Last Post of 2018

In the many months since my last post I have thought about my blog, should I just give it up for good or have a stab at continuing? Dilemma.
Whatever I decide to do I can't just bow out without a goodbye, not after all these years and the friendships that it has produced.

Instead of wittering on about what I have done or not done this year I reckon a pictorial round up might suffice, let's see if I can dredge up one or two pictures per month to reflect my 2018............or at least since my last post in March.

April

 A fab holiday to Australia

 

 including a visit to Amitie Textiles, swoon....

Had a lovely day with Salley who I "met" through blogging.

May & June

May saw a little progress on this slow burner which is still a WIP but one that I am keen to keep going with.

This was a first attempt using Lewis and Irene's Big Bear Little Bear fabric to make a baby quilt. I used my own simple Charm Square quilt pattern, and it went off to a good home.

Landscapers moved in to do a 5 day job.....................

They obviously liked my tea & biscuits................

As the job took 5 months! But it was a lovely summer and who can blame them for making hay while the sun shone.

July

I had a 2nd attempt with the Big Bear fabic. It went to the new baby daughter of my son's best man & his wife - it was sooo well received.

Paddling pools flew off the shop shelves

and the joiners moved in!!

                                          on the sewing front I was working on a magazine project..............

I reorganised my sewing room and finally got my 2001 quilt on to a bed!

August

Back to school, P2!

 

Our brilliant joiners took away our old staircase and fitted a new one.

And worked a little magic with my sewing machine

    

And, of course, there was the Festival of Quilts

September

The patriarch of our family celebrated his 88th birthday with the whole family, including his two grandsons, and great grand daughter, sadly the last day he would spend in his own home.

I worked on a special baby quilt.

October

We said goodbye to Grandad Bert.

 

 I did a little Hallowe'en stitching

November

 

 

The circle of life goes on. We welcomed baby Macie Florence Agnes, daughter to our son & beautiful daughter in law.

So of course I got sewing.......

December

Managed to get this made in time - a wonderful pattern by Elizabeth Hartman, Lisa the Unicorn.

for my wee Christmas Elf,

who broke her arm on Christmas Eve.

But we still managed a Merry Christmas.

 

I had my table runner featured in the current issue of Today's Quilter, thrilled with the way it was styled.

And we are up to date for anyone still reading.

And for 2019? maybe a little blogging if I summon the energy, definitely more sewing. I have WIPs to finish and a baby quilt to start & finish. Like buses, none come for ages and then you get two at same time - we are excitedly awaiting the arrival of a grandson in early March, a wee baby brother for Ava.

Busy days ahead.

Happy New Year to you all.

Chilly Sewing

Looking back to my last post how silly of me to suggest Spring was in the air, how wrong could I be?

To be fair, here in Ayr we (whispers) had no snow! Cold, yes, but no lying snow - we are so fortunate to be sheltered by the Isle of Arran although of course other parts of Ayrshire not a million miles away suffered the snowy disruption that much of the UK did. We did for a brief moment in time share the fuel, bread and milk shortages, but really nothing too dramatic.

So on those cold days and with my OH away for a little longer than planned due to air traffic delays (weather related) I got on with some sewing.

My Bella Sampler, still in three sections but now has wadding and backing cut into three appropriate sections also. Quilting will commence in the fullness of time.

The Irish Chain quilt that I shared with you has grown slightly in real life and much more on paper.

I showed you my original plan - just nine blocks.

But I decided to explore the options of adding in lots of LV blocks and have come up with this option - 25 blocks! It'll be a slow burner as I work through my scraps cutting squares when I feel like it and sewing blocks whenever. I intend to enjoy the process.

 I also worked on an updated version of an old class project, Topsy. My original class sample was made using Christmas colours so for this new version I chose a Lewis and Irene range called Island Girl that reminded me of Disney's Moana. When finished, it will of course go to a small person I know. (wink)

These photos show my progress, it also has been layered up and awaits quilting!!

I do hope eventually to add this version to my original pattern and offer it for sale but I seem to work pretty slowly these days so it might be a while yet...........

Sprinkled in to my sewing there were a couple of gifts, a rope bowl which was very well received.] and I joined with my Bee Buddies to make a couple of baby quilts for another Bee Grannie to be (!!)

I attended my first meeting of the Ayrshire Modern Quilters' Guild - it is held in the most super accommodation right on the platform of Kilmarnock train station - the old waiting room has been beautifully converted into a really comfortable multi purpose room, bright and cheerful and through a connecting door is the equally pleasant cafe. Genius.

And finally on the sewing front I have continued to make (2) my Attic Window cushions in Amanda's classes. As I will miss the final two classes I ramped up my progress on these and have completed one. I absolutely love the fabric I chose for this project but on completion I wish I had used stronger tones for my "window sills"...........always learning.

This is cushion #1 all layered up and quilted (YES) - I always add the back sections to the front and quilt as one before binding the short ends and folding, enveloped style. Makes for a really luxurious cushion.

And here is an actual finish!!

And finally, here in the UK it's Mother's Day. Not only will I be lucky enough to spend time today with both my "children" and their spouses, but we will all be celebrating my grand daughter Ava's 6th birthday - she is excited beyond belief about her birthday and the excitement will continue on as she is getting my old Janome 3/4 sized machine, a sewing basket full of goodies and a promise of sewing lessons from Grandma. We'll see how that goes.............

Have a great Sunday wherever you are.xx

January

Well hasn't January been a long month? I think everybody yearns for it to be over and it sometimes feels like you are climbing uphill but once you get to the top you can see February and March ahead and dare I say it, Spring??

I hope you all managed to avoid the flu bug that has been so prevalent here. Our house had the bug early in December so we felt smug and well as we approached Christmas only to have our Christmas Day scuppered when my poor DIL went down with it - all was not lost though. With half a day's notice and good old Aldi I pulled together a Christmas meal and laughed at how often I have spent hours in the past making lists for the big meal. I scored a half price boxed turkey, nestling in greaseproof paper and found an embossed card within with cooking instructions that alerted me to its built in thermometer - its what?? A first for me, it turned out great and I believe it was the award winning bird of the year, lol.
The family managed to re-convene by the end of Christmas week although numbers were still a little depleted.

Moving into January and turning to sewing again was brightened by the delivery of this book.

I haven't started anything from it yet but have my eye on the Highland Cow within. The layout and instructions in this book are excellent and I really look forward to starting.....I just need to finish up some other stuff first before I allow myself. Such discipline!!

Early in the month a friend asked if I could come up with something suitable for her Aunt's impending 100th birthday. There wasn't much time so I reckoned a simple cushion with some machine embroidery might fit the bill. I used some Kaffe shot cotton and purchased an embroidery design which I stitched out in two shades of gold. The finished cushion was well received by my friend and her Aunt Jean.

The weather in January has been pretty wintery so a great excuse to hole up in the sewing room. I was in just the mood for storage and so far have made two (I plan three in total) of these great storage pods. Pattern is by Beth Studley. I am making this for my grand daughter to help contain her growing collection of little plastic figures, you know the kind of thing, Playmobil, Lego, Shopkins etc

For my own storage I made one of these little storage basket, an old favourite by Pink Penguin. They take next to no time to knock up and I use them inside drawers to store haberdashery items like zips, lace, cords etc.

Now the quilt I showed you in my last post, The Bella Skills Builder - well I finished all the blocks and have added borders. I plan to QAYG in three big sections and now have the wadding and backing organised. As you know the front is totally made from solids and I was really pleased to find a very large duvet cover in the Ikea sale in quite a bold geometric design and also in the colours I used on the front, pretty much. For those of you who have not seen this tip before, consider buying a duvet cover to use for backings as you usually end up with twice as much fabric to use. And I have four pillowcases as a bonus. No photos at the moment but once I get going on the quilting I'll remember to take some.

I have also returned to class this month and am working on an Attic Window cushion that is taking shape nicely. Photos in next post, I promise.

Lastly, I made a start on a small Irish Chain quilt using up scraps. I have had it in the back of my mind since I saw this post by RedPepperQuilts. What I particularly love about Rita's tutorial is her plan for pressing seams so that all of them can interlock. Genius.

However, I decided to plan a smaller quilt, so far anyway. The blocks are actually making up quite quickly so I might expand. And although I am using scraps I am keeping them tamed in colour bands.

This is my mock up on EQ7 -

And this is my progress so far -

I hope January has been productive for you too. Roll on February.

Running Out of 2017

Well, following my last post I haven't really improved my blogging output at all have I.

Many's the time I have thought to sit down and post but as the months rolled by I fretted about fitting everything in. Then I thought, if I am going to continue this blog, just get on with a post and show a few recent makes, I don't have to include every last moment from August! So working backwards from my recent sewing here is what I have been up to.

I finished all of the blocks from the Bella Skills Builder sew a long, changing a couple in the final stages. I did set out on this project hoping to make use of lots of shirts I have stashed and did use some of them. The project was meant to be made using Bella solids and I stuck to the solid plan which I found very enjoyable. The shirts I started off with sort of dictated my colour palette and I also used some stash solids. I always knew that I would want to make a larger quilt than the one in the QAL and tried a few layouts on EQ7. Aiming for a pretty large quilt for our very large bed, I made a start this week on joining and sashing the blocks and in the picture below you will see I have completed the top section, adding in monster 6" sashing & borders. My quilt is going to end up about 90" square and I am constructing this joining stage in three sections which I will quilt separately. I have to admit I was a wee bit scared using such wide sashing but the effect has spread out the blocks and I like this better than having them all butting up together. It's a wee bit hard to make it out in the picture as the blocks have overshot my "design wall" onto an existing quilt, I'll try for better photos as I progress.

Just before Christmas with no Big Day to organise here I found myself needing a quick sewing fix and made this Nina wristlet from Sotak Handmade
.

Since August, I have been attending Amanda's classes in Prestwick. Amanda took over these classes from me in 2016 and has offers really interesting projects. I decided to sign up for The Catch All Caddy, a useful bag design by Annie.com. This bag uses Annie's Soft and Stable wadding which I hadn't used before and was keen to try. The timing of the course was also perfect because if I finished the bag in time I thought it might be a perfect gift for my friend's special birthday in December.

Despite my years of experience (Cough, cough) I found this quite a tricky project and was really glad of Amanda's guidance. I used Sweetwater's Celebration fabric line for the bag - the main fabric has lots of celebratory events printed on it and as well as a birthday, friend Janet was retiring.

Also in December I recalled Jo launching a competition on her blog - those of us who attended the Stitch Gathering in September received in their goody bags a panel of Cori Dantini fabric plus some coordinating fat quarters. So the challenge was to make something using the fabric and submit photos on Instagram by tomorrow!! I opted to make a nice zippy purse and after  bit of thought I cut out the character from one of the panels plus some of the flowers and appliqued them on to an already quilted piece of fabric I found in my UFO drawer. I really enjoyed taking time over this project and actually came up with a different way of inserting the zip which I'll share another time.

And lastly, still in December my fellow Sewing Bee pals (real life not online) and I finally finished this joint effort quilt, a special birthday gift for the aforementioned Janet. The design is based on a quilt called Spin, by Leanne from She can Quilt who first showed the on her blog maybe about 18 months or even longer ago. Strangely I saw it at the same time as one of the other Bees and we had both bookmarked it in our heads as being the perfect project for Janet. With Leanne's blessing we chose this as the perfect project.

We all know Janet's colours and so chose our palette to suit.

We actually made a start on the project last January and used a Lewis and Irene fabric line, Make a Christmas Wish. We wanted to make a subtle Christmas quilt that perhaps could be left out all year and think we pulled it off. To finish we both hand and machine quilted it.

I have been enjoying my sewing recently and hope to forge ahead with projects old and new in 2018.

I wish you all a Happy and healthy New Year and hope to be back again soon.