all the blue ink. It took me much longer than I anticipated but I like the effect. Some of the plant details got lost in the cutting as I found it too difficult to leave tiny spikey bits without cutting off the tips.

This piece started off as seed heads with a view to making something for the EG's 'Sewing a Golden Seam' challeng. Or alternatively as an overstamp for one of the pieces of screen printed fabrics I did at Summer School. Not sure now I've finished it what I'll actually do with it - any ideas?

I actually did this lino cut some time back but have only just printed it out onto fabric. I think it would make a good book cover or ......? Alternatively I could mount the block onto a canvas and use it as wall art.

Not sure why Blogger has turned these photos and I don't know of anyway to turn them the right way round now that they've been uploaded.

I've also been playing with Paintshop Pro and Photoshop but the PSP ones are on my laptop so I'll show them another time. I've been concentrating on using adjustment layers together with 'effects' to see what can be done. This one was a soft light adjustment, rainbow gradient that I created and reduced the opacity to 50% and gave it a soft plastic filter.

This one was uses a photo a rose, gradient filter and a photo of Fountains Abby as a displacement map

Got lost in this one and am not sure what steps I took. Apart from framing two layers and using the buttonise filter on both together with dropped shadows. I was aiming for one of those plaster plaques effects that were all the rage many years ago. I know I overlayed two gradients and a photo of lupins up against the shed in our back garden. Apart from that sorry not sure what I did. It was getting late and I was watching a film at the same time.

As for the state of our kitchen, it is all finished, clean and shiney (well almost shiney) and I can now get to the front door without feeling like I've just climbed Everest. Living room is the next one to tackle but I've seen the price of wallpaper so I'm going to do the cheap and cheerful and test out the steam cleaner on the walls. If it looks okay well it'll do another year, if not Keith will have to open his wallet and let the moths out.

Catching up with my postcards

2011-07-17T10:57:00.000+01:00

Last Sunday Keith asked me if we were ever going to decorate the kitchen, it was already two years behind schedule. I was a bit miffed and said yes today. I should have kept my mouth shut because he took me at my word and started boxing up the kitchen ready to decorate. We live in a very small house and the kitchen is the worst room to clear out so for the past week its been a struggle to get to the front door. When I did this pile of goodies awaited me from the BQLPC and Surface Design groups

Deb Cragan's Textured PC card represents Winter Crops. Deb has used ribbons, coloured lace and sari wrap to give a kaleiderscope of colours.

Maria Davis has layered painted fabrics, sheers, stamps together with flowers for her Textured Landscape.

The 'Painted Landscape' swap is one from the Surface Design group and both Sonya Anderson and Becky Aranyi have used similar techniques and colours of layered, stamped and painted surfaces.

Food, we all have our favourites, Rosemary likes coffee, chocolate and strawberry ice cream, while Jacquie craves summer fruits of strawberries, raspberries and cherries.

Michelle Cooper sent a late 'Summer' card but it was well worth waiting for. She calls it her Kentish Summer but its one that is repeated all over the world. Poppies, Rapeseed, green fields of crops shown against a summer sky.

I've been following Margaret Ramsay's (otherwise known as Digital Gran) blog for some time now and love her photos and her digital imagery. So my task today is to go and play with my software as its a while since I did any digital art. I'll show you later what I've done.

Belstead House CQ Summer School weekend

2011-07-11T11:02:00.000+01:00

Not sure what's been happening with Blogger but this is the first time its allowed me to get onto my blog page. So sorry for the delay in showing you some of our CQ activities last weekend but here they are as promised earlier.

We started after dinner on Friday night with designwork to use over the weekend. As a starting point Notan designs were used. Notan as you know is a form of reverse patterning in black and white. These are my efforts, a bit of an effort late Friday as I was quite tired from travelling.

The top one started with one 4" black square, as did the one below but I later used this second design to produce a piece of screen printed fabric.

Some of the designs started as circles, this one I later used the cut out bits as a screen print design but never actually got round to using it. I've brought it home to complete the process. We drew the design onto freezer paper, ironed it onto non-fusible interface, covered the whole thing with emulsion paint. Once it had dried peeled the freezer paper away to make a sort of faux thermofax screen.

This is a dry print of the second design. If you are CQ members you can see the resultant fabric in the Linda Maynard workshop folder on their website. Unfortunately I didn't get round to take a photo.

My blue piece is just above the bottom one, not keen on it and will probably overdye and rescreen it.

This piece we 'blank' printed which basically means you use the screen without any design on it to cover the fabric with dye. It's a great way to cover you fabric quickly with dye. Once it had dried (and it was a lovely sunny weekend so drying wasn't a problem) it, along with the rest of the group's pieces were wrapped in polythene and snuggled up in an electric blanket to 'mature'.

Sunday morning we gave the pieces a wash to get rid of the excess dye, one or two had slight dye loss, all of mine went down the plughole! Although I was under the impression I'd bought cotton sateen it was obviously not cotton as none of the dye stuff stuck to it. Luckily it was the only piece of this fabric that I 'd used that weekend.

I made another piece, this time using cotton poplin but it will have to wait to be discharge printed.

After each printing session the screens had to be washed to get rid of the dye. If its left on the screens to dry it renders them useless.

This is Rose with her lovely piece.

The soda dye buckets were in constant use over the weekend, you should have seen the floor when we finished on Sunday.

Belstead House from the front.

The path down to Belstead Meadows brook, lots of lovely works round here.

The view from our workshop windows, the flowers were beautiful and it was a great place to hang the fabric to dry.

Off to Ipswich in the morning

2011-06-30T22:46:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note really to tell you how excited I'm beginning to feel at going to the Contemporary Quilters Summer School for the first time. There are some names on the workshop lists that I know are extremely tallented and I hope some rubs off on me.

I'm doing a course with Linda Maynard doing dyeing, surface design stuff. For once the requirements list isn't too bad and I've managed to pack all my stuff in the case with my clothes. Just hope I've got enough polythene to wrap up wet fabric when I come home or I could end up with multi-coloured tshirts.

Not got anything to show you today as I've not done any sewing for a few days. My Bernina 830 came back today from Cardiff. I sent it to Edinburgh for servicing and they sent it to Cardiff to be upgraded to the latest model. Not had time to play with it yet so I've got that to look forward to.

Will post pictures of my weekend workshop when I get back.

Food

2011-06-25T10:38:00.002+01:00

I had great difficulty choosing what 'food' was my favourite for this BQLPC swap as I like so many, I'm not a fussy eater. Being diabetic I watch my carbohydrate intake as best I can (well most of the time) but I do have a liking for a biscuit with my morning cuppa, especially if taken in the garden. So my favourite food would have to be something I try to limit, cakes, biscuits, donuts etc. These here are the less fattening variety!!

I created the backgrounds with scraps of fabric in the colours found in my garden. Some have lace on them, some not, that's my try at biscuits on a lace cloth, hmmm. I cut the felt, some bought, some handmade, into circles and had fun decorating them. Bon appetite...

More Tangled Art Dolls

2011-06-21T16:15:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I just have to work through an obsession and I think I'm almost there now with the latest tangled dolls.

I needed something to hang the dollies from and display them at the same time so I drew a picture
of what I needed and Keith bravely set off and made this for me. I'm really pleased with it, didn't he do well.

All the dolls have slightly differing bodies, I basically drew a rough shape on thin card, folded it in half and tried to cut out a symetrical shape. To be on the safe side though when I drew out the shape onto fabric I marked the card F for front and B for back just in case there was a slight difference and they wouldn't fit together properly. Once I had the shape transferred onto fabric I drew the strings and filled in the spaces with patterning. I started off with a black Micron pen (00.5) and filled in with coloured Micron pens (0.5).

I then sewed round the doll shape and cut it out leaving a seam allowance, clipped the allowance where the lines curved for a smooth shape and stuffed them tightly. Once I'd done that I sewed up the gap I'd left so I could stuff the doll and started to add decoration.

This was the thinnest one and to be honest if I were to make a second one I'd widen the neck a little as it was a real pain to stuff the head the neck was so narrow.

This one you've seen before but I thought I'd add it as its now on the stand with the others.

We went to Leeds on Saturday where we were taken out to lunch for Father's Day by Marc and Alix. I know it wasn't until Sunday but we were going to Sy and Julies for Father's Day dinner. While we were there Alix took me to The Skep at Farsley which is a fairly new knitting and patchwork shop. There I bought several metres of Benetex fabrics for a lot less than I could have got them locally. So now I'm in the throws of cutting out a quilt top. Pictures to follow once I have something other than fabric to show.

Bumper set of cards have arrived over the past few days.

2011-06-18T20:59:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd not bore you with more photos of holidays but show you what has been sent to me by hardworking swappers. I've not done a very good job of sorting them into group themes and apologise for that but all the work has been done by members of Surface Design and the BQLPC Group.

These two cards have been made by Pauline Mackenzie the top one 'Painted Card' and the bottom "Textured Landscape" Both cards have painted background and Pauline's 'Painted Card' also has painted puff paint for texture.

These two cards are from different groups, I really should not have scanned them together but I was getting tired and wanted my supper. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

The top card is really something, click on it to enlarge it and have a look how creative Miki Rodriquez is. She lives in Arizon and decided to create her set of cards based on the landscape near her home over a 24 hour period. Each of the swappers got a different time frame. Mine was 12:00am and represents "drizzle" with cacti, insects and tumbleweed. I hope the other swappers post photos of their cards I'd love to see the set together.

The second card is from Alice Gray and is also very creative. It represents the "Simmer Dim" , the standing stones in Orkney when the stars come out but it never gets really dark.

Another Summer Solstice card but this one represent the orbit round earth at the time of the solstice.

This cards by Avril.

Two 'foodie' cards now by Plum and Janet Boorman. These represent their favourite food, Plum obviously likes sweeties and Janet Strawberries and cream. Our strawberries have taken a bit of a battering from the wind and rain we've been having recently.

Two more "Coast" cards this time from Cindy Mott and Carol Jamieson. Cindy shows the sunset over the sea and Carol has been very inventive with bits and pieces. This is another card worthy of a closer look.

Now for my "Painted Card" set. I'm really not an artist but I did enjoy creating the tangled landscapes.

I found out that it's better to paint the background then do the tangling - ask me how I know!!! I ended up having to redraw all the tangles...... I used Copic pens to paint the fabric and Micron pens to draw the tangling. I discovered that a .005 was best for the outlines then either a .01 or .05 for filling in. I did try to use the Faber & Castell Pitt pens, the finest one S worked fine but anything larger bled a bit. It could be due to the fabric I used,some old sheeting that had been givne to me by a friend. I must say that I find it usually takes paint, inks, pens anything in fact that I like to throw at it very well as its been very well washed over the years. Just hope she has some more to left to play with.

If anyone wants a photo of a Spitefire - I've got one.....

2011-06-17T15:26:00.001+01:00

We spent last weekend in Lincolnshire visiting a woodworking show in Spalding then we went to Cambridge to visit the Imperial War Museum. Keith's weekend out....... Actually I enjoyed the museum and the spitefire (picture above) was just about to take off. It was one of the privately owned military planes housed on the airfield. Below is one you might remember from the film -"Memphis Belle" It was a static exhibit, not an airworthy one like the spitefire.

One of the hangers housed the land warfare exhibits, here's Keith with a Tiger Tank. Picture is a bit blurry due to the lighting.

The ops room as it was on D Day.

But this was my favourite plane.

The woodworking show turned out to be rather small and by lunchtime we'd been round it four times so decided to spend the rest of the day by the sea at good old Skegness

We had doughnuts and coffee joined by a couple of friends. The sun stayed out for us and all in all it was a good weekend.

I've actually got down to doing some more work

2011-06-07T20:26:00.000+01:00

Not a lot but a little. Well at least that's a start. I've really found it difficult to get my butt in motion since my holidays. Ideas just haven't been flowing and all I've really wanted to do is sleep. That seems to be in the past now and my muse is beginning to wake and shake me. I've completed the Textured Landscape swap for Surface Design and will post them tomorrow.

The backgrounds are handmade felt, one felted knitting yarns (grey) and the others felted wool tops. I felted them further on my embellisher and added a few embroidered items. The stone walls are made from painted Tyvek which was then wrinkled with a heat gun. Keith had given me an old Tyvek coverall and I had great fun cutting it up and playing with it. It's a while since I did that and it felt good.

Next Monday is our Dippy Day where 6 of us get together to play and have fun. We're having a tangling day. I've been into zentangles for a while now and I'm going to show the others how to have fun. One of the projects for Monday is to make a little Tangled Art Doll and this is my sample. It didn't take long and it could become an obsession as I intend to make several more. The photos show back and front of my little doll.

While the name Zentangle is the property of Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas (check out their website here ) people have been doing similar doodles for centuries. Just look at the carvings on stones and patterns found in nature. Fractals such as ferns are particularly good tangles.

I'm going to Spalding on Thursday for a few days, Keith wants to go to the woodworking show there and to visit the Imperial War Museum near Cambridge. As he's very good a taking me where I want to go its his turn now. I'll be taking along my tangling kit and hope to be creative. I'll show you what I do when I get back.

Meanwhile the postman has been busy again. Deb Cragan's Textured Landscape is a collage of items and very effective too. It looks better in real like than my poor scanning.

These two beauties are from Pauline Mackenzie in Australia. Pauline is obviously an artist just look at her painted card (top) and her Textured Landscape (bottom) she has a great eye for colour.

Back to tangling I bought Yoga for the Brain - A Zentangle Workout by Sandy Steen Bartholomew. It's not only full of patterns but some really great ideas and a book I would recommend. I'm taking it away with me.

A few more holiday photos

2011-06-03T20:06:00.000+01:00

This time from the Alhambra Palace in Granada. It is a truly wonderful place and well worth a visit if you ever in Granada. The photos speak for themselves, the stucco work is beautiful and quite well preserved where people haven't continually touched it. The tilework was very similar to that we'd seen in Morocco and again reminded me of quilts.

There are fountains down the length of this pool but they weren't playing the day we were there.

The views from the windows in the Palace are spectacular and you can see the length of the wall that protected it from the outside.

More examples of stucco and tile work.

The gardens stretched for acres and were a series of small rooms, some sunny, others cool all peaceful.

This little boy was talking to the fish and they were coming to talk to him, or perhaps they thought he would feed them.

I've done a little sewing since I got back, the first card is based on Summer Solstice and is supposed to be Stonehenge with the sun just rising and a Druid. I really should have turned him to look at the rising sun and if I had it would have been a lot easier, durr....

This card is based on "Coast" and is of an area of beach not far from where I live. We often take Buster down here to run along the beach and chase the waves. You frequently see wind surfers of people flying kites as there is normally a breeze even on the calmest day.

goodies received

2011-05-28T14:24:00.000+01:00

I've received a whole boatload of goodies over the past few days and have at last got round to scanning them so I can show them to you.

The first six cards are from the Surface Design groups 'May Blossom' swap.

I love May Blossom the cow with her bell, unfortunately it stuck up a bit when I scanned the card so there is a darkening of this card, which is from Pauline. The beautiful bird is from Lesley which is handpainted and finished with machine stitches. Carole has appliqued a branch and and embroidered blossom onto it.

Irene's card also has painted the background on which she has sewn some pretty flowers on, I think created on a soluble fabric, very effective they are too. Jan and Jacquie both depict flowers in different ways. Jan's are stamped, painted and quilted, Jacquie has made use of printed fabric and photo printed fabric of blossoms plus a rather lovely stamp enhanced with a bee button.

This card is again one of the Surface Design swaps with the theme of 'Coast'. The card is from Pauline who has painted the background sky and used puff paint rocks and embellished the whole with hand dyed fabrics and topped of with hand embroidered flowers.

One last swap, again with SD this one 'Art Dolls' The top doll is from Debs and made from a tiny glass bottle. The second doll is from Pauline and has beautiful moulded arms and face.

Last, but not least my QuiltGallery basket swap arrived all the way from Oslo, made for me by Anne Kari Holli. It's a lovely bag, really sturdy just the right size for me to take to workshops with my lunch packed it it. I love the faux quilting she has done on this bag. It's made from strips of fabric sewn then attached to the bag by sewing them down the centre in a criss-cross fashion. After that she has further defined the pattern by embroiderying large cross stitches in the centre of each section. I rather like this idea and hope she won't mind if I use it myself sometime in the future.

More holiday snaps

2011-05-21T13:45:00.001+01:00

Did I say we'd been to a Potter's in Fez. Well I'll show you the piccies we took whilst there. The first two are of the labourers building a new kiln with mud, dung and sand.

Add caption

The worker at the top is covering the kiln in the 'plaster' the previous worker made.

Under the table the potter is moving the wheel by means of a wooden pedal and a piece of string wrapped round a pole, bit like an early lathe.

The pots are laid in the sun to dry but they must not get too hot or they will crack.

Once they've been dried and fired in the kiln they are ready to be hand painted. All the patterns are drawn on by hand. This young lady is one of the few women allowed to work in these premises and is a very skilled worker. The youngest pattern maker is only 13 years old, the nephew of the proprierter. They have very steady hands.

Examples of their handwork it is absolutely beautiful and so painstakingly done.

They also make tessellated fountains for gardens from the broken pieces.

Do they remind you of quilt patterns?

This young man is learning from a master craftsman (sat behind him). They create the patterns upside down so its important he picks up a piece from the correct basket.

Finally the salesman who was trying very hard to sell us a portable fountain, yes all of these fountains have two wheels at the back so you can move them round your garden or home.

I bought a tangine with a Fez Blue design on it. I probably could have got one cheaper at home but was so impressed with the amount of work they put into making everything I bought one from them.

If you are wondering, we missed the bomb on the Jamaa El Fna Square, it went off two days before we were due to go on holiday. While in Morocco we did meet with several student protests but nothing serious. We were supposed to go to Tetoune but as there was a student uprising there we were taken to Mekness which meant we visited all five imperial cities in Morocco.

Back Again

2011-05-18T17:54:00.000+01:00

Typical thin horse this one has just off-loaded its cargo and is much better fed than some of those in the souks.

We got back from Morocco in the early hours and its taken me well over 24 hours to recover and download my photos onto my pc. These are a few of the many taken while in Morocco. I'll post more later.

Street stalls in Meknes en-route to our hotel.

The 'mens wear department' of the souk. This square is much bigger, cleaner and lighter than anywhere else.

Decoration on one of the many entrances to the souks in Fez.

The labyrinth of lanes inside the souks in Fez were very narrow, often dark and riddled with skinny cats.

As a comparison this is the entrance hall of our hotel in Fez.

Dyers in the tannery. The day we called in the smell was bad but better than it had been a few days before when the refilled the vats. Men splodge about in the mud tubs and scrunch the leather into the dye vats with their feet. A bit like treading grapes only they smell worse.

These sacks are full of raw wool. People pay for the wool a bit at a time until they have enough to fill a mattress. The wool comes complete with fleas so each year the mattresses are dismantled, the wool spreadout across the floor and the wives deflea it and sew it all back up again.

One thing we saw constantly in Morocco were Storks nesting anywhere up high. Here they are on a building site.

Some of the shops outside the souks, this one is a tangine and plate sellers.

IT bits and pieces anyone? This is in the Mellah, the old Jewish quarter market.

More tomorrow, got to go and sort out dinner.

One that got away

2011-04-28T21:29:00.000+01:00

How many times have you set off the washing machine and halfway through the final rinse you come across an 'escapee', usually a sock. Well I've found an escapee from the EG postcard project so before I leave for foreign parts I'd better pop it up to show:

Here is Jenny's 'Giraffe and Acacia tree at sunset'. She has used a piece of her hand-dyed fabri,c added silhouettes and them embellished with machine embroidery. I have one more card yet to come in but it won't be ready before we go away so it will have to wait until a later date.

We're all packed, the cases are by the front door, the carry-ons are also packed and I've dug out a large tote to carry all my bits and pieces for the journey. Sorted out some sewing to occupy my hands while we travel, filled up my ipod with books I haven't yet read, and a paperback just in case and packed sandwiches in case we get peckish. We leave in a few hours (04:05am) so I'm going to have a shower and try and get a couple of hours sleep.

The news tonight wasn't too promising with a bomb going off in a cafe in Marakesh, one of our stops in Morocco. Never mind I'm not going to worry about it. Speak when we get back around mid May with, hopefully, lots of things to show you.

Two more days and we're off to foreign parts

2011-04-26T19:34:00.000+01:00

At first light, well actually before first light!!, we're off to Spain and Morocco and won't be back until around the 20th May when I hope to have lots of piccies to show you. In the meantime I've been trying hard to get all my commitments finished and in the post. This is what I've been up to inbetween trying to organise the packing of clothes etc for three weeks away.

Not made the teddy that stays at home but the Easter Basket is for Wendy part of the Quilting Gallery swap, you can see all the other baskets here on their Flickr site.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1445124@N20

Next are my little art dolls for Pauline and Debs who swapped with me on Surface Design group. I made the felt previously and cut out a rough heart shape with a head, buttonholed/blanket stitched them together and embroidered them. The faces and feet are ArtGlitz charms.

Now for two cards from Dayle in Australia with home I did an ingredient swap. Not sure which one I like the most and was surprised at the amount of bits an pieces I sent her she'd managed to incorporate.

One thing left to do before we go and that's to work out how to make an insulated cover for my insulin pens to keep them cool while travelling. I may get another posting in before we leave but if not I'll see you all mid May.

EG Olympic Postcard Project

2011-04-21T14:16:00.000+01:00

Not sure how many Embroidery Guilds in the UK are doing the Olympic Postcard project but ours is and these are the cards produced by our members. Each guild was given a 'participating country' which was chosen by picking a name out of a hat system. Darlington EG was paired with Uganda and I got the dubious honour of co-ordinating the project for our guild. My first thoughs on being told we'd got Uganda was Idi Amin, Aids, brutality to women, gorillas. Not very inspiring but further research showed me a beautiful country with rain forests, abundant birds, beasts and flora. The one stipulation of the project was that the flag of 'your chosen' country must be the first postcard on the strip. Each strip is between 9 and 15 cards long. Each card is 6" x 4", laced onto archival board, backed and signed and dated. These are the cards made by our members, Marigold Kelly, Linda Doughty, Joan Bainbridge, Pat Camburn, Carole Wilson and myself.

I'm sure you'll agree they are all very different and "didn't they do well".

My new sewing table

2011-04-17T18:13:00.001+01:00

Keith has been busy in my sewing room again after I saw this on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CrazyShortcutQuilts#p/u/40/g14govA4pIM

I've been complaining for some time now, well ever since my 830 wouldn't fit in my Horn cabinet, that I missed the flat sewing surface. Buying another cabinet capable of taking the larger, heavier machines was out of the question. So after we watched this video we made a quick trip to B&Q and Wilks for the materials and this is the result.

Table as seen from the back, notice we have left enough room for ventilation. Also we couldn't get the wider insulation into the car so had to settle for smaller blocks taped together with gaffer tape.

On the front there is a removable piece so I can change the bobbins easily. Previously I had to remove the table each time I wanted to change bobbin thread because I couldn't see what I was doing with it on. Now changing bobbin thread is easier as lifting out the front piece leaves it easy for me to see everything.

This is the piece that fits in front of the machine. I have about 7.5" of space between the front of the table and the needle. I am still sitting at the same height as before. Begin vertically challenged Keith chopped off a bit of the table legs so I was sewing at a comfortable height. But the new 'infill' gives me a wider sewing surface and allows me to rest my arms on the table to quilt, much less strain on the old neck and arms.

We had to use four insulation boards in all, two on the bottom and two on the top. Drawing round the machine for the base boards and round the machine arm for the top boards. The insulation foam is easy to cut with a serated knife but you have to remember when you draw out the pattern which way is the top!! We nearly cut the arm piece with the curve going the wrong way!! It's very sturdy but light and can easily be removed and propped up somewhere else when I want to use the embroidery unit.

I covered the whole table with heavy duty plastic that I'd bought some time back to make bags etc. I cut a hole where the needle and feed dogs went and was surprised to find the plastic stayed in place and acted a bit like my Supreme Slider making it easy to free machine. I'm very pleased with the outcome, it may not look pretty but it works.

April and May Journal Pages

2011-04-15T16:07:00.000+01:00

More tangled journal pages, April's is a fantasy bug (Tanglebug) using Acrylic Inks for the colouring in bits. The background fmq is supposed to represent the blossom the 'Tanglebug' is getting nectar from. You may have to use your imagination!! May is more straight forward tangle, 'Bloomin Tangle 2'. This time I doodled on the fabric and used the fabric to applique petals and fmq'd the background in wandering leaves.

Last weekend we went to the Threadbangers' (local Quilt Group of which I'm not a member) first quilt show. This was being held in a local village hall and when we got there there were Morris Dancers on the Green. It was a lovely show, small but the quilts were varied and well made. There were a couple of traders and plenty of small sewing related items for sale. They made over £2000 for the Help for Heros charity. Well done Threadbangers. One item which I loved was a quilted Wendy house made by the group. . Here are some photos.

Morris Dancers outside of the Inn

Village Hall where the Quilt show was held.

Quilted Wendy House.

I've been meaning to show you these monoliths for some time now and keep forgetting. Every time we go to Boroughbridge for 'woody things' for Keith we pass them.

They are called the 'Devil's Arrows' and are prehistoric but the reason why three should be stood in a row (one on one side of the road the other two in a field on the other side of the road) is anybodys guess.

These are the second and third monoliths, time and tide have taken their toll on the height of these two. The second one in this photo is not very clear, its beside the large tree.

Two weeks to go and we're off on holiday. This is our Ruby Wedding anniversary treat, it should have been last year but it got postponed due to Marc and Alix's wedding. We are heading for Marrakesh in Morroco by way of France and Spain stopping off at points along the way. On the way back we will be calling at Madrid as I've always wanted to see the Alhambra. Hope to get some good photos to share.

Off now to finish my last two swaps before my hols and tackle the dust bunnies.

March JP - Primeval Tangle

2011-04-06T13:48:00.000+01:00

I wanted to continue with the Zentangle theme for my March JP but this time on a black background. The
fern-type leaves were my 'strings' which I drew freehand then drew the patterning inside of each leaf. Next step was to outline the pattern and the leaves. I dithered a bit about whether or not I should pattern each section within the leaves but in the end decided to try out some new paints. Keith had bought some Jo Sonja pearlescent paints for wood and I'd seen these paints advertised as suitable for fabric so 'borrowed' them from him. He might not get them back.... I think the paint is a bit thick and I should have watered it down a bit but wasn't sure whether it would bleed if I did. Still its done now.

Next couple of photos are close-ups of parts of the journal page.

I have deliberately not join many swaps this year as I want to do other things but one I did join was an 'Ingredient Swap' with the Surface Design group. I received a package of bits and pieces from Dayle in Australia from which to make a card and post it back to her. This is the ingredients and the card I've made from them.

Sunday gone (3rd April) was Mothering Sunday here in the UK and my eldest son Marc wanted to take me out for lunch. He was again though in the Lake District having taken part in a triathlon on the Saturday and wanted us to go to Keswick. Well I love the ride over the moors to the Lake District so we agreed.

On the way over we saw this strange cloud with a rainbow centre. The rainbow was much brighter than the photo as I had to take it through the car windscreen which as you all know have UV shields built in them. As you can see from the photo below the sky was blue, just this one dark cloud with a rainbow.

Marc and Alix had booked lunch for us at the Horse & Farrier Inn, built in 1688 and retaining many of its old features. If anyone is in the area, the Inn is actually at Threkeld, they do a lovely meal at a reasonable price. At the end of the meal all the ladies were presented with a small bunch of daffodils which was a lovely touch.

Me and Marc outside the Inn just before leaving for home.

I'm off now to make a start on my April JP which I hope to show you soon. At the moment I don't have any idea of what I'm going to do.

Back on-line again

2011-03-30T16:33:00.000+01:00

You wouldn't believe the amount of work a new pc can cause. My laptops have both been giving me problems for a while now, one very old Dell displays the picture as though the screen was hour-glass shaped. The other one doesn't like to talk to the internet, it is very temperamental as to whether or not it will find our network. It finds everyone else's but struggles with ours. In the end I decided to go for a desktop rather than laptop as I tend to use it in my workroom all the time and don't take it anywhere. So Yesterday it arrived and I thought what a good idea it would be if I just moved my usual work place to the other side of the room!!!! My dh and ds spent last night and most of this morning removing units and relocating plugs, wires etc. I am under pain of death to move it again. But at last I'm up and running and still getting used to Windows 7. I will keep one of my laptops as my Version 6 of the Bernina software won't work on Windows 7 correctly and the cost of upgrading to ver 7 is out of the question.

So what have I done since last we spoke, not a lot really. I'm in the process of finishing my March Journal Page, another Zentangle one, this time black with painted bits. I'll show you later what it looks like. Apart from that I've done a bit of walking much to the distress of my poor arthritic toes but they need the exercise.

We went to Farndale on the North York Moors to see the daffodils but when we got there they weren't out yet. Spring reaches those parts later than anywhere else.

These were the only daffs we found.

Friday we took Buster for a walk along the dismantled railway line from Mickleton in Teesdale to Romaldskirk - about 2 miles each way. It was a lovely Spring day and Buster was very keen to see the Black Sheep.

When we got to Romaldskirk we stopped at the village inn for a drink, Buster has finished his.

The village was inhabited in Roman times and there are still stocks on The Green from medieval times.

The old church stands at the other end of The Green. The walk back was harder due to our muscles stiffening up after sitting in the sun outside the inn. Buster didn't complain though he could have turned round and gone back again!!

Yes I am still alive

2011-03-13T16:48:00.000Z

I've just been hibernating now that the cold has returned. Actually I've had a bit of a head cold and not done much at all. My mad splurge last month has tired me out, oh dear!!! But I have caught up with the Accuquilt blocks and have photographed them, well sort of they all seem a bit skewed but you'll get the idea.

They are all 12"squares not odd sizes as the photos shows. I enjoyed making them and have been quite impressed with the Accuquilt Go. Problem is I got a bit carried away and ended up with lots more 3" triangles than I needed so if I don't use them at the end of this BOM I'll have to find something else to do with them.

One other thing I got round to doing was to make a Linus Quilt from old tshirts. I cut off the sleeves and separated the backs and fronts then cut 6"squares and sewed them together with my overlocker. I overlocked the border edges before putting the border on. The back, border and flowers are made from some blue fleece I bought a while back to make a sweatshirt for dh and never got round to making.

This is a close up of the squares and flowers.

The next thing to finish is March's journal page but my mind is a blank at the moment.

Missing ZentangleJP from yesterday

2011-02-22T12:54:00.000Z

I realised after I'd blogged yesterday that I'd missed one of the JP so here it is.

Also round 7 (I think) of Kate North's SAHRR - her instructions were to embroidery or applique something on the quilt top.

Ihaven't as yet photographed the BOM's but hope to do so later today and will blog about them then.

Been taking a break from blogging and housework

2011-02-21T17:09:00.000Z

I've been tangling - I started my February Journal Page for the Contemporary Quilters' challenge and couldn't stop tangling. I sewed the outline of flower petals and filled in the spaces with Zentangles. The corners and non-petal edges of each JP are different, depending upon the whim of my muse at the time of creating. I got a bit carried away and before I knew what I'd done I'd made four JP's. As you are only supposed to make one a month I may have to do something else for March, April and May to comply with the rules.

So here they are, all four panels, not very well photographed but good enough I think to let you get a feel for my 'Bloomin Tangled' journal pages.

I've also been making up the block of the Month on the Accuquilt Go site. These are very traditional blocks and so far I've finished nine of them which I'll show later.

CQ Journal Page Challenge 2011

2011-02-07T20:53:00.000Z

I've learned from past challenges that I work better when I have something I want to do or a theme I want to play with. A while ago I did a Zentangle swap and since then have had a hankering to do something with them. But until now that's as far as it got. I've been doddling zentangles in my sketchbook for the past couple of weeks. I thought it was time I put my thinking cap on and try to make some of my tangles into journal quilts. So that's my personal challenge for 2011, at least for the next four months. Here are some of my scribbles:

They are very simple to do, all you need to start making tangles is a piece of paper, a pencil and a pen such as a Micron 01 or ultra fine Sharpie. Using the pencil put a dot in each corner of the page and join them up, don't worry about being neat if they are wonky it adds character. Then take your pencil for a walk (called a string) to divid up your square (or rectangle). Here's where the fun begins, using the pen start adding pattern to each section. That's all there is to it. If you want to see more try Zentangles or google 'zentangle', Amazon have several books on the subject by Suzanne McNeill which are relatively cheap.

Don't worry if your line goes outside the box these can be borders, fringes, flowers. The term Zentangle (which is a noun not a verb by the way) was coined by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts, who is an ex monk. It's a form of art meditation. By that I mean you get so engrossed you loose yourself in it. Give it a go, have fun and chill out at the same time.

I've been practising turning my tangles into quilt tiles the one above is a 5"tile which I tried putting a bit of colour onto. The one below will is the prototype for February's Journal Page and so is 10". I wanted to see just how much a challenge I had taken on. I've started with some of the easier tangles to interpret but there are several that will be either impossible, at least for me, or difficult to quilt. This one is a quarter of a flower each month the petal and corners will be different and I hope when hung together will harmonise into a whole.

I ended up sewing the outlines and colouring some of the patterns using a black Sharpie. As you can see the quilting leaves a lot to desire but I need a lot more practise. This is going to be a real challenge but enjoyable I think.

The Sketchbook Challenge this month is 'Opposites' I did think of saying my tangles were opposite because they were done in black and white. I am going to do one on black paper with a white pen and then I might just change my mind and sketch something completely different.

Work in Progress

2011-01-24T16:26:00.002Z

I've been quite busy over the past few working on my sketchbooks. I'm not very good as I really can't draw but I hoping that if I keep trying maybe....... One thing I forgot to mention in my last posting was that the Sketchbook Challenge has a monthly theme and January's was "Highly Prized". I realised that I hadn't said in my sketchbook what it was that I prize highly - its freedom to move. Over the past couple of years as you will no doubt be aware Keith has had real problems walking. The op on his back has worked really well and now he can walk almost as far as I can It's not ntil you loose the ability to get about without pain that you appreciate the freedom to move. Walk in the woods is a symbole of mobility.

Now for some scribbles:

Just playing, the sun was out and I had been out tidying the rubbish in the garden.

Our guild has drawn Uganda as its country for the Olympic Postcard Project and I've been tasked with co-ordinating the project. I found out that Uganda has lions that can climb trees.

I came into the room to find Buster asleep, yet again and thought what a life he has, eating, sleeping, playing, walking and guarding his people and terrorising the local cats. No wonder my Mum always maintained that she wanted to be reincarnated as a lap dog.

Since I saw the Sarah Vedeler quilt at the FOQ on the Quilt Direct stand I've lusted after her designs but unfortunately they are way out of my pocket money league. Then I had a 'what if' moment. Could I do something similar, obviously not copy her designs but digitize embroidery to match some of the dies I have with my Accuquilt GO cutter. So after many hours of making mistakes I finally managed to produce a design that will fit on the middle sized GO heart. On the right you can see the design sewn out onto fabric and on the left (blue) you can see it embroidered on an applique heart using the die cutter. I used the wrong thread weight on the appliqued shape but now I've got the hang of things I'm going to have another go at digitizing other GO shapes.

Two beautiful cards arrived over the last few days from the Surface Design Group. First one (above) is from Normal Riehm called Winter Storm. The second one (below) is a mixed media piece from Deb Cragan and has just about every technique you can think of.

Finally this is for Keith's friend Dave who I know reads my blog. Thank you Dave for helping Keith with the electrics in his 'shed' and sorry the roof kept banging your head, next time we'll lower the floor.

Well I've done it now

2011-01-19T20:06:00.000Z

I've signed up for the Sketchbook Challenge, see button on sidebar for details. I keep a journal when travelling, mainly because I forget where we've been and seen unless I write it down. I also try to do a bit of art journaling but not very successfully. Each year I tell myself I WILL keep a sketchbook, I used to when I was doing C&G but then got out of the habit. I can't draw two sides of a bottle the same shape but I thought have a go, what have I to loose but my dignity and I don't have much of that. I have done several pages and none of them are very good. I started by spray dyeing the pages with Arondack Colour Wash, some pages were sprayed over templates others just to take the blank look off them.

I've also received a bumper crop of postcards today, the first two are the 'Handstitched' theme cards from Surface Design.

Love this simple card from Francoise who says her unkempt garden was her inspiration.

Dayle who is new to the group, made this simple but striking card by embellishing the background fabric.

The last two are 'New Beginnings' the one above is from Helen in Hume and is of Janus, RomanGod of doorways new New Starts, very apt. Helen has printed it onto tshirt fabric I think and added sequins in different shapes.

This last card is from Jan Simmons who said that the Koru is a traditional Maori design which represents the fern frond. As the fern frond opens it brings new life and purity to the world. Jan has felted the 'fern' onto a printed/stamped background.

Our house is a pigsty at the moment as Keith has filled it with wire, plugs and all sorts of different electrical bits and bobs. For tomorrow Keith and his friend are putting a permanent electricy supply to his 'shed' rather than running an extension which is what he has been doing. I think tomorrow I might go into town out of the way.

Been watching some qilting videos on Ebony Love's web site. Ebony uses the Accuquilt Go cutters in her quiltmaking and has several showing how to use them, her site is well worth a visit though for everyone interested in quilting. Her blog is also very enjoyable and can be found here.

BQLPC Postcards

2011-01-16T23:04:00.001Z

Keith went off to his woodworking club on Saturday and came back with a large pizza cutter. He actually only made the handle but we don't eat pizza very often so I'll have to buy one so we can use it. While he was out I made a start on the January swaps I'd put my name down for on BQLPC.

Music is the first swap with BQLPC I used a machine embroidery pattern of a bookmark and turned it into am embroidered tile for the middle of the card. Not a lot of skill really but it took ages to sew out and by the time I'd done three I wish I'd done something else. My brother used to sing in the church choir and I remember going to hear him sing a solo once, it made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. He still sings with a group but its R&B now.

My second and last swap this month was again with BQLPC with a theme of New Beginnings. My interpretation is the 'Race' for a new beginning with the smallest and largest cells in the human body. On the address side I've put a clipart of a baby to indicate that the race was won and a 'new beginning' has begun. I cut a circle, bonded it then quilted it, cut out sperm cell heads appliqued them down then using a zigzag stitch made their tails.

Alice Gray's interpretation of 'new beginnings' is this rather fetching bulb. Alice has painted the centre and round the sides are embroidered the word 'Spring'.

The Winter themed swap on Surface Design Yahoo Group also brought lots of different interpretations. This snow globe was made by Sue Cox. Inside the globe are a pair of ice skates and clear crystal beads turning the globe into a shaker card.

Block 7 of SHRR

2011-01-13T21:08:00.000Z

I received two postcards this morning, the first 'Handstitched' from Pauline and the second 'New Beginnings from Liz. My 'Handstitched went out yesterday but I have yet to finish my 'New Beginnings'.

One thing I have finished is Block 7 of Kate North's 'Stay at Home Round Robin' It's not quite to Kates stated dimensions and I hope she forgives me for that. We had to make three blocks, two 5" x 5" and one 5" x 6". All three of mine are 5"x6". That is due to the fact that my quilt top is slightly out and would have needed drastic trimming to fit the given sizes. I think this is the last block and further instructions will be given for quilting/embellishing etc next month. I look forward to seeing what Kate has in mind.

We were sick of being in the house today and I fanced a trip to my 'local' quilt shop to see what was new. The trip takes us close to the North York Moors. Today even though everything was sort of colourless green/brown they still give me a lift.

These are actually the Hambleton Hills on the outer edge of the moors.

I love the trees at this time of the year. The leaves may have all gone but now you can see how beautiful the tree skelton is. Again a backdrop of the moors but this time nearer the Cleveland Hills.

A well know spot on the NY Moors is Roseberry Topping just outside of Guisborough where my quilt shop is situated. Every time we go past the colours are different. Joe Cornish, a local photographer has some absolutely stunning photos of Roseberry Topping, I just wish mine came within a hairs breath of his.

What I did on holiday

2011-01-12T19:58:00.000Z

What I did on holiday....
I was taking part in a 'handstitched' swap on Surface Design so took fabric to do the middle bits on these three above. The top one is based on buttonhole stitch, the reddish one on the left is based on cast-on stitch and the one on the right bullion knots.

Did I tell you we had a name change while in Ireland? Well the locals called us Han-nut and Keet and after a while everyone was calling us that. Now we're back home we back to Annette and Keith though.

Bought a small heater today for my workroom. There is a radiator in the room but the low temperatures we've been having recently it was too cold to work in the room. Now I have the extra heating the temperature has risen to 11C. Mind I can't blame the cold for my lack of creativity, my creative fairy must not have liked the cold either for I've done absolutely nothing for days now. Tomorrow though I've freed up almost a whole day to play so we'll have to see what happens.

A few more Irish photos

2011-01-11T12:48:00.001Z

I can hear you saying "that's not an Irish photo" but Buster was born in Ireland so I think it counts. Buster watching cats on the telly.

We were surprised at the number of yellow houses until we were told they were painted the 'papal yellow' for the pope's visit. We found one that wasn't yellow though.

New Years day we went for a tour of the Beara Pennisula via the mountain road. This is the County Cork side.

Viewing platform at the top

And down the other side into County Kerry. I'm sure its beautiful in the sun.

We stopped off at the Leprechaun Inn for a drink on the way back.

Keith wanted to take the beer pump home but the driver said he couldn't as everyone would want one and there wasn't room.

I bet you think I haven't done any sewing recently, well you'd be almost right but not completely. I did take some to do while on the ferry. Three and a half hours is a long time with nothing to play with. Tomorrow I'll show you what I did.

One thing I have done though is join the mug rug swap on the Quilting Gallery its open until 18th January if anyone wants to join in.

Happy New Year and what is 2011 going to bring

2011-01-08T23:18:00.000Z

We spent New Year in Southern Ireland, at one point I wasn't sure whether I would feel well enough to go but I was and did. In one respect its a pity my first visit was at this time of the year. You know how it is, after the snow comes the muck and unfortunately that's what we saw - the detrius of weather. It's the sleeping time of year where life is under the surface leaving the surface a bit dreary and that's what we saw. Having said that the hotel was lovely, the food was great and plentiful and the people were lovely, friendly and warm in their welcome. Perhaps we'll go again when the sun shines.

This is our holiday hotel, the Eccles in Glengarriff in South West Cork.

The view of Bantry Bay from our hotel window

There were plenty of birds to be seen on the seashore.

We thought we might go and have a look round the village one morning so we started from the dead centre.

We soon found our directions

to the nearest point of interest

On the way back we were fascinated watching the fishermen putting one of their boats into the water. It had to be lifted off dry land and over the blue boat.

I should tell you that Santa brought me a new camera a Fuji T300 XTR with a much bigger zoom than my panasonic. Only problem came when I tried to upload my photos but I've solved that now and tomorrow I'll post some more photos of our holiday.

Done nothing for the last couple of weeks

2010-12-23T22:07:00.000Z

The reason for my inactivity is I've been quite ill in bed for over a week. New meds for diabetes really messed me up and after several hospital/GP visits I'm finally on the med (minus the new meds). The medication (new to me but one in general use) severely irritated the whole of my digestive system that it was thought I'd developed Crohnes disease (just what I wanted before Xmas!!). Hopefully I should feel much better before we go to Ireland on Wednesday. The only place I thought I was going was the hospital!!!
As a consequence I've done very little sewing but will make an effort once we get back from Ireland. Been all over the world but never been to Ireland so really looking forward going.

Buster isn't keen on the Christmas tree, the twinkling lights keep waking him up but tomorrow I hope to feel fit enough to bake him a batch of biscuits to cheer him up. I bought a special bone shaped cutter just for him. Off to bed now to do some further recuperating and to be nearer the smallest room!!!

Last Journal Page finished

2010-12-15T17:56:00.001Z

The December Journal Page for the Contemporary Quilt Group 2010 challenge is now complete. Following the 'diary' theme of the other journal pages this one reflects the heavy snow we've had here in the North East. I took this picture on the first day of the snow when we took Buster for his walk in the woods. By the following day the snow was so deep it was impossible to get there. Using Photoshop I cropped the photo and printed it onto fabric then threadpainted it in black and a sparkly white thread from Maderia one of the FS (diamond) threads. When I'd finished it didn't quite catch the sparkle the frost had created on the snow so I painted it with a bit of glitter glue. It doesn't show up in the photo. I think I may have put a bit too much on but its too late now to alter. Just got labels to put on all the quilts and I'm looking forward to next years challenge.

Bling card, lots of glitter on this one. I thought I'd withdrawn from this swap as there were a lot of people in it, far too many for me to contemplating making cards for. However, two turned up on my doorstep. I am quite happy to swap with two ladies so this is my Bling swap.

I've been following one of the on-line projects from the Bernina site specifically written for my 830. Its a fairly easy project but I've not used the endless function before so enjoyed making it. The top is one of the designs on the machine, copied and flipped, the ribbon is multiple buttonholes made using the embroidery machine and the bottom a single motif multipied using the endless funtion.

Finally I've finished block six of Kate North's 'Stay at Home Round Robin" We had to make two blocks for the lefthand side, one 3"x 9" and the other 4" x 3" My quilt is at the moment not quite true to size and I think I may have to trim it before too long.

The vast majority of snow has now gone and its safe to walk the streets again. Only problem is more is forecast for tomorrow. If we get snowed in again then I might even get more sewing done.

Look what the snow has done to my garden swing

2010-12-10T13:18:00.002Z

The first day's snow has landed.

After two weeks of snow which froze my poor garden swing canopy surrended to the inevitable. Lots of gutters and drain pipes have also come down. We've been lucky in that respect but had some rather dangerous looking icicles hanging from the our gutters.

My first attempt at making snap bags using bits of metal tape from one of those carpenters retracting rules. Keith was very good he gave up one of his many metal tapes without too much arm twisting. My friend Ann sent me the pattern and although I can't actually share that with you I could if any one is interested show you how the metal tape acts as a snap fastener.

I admit that the cold weather has made me want to hibernate but once I found a warm spot to sew in I made this lap quilt. I wanted one to throw ovr the settee that I could whip off and wrap myself up in when the NE wind whistled round the doors.

This is a close up of the quilt pattern. Pretty easy stuff but its a while since I made anything larger than a placemat so I was quite pleased with it. I cut out the squares and circles using my Go cutter and found it really easy to use. I'm hoping for more dies for christmas, so do you hear me Santa I've been a good girl?

The back of the quilt is fleece and I had several bits left over, enough for this small cushion and perhaps a larger one. I used left over strips from the quilt border to match with the quilt. Now all I have to do is keep the dog off it.

It's been really cold over the past few weeks and taking Buster for his walks has been a real effort. He loves to run but the only places you can let him off the lead are all about a mile away from home. So its quite an effort getting to the start of the walk. Buster didn't mind in the least, he loves the snow, thinks its good to eat but is puzzled by the yellow bits, he has to inspect every one!!.

Yesterday we took a walk across the fields, big mistake, I was knee deep in snow, over the top of my wellies and Buster leapt about like a demented rabbit. The snow was so deep it came half way up his back and he kept getting lost in snowdrifts. Back home I was cold, wet and short of breath, he fell asleep immediately and snored the rest of the morning away. We've had several days without post and I felt sorry for the postman yesterday when he did get through as his bag looked very heavy. We've now had two days where the temperature has been above freezing but this has made walking treacherous. Today Buster's walk was cut short, very short as I came a cropper within five minutes of stepping over the doorstep. Not hurt, apart from my pride, I just got a wet bottom and a warm lick from Buster.

Guess who's come to stay?

2010-11-27T21:25:00.000Z

Meet Monty my new microwaveable pal, Sy and Julie gave him to me because I'd complained I was cold.

Isn't he cute, far too lovely to put in the microwave, he just sits on the radiator or beside my sewing machine and keeps me company.

I've decided to give Rug Mugs to my friends this Christmas instead of cards. These six are going to a group I sew with so I wanted them to be very similar. They took me longer to make than I had anticipated and by the time I'd sewn all the bindings on my finger was sore.

More Black and White cards from the BQLPC group, these two are from Pauline C (top) and Michelle (bottom).

The next four are again from the BQLPC group but the theme this time is 'windows'. At the top are Helen Pearson's cathedral windows and Lesley's Office Lights card.

The bottom two are 'Let us Out' windows from Pauline C and Boutique window from Janet B.

I think that's almost it for fabric postcards for this year, just one to get made in time for a deadline of early January so I've not got any excuse for not getting on with the lap quilts I'm trying to get finished.

We were supposed to be going to the K&S show in Harrogate this weekend, first it we were going to go Saturday then we changed our minds thinking it would be less crowded on Sunday. Then we woke up to snow and a forecast of doom and gloom getting worse on Sunday so we finally set off this morning. We got as far as the outskirts of the town when we heard the link road to the A1 was closed. As we'd had to fight our way to the edge of town, the gritters hadn't been out last night and the ice under the fresh snow made it difficult driving, we decided it was too risky to try so we returned home. It was just as well because we've had some really harsh weather today and unless you need to go out the police are advising that you stay indoors. I'll look forward to going next year now.

I went to the opticians yesterday for a pair of close work glasses and got a bit of a shock. It appears that I've developed some sort of cyst at the bottom of my retina that has loosened one of the layers of the retina. Something called a retinoschisis. Apparently its fairly common, does no real damage unless it grows too big but there I was expecting to buy some sexy new glasses and ended up with a referral to the hospital. Life sometimes sucks. On the positive side I've nearly got all my Christmas present sorted out, just a couple to go.

Block 5 of Kate North's Stay at Home Round Robin done

2010-11-19T19:35:00.000Z

It took me a while to decided what blocks I wanted to do for the SAHRR I wanted to try out some of the Go Cutter dies. In the end I used one, the small triange that comes with Go to make windmill blocks then added left over stripes from another project to the sides, top and bottom.

Caught up with Journal Pages

2010-11-17T15:56:00.000Z

My October JP shows Juliette's balcony in Verona where she was supposedly wooed by Romeo. We've been here a couple of times and there are always crowds of people, many of whom desecrate the walls and doors with graffiti. This year there was a barrier round Juliette's house which meant people couldn't easily get to the walls and doors.

In November the town council always put on a big fireworks display in the South Park. The houses in the streets around the park are lucky in that they get a great view of the fireworks without having to stand outside in the cold. Mind they miss all the atmosphere. Sadly because of all the cutbacks this will be the last year for the firework display.

Something Black and White, one of two swaps this month with the BQLPC group. Mine once again use up scraps of leftover fabrics sewn together with decorative stitches and embellished with a few bugle beads.

Windows was the second postcard theme put up by BQLPC for November. There is a passage in the Bible, I think in Matthew that quotes the eyes as being windows to the soul, or something like that. So eyes are my Windows. I downloaded some free clipart of eyes (there are lots out there) and changed them slightly in Photoshop by giving my 'eyemate' coloured eye liner. I saw David Hockney at the weekend showing how he was creating a painting a day in a paint program for a show in one of London's galleries. I thought I'd add some blue hair to go with the eyeliner. The I was stuck as how to finish the card so I added windowsills top and bottom and curtains. I think it looks more like a cinema screen though, what do you think?

We've been dashing here and there for the past couple of weeks visiting woodworking shops for Keith. I thought it only fair that I go to his favourite shops as he never complains about taking me to mine. One place we went to last weekend, no not a woodwork shop, was the Crafts for Christmas show in Harrogate. I thought it would be all cardmaking and stuff like that that but it was an Aladdin's cave of artisans from all over the country. There was also a food market which we indulged in greatly and have already eaten most of the stuff that didn't get put into the freezer and we wonder why we put on weight!!

Finished my September JP

2010-11-03T16:30:00.001Z

All I have to do now is finish Octobers!! I'm way behind with my challenges and I don't really have an excuse, just seem to have lost the will to sew but my mojo will come back soon I'm sure. In the meantime I've decided to make a Mug Rug like one of these. I have quite a few scraps and playing with these should revive the muse. Actually I know what the problem is, I'm just plain ole tired, too much running around lately. Now to show you my September CQJP.

The photo is where I started from, one of Marc and Alix's wedding in September. I wanted to create something pretty but different so made a fabric background of snippets of sheers in shades of pink to magenta. These were the colours in Alix's bouquet. Next I covered the whole lot with net and free machine quilted it in flowers, feathers, scribbled my way through a whole lot of motifs. It was my intention to reproduce the photo on extravaganza as an overlay which I would leave loose. However, it got lost in the background, the image on the sheer organza was a bit pale and insipid so I carefully cut out the background and appliqued it onto the background. I added a bit of lace, what wedding picture is complete without a bit of lace, and put a few french knots into the bouquet to add a bit of depth. I was going to bind the edges with a thin magenta ribbon but decided I liked the satin stitch.

I've also been creating some lino cuttings, one of which was based on the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. I thought I'd use this for my October JP but its ended up as a cover for a plastic folder as I wasn't too keen on the colours I'd used to print the block in.

Well it looks like the photos will have to wait until another day Blogger has stopped playing nice and won't let me upload another one. Wonder what I did to upset Blogger but will try again later.

Lino cut folder

2010-11-03T16:29:00.001Z

I got round Blogger by posting the photo of my lino cut Bridge of Sighs (yes I know its the wrong way round I forgot to reverse the cutting) via Picasa. The print was originally printed onto white cotton one in blue and the other in green and overprinted with the opposite colour (ie green got a blue overprint and blue got a green one). It looked a bit stark so I had the brilliant idea of spray dyeing it with magenta, blue and green Colourwash sprays but overdid the magenta a bit. The cloth was bonded to pelmet vilene and stitched round the image my machine. I didn't like it when I finished it so its now become a file cover.

Stay at home Robin - block 4

2010-10-27T09:45:00.000+01:00

Finally got Block 4 added to the Stay at Home Robin held by Kate North. The size is 3" x 9" and is added to the left hand side of the other three blocks. I wanted to move away from the more straight line blocks of 1 and 2 but keep the same fabrics. I free cut wonky strips and sewed them back to form the block. I wanted broad and narrow strips. When I finished for some reason it was just a tad short of the 9" so I cut the striped piece in half and added narrow bands. Now of course it was too long and had to be shortened but all in all I'm happy with it.

Really got to get on with some of my outstanding pieces for the Contemporary Quilters journal pages. I still have not done Septembers. I want to do a piece on Marc and Alix's wedding but need one of their photos. They are coming up at the weekend so hopefully they will bring some with them. None of mine are quite right for what I have in mind and a wedding isn't something you can go back and retake.

Italian holiday photos

2010-10-25T21:30:00.000+01:00

Photo heavy posting but I'll keep my mouth closed and let you look at them.

Bording the boat in Riva for a cruise round Lake Garda

Limone Harbour

Malcesine

Heading across the Lagoon towards /Venice

St Marks, couldn't get inside as there were too many people.

I loved this little balcony down one of the canals.

The Rialto Bridge plus gondola

My own little Canoletto, two view of the /Grand Canal.

Juliette's balcony - Verona,

Loved the striped brickwork on the Regional Offices in Verona

Verona Arena Christians and Lions no longer performing but plenty of opera still.

Promised these earlier but went to the Quilt Museum in York instead. I missed the last exhibition, kept saying I was going but by the time I found time the exhibition had finished. This time I went as soon as it started. Can't for the life of me remember the title, something about stitch but the work there was extrodinary. Julia Capara, Alice Kettle, Paddy Killer, Jan Beaney to name just a few. Can't say I was impressed with Michael Brennan-Woods piece though.

back again

2010-10-22T20:10:00.000+01:00

Although we've been back from Italy for a few days now the time has just flown by. I came back to a host of postcards and atcs but not scanned all of them in yet. Here's a couple that I have scanned in.

Thes are P is for Pink, P is for Passion Flower and O is for Ocean made by Jennifer Morlock and Hetty van Boven of Art4Mail fame.

We had a lovely time in Italy, we went to Lake Garda, Verona and Venice, walked our feet off, sailed on the lake, ate mountains of food and drank gallons of wine. Now we have to repair the damage ugh.... but it was worth it. The weather had been forecast as dull, cloudy and wet but it was wrong, we had sun, sun and more sun. I've got loads of photos but blogger is playing up and won't let me upload any more so I'll call it a day and try again tomorrow.

Off to Italy in the Morning

2010-10-09T17:02:00.000+01:00

So I thought I'd better catch up with my blog, I'm conscious that I'm not doing very well in blogland so far as keeping things up to date but I promise to try harder in future. That was always on my school reports, must try harder in future. The two cards below are from the Arts4Mail group, the pretty Sunbonnet Sue is from Vicky in Canada and the other card is from Charlie in the USA. Charlie's card is her response to the Challenge card.

I've been busy finishing off all my October swaps and trying to get them into the post before I go to Italy in the morning. I just managed to catch the last post with my 'Pink' cards for the BQLPC group.

I also managed to finish my P, Q andGold atcs for the Art4Mail group but posted them before I'd remembered to take a photo or scan them. I do have a spare P for Petal atc but its lost under the mountain of stuff we still have yet to pack so I'll post about that when I get back.

My last October swap was with the BLQPC group ' gateways' and I didn't quite finish them. Here is where I've got to so far.

The gateway in question is in Portofino, Italy (where Rod Steward has a villa). I took the photo last year, the gateway led nowhere. I think it may have been part of someones grounds at one time but the cliff may have crumbled over time. It looks out over the harbour where all the lovely yachts are but the photo isn't good enough to see them unfortunately. I printed the photo onto fabric three times (I needed six so two sheets were printed) then free motion stitched the gateway and part of the crumbly wall. That's as far as I've got but I now need to put a backing and border on it. I hope to do that when I get back so I meet the deadline.

BIG news in our household is - Simon and Julie got engaged yesterday. They are thinking of September 12 for the wedding to keep up with the Jeavons tradition of September weddings.

Off to finish packing and find some embroidery to do while travelling.