Never ending scarf!

Spent a great day with friends at The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham recently. Loads of talent superb standards oh and those long arm sewing machines. Not much hand quilting these days but you wait... it will return and I'll be there waving the flag!
So I parted with some money and bought fabric as you do plus 'a kit' heck! From SewMeSomething.co.uk
So here is the end result... a scarf (obviously!) it was so easy to make and could be repeated with different fabric and baubles. Nice I think with a winter jacket.

Fran's Bag

You know how you feel when you have missed a friends milestone birthday?..well this happened to me recently....so how to make good? Why not make something personal I thought. As a result I have made this bag....Fran's bag. It is reversible too. Made from some of my favourite fabrics from my ever increasing stash of material. I hope she likes it. Here's it is.

Namaste

I've been going to yoga classes over the past year which I have surprised myself by really enjoying! At the end of each session we say a farewell greeting 'Namaste' so I thought what better name to call my latest quilt as indeed I use it for cover when we are relaxing at the end of a very productive hour!

I wanted to make something speedily......and this was completed over a weekend. Yes honestly! 6inch squares are easy enough to piece together but it's the quilting that takes the time and as I'm an old fashioned girl who still likes to hand quilt I decided to 'tie' the layers together instead. But to add a little interest I made double sided discs of fabric using a cotton reel as a template.....ironed two different random pieces of fabric together using double sided bondaweb.....cut round the 'pattern' using pinking shears and completed the quilt by sewing a 'disc'  to each corner of the 6inch squares (on the back) using full six strands of embroidery floss. Easy peasy and effective!
I feel inclined to make two more single bed quilts in this style to adorn the twin bedroom in our bed and breakfast (morgansbedandbreakfast.co.uk for anyone who wishes to have a peak at us!)
Hopefully I will post something again soon. It has been a while after all!!

Smile.....be happy

There's  a wee quilting/fabric shop on the isle of Anglesey called Copperfields and once a year there is a massive sale there. I say wee and I mean wee (being the Scot that I am!) The whole shop is no bigger than my garage but stuffed floor to ceiling with fabric and yarns! Fab. This is an annual day trip  for myself and a few friends. Spending money on fabric followed by a lovely pub lunch. My kind of day!! So I bought a pack of pre cut squares(not like me) (and other fabric for my stash!)and made them in to a couple of cushions. I embellished them with a little stitching.
Here are the end results. I stitched 'be happy 'on one and 'smile'on the other. The quilting pattern is a series of radiating circles. A bit of fun. Now gracing my sofa.

Wedding quilt

We have just returned from a family wedding in Glasgow. My nephew Craig married Emma and they both had a ball. We did too. Cerys my granddaughter was a flower girl too so what not to like!
Last Autumn I asked if they would like a quilt as a wedding present ( my daughter thought I was mad to ask. 'Of course they'd love one of your quilts' she said!) and right enough they were very excited at the prospect of a throw to drape over their sofa or snuggle under when watching tv.
I had been to The festival of quilts in Birmingham earlier in the year and was inspired by the colours in a miniature quilt I saw there. So that was good at least I knew the colourscheme roughly. For the design I thought 'checks' might reflect a kind of Scottish influence. And then a little bit of retro on the back of the quilt.....sort of Mary Quant flowers! There you have it. I completed the quilt two days before the wedding. They were delighted with the quilt I'm pleased to say but then again I don't suppose they would tell me differently!!

From this...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending an informal workshop on 'free machining' with a few quilting friends. We had a great if somewhat exhausting day. Most importantly though my sewing machine and I became good friends.
I have always been wary of lowering the 'feed dog' and throwing away(not literally) the sewing foot to experiment with free machining. I wasn't good enough. It wasn't perfect. But do you know....it doesn't matter. I can't draw. It doesn't matter. There are ways and means and that's what I learnt yesterday. So vroom vroom away I went stitching around my traced picture( that's why you don't need to know how to draw!) and then we 'coloured in' by using acrylic paints within the framework of our picture. Amazingly the paint does not 'bleed' beyond the stitched lines! Then we did more stitching on top...such fun. I think I was exhausted because I was really absorbed over a long period of time. Anyway here's a few piccies.  Mr Fox is the completed 'work of art' and the practice piece is....well the practice piece!
Have fun. Till next time......keep stitching.
                                                           

Mr Fox

So simple, so effective

so why can't I produce something like this!! Bought this lovely picture from a friend at a textile Fair recently. Just have too share it with you. Navy blue quilted background. House...natural linen. Love it.