Stitching News

Morning Judith not only finished her quilt top but she's sandwiched and quilted it already. Judith had very much liked the flowers that Barbie appliquéd for her quilt so, she wanted to stitch them too.
 A completely different setting though, lovely.

Brenda Barbara was joining lots of six inch squares together. She's making a scarecrow for an event coming soon to Caverswall... I'm thinking it will be a blooming large Scarecrow if that's the quilted skirt! Brenda's in cahoots with Sheila... there'll be a hat too.

While Brenda was doing all the work, by her very own self, for the Scarecrow (Yes I did notice Sheila!) Sheila went shopping in my Beautiful Batik selection. She wants to continue with the Quilt-As-You-Go and Apartment joining project that she started at a recent workshop, taught by my very own self in my lovely little quilt shop in Cheadle!! Oh no... there I go again!!! advertising... tut tut tut

Caron wanted to learn something new.
What better than the instant satisfaction given by the 10 Minute Blocks?
She chose fabulous fabrics and got straight to it...
Caron made four lovely, 25 minute blocks... he he he

Josie, while working on tens of projects all at the very same time, wanted to make blocks to frame this panel... she's not sure where it came from having found it in her craft stash. Four Patch units worked very well... for the first border at least.

Dilly wanted a little rest from complex piecing and the accuracy needed for those Feathered Stars so, she started, quilted and finished making a simple cushion WITH A ZIP!! There's a lucky grandson waiting for this cushion and another that needed a few more minutes to finish.

Jean Bean has done us proud again with this year's floral display.
Every day they get taller and every day more flowers appear...
 it's very exciting watching the flowers open...
there're strawberries in there too, yummy.

Booty-full Bears Workshop

Tooting For Dilly And Milly

Raise your polished trumpets for a fantastic fanfare please...
We shall toot toot toot, toot toot-etty-toot for the fabulous and finished quilts of Jeannette Dilly (Daughter-In-Law) and Jeanette Milly (Mother-In-Law)...
From one extreme to another, two different methods, both making fantastic quilts...

Dilly's quilt has been made totally by sewing machine... by piecing, sandwiching and quilting the main Feathered Star blocks and the centre woven block, setting triangles and corner triangle units. Once they were all quilted and trimmed, Dilly joined all the bits with little sashing strips... we call this method apartment quilting... A stunning quilt... One day Dilly will make and quilt some wider borders and add them to this beauty, she wants it to be much larger... but for now, it will stay this size... that's the beauty of apartment quilting, you can add extensions whenever you want to!!!

Milly, on the other hand... used the other extreme of quilting methods... She drew around templates and cut out all the pieces for her patchwork, even those individual diamonds in the Lone Star units... She hand pieced them together, a solitary needle with thread. Once she was done with the piecing, Milly hand quilted the whole thing... Beautiful work! Beautiful quilt... and she did it all sew quickly!

Wonderful quilts ladies!!! toot toot toot

I Didn't Do It...

The housework that is... But I did do this...

Made with one Moda Jelly Roll plus about half a metre of dark charcoal fabric and nine little scrap strips to finish the border. I am extremely please with all my hard work and fudging... those border bits were tricky! It measures 60" x 50" and will look wonderful on my sofa... with all of the lovely cushions! ha

After I had had my first hand surgery, I was told to keep my hand up as much as possible, to reduce the swelling. That's how come I stitched all of the Jelly Roll strips together, no cutting, just stitching... and if you have your chair low enough your hand does stay up while you sew. As soon as I was able, I started the cutting, a bit at a time. Of course, it is just a top right now so I am off to choose a suitable backing! Don't you love my hexagons?

Stitching News

Railfence ... with a dramatic twist... Gail had all those HST's (Half Square Triangles) left over from making her Pineapple Blossom quilt... they're what has come to be known as Bonus Half Square Triangles ... and what a great way to use them. The idea though, comes from a quilt in April/May Fabrications magazine.

Rose finished stitching her blocks together and added the borders, though I took this picture pre-bordered, I'm guessing Mum will tell me that's not even a real word. Such a lovely quilt... and for such a good cause... nearly sandwich time Rose! 

As we all suspected, New Sue spent her last few days quilting... this quilt sandwich was only made at the last Sandwich Saturday and here she is getting the binding sorted already... sometimes there's just not enough table space but the floor is there waiting!

Toot toot toot Princess Jackie... fabulous and finished...
The cutest cushion we've seen for a long, long time...
When Jackie held it up "Oh Jackie" is all that was heard... I think we all have cute appliqué envy, he he he

Stitching News

Monday Sheila sandwiched her lovely Lone Star quilt, it's going to be king size... Sheila opted to sandwich the top in three parts... to be quilted and joined together afterwards. As she spent her Monday class quilting one of the pieces Sheila continually declared "Thank goodness I decided to do this in bits!" 

Just Edna came to play. She started making the first few of her Log Cabin blocks using a Jelly Roll, two actually, Little Black Dress 2 from Moda.
She split the strips into lighter-ish and darker-ish piles, some could be in either pile so she can swap them as needed. Edna needs about 200 blocks... I jest, but the plan is to make another HUGE quilt... go Edna!

Coincidently, Lady Judith isalso making a Little Black Dress 2 Jelly Roll quilt.
This design is from the book 'Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts', lots of other lovely patterns in it too. Judith had all of the blocks finished so we got to stitch them into rows... looking good!

PM Pam  finished and added the last strip to her quilt top.
She fussy cut owls for the cornerstones, framed them with that delicious blue, got the borders on and was able to declare that it was sandwich time! Pam's going to piece the backing from her left over fabrics first though.

Christabelle finished her beautiful little Hexagons... see how she chose to fussy cut that lovely butterfly fabric, it looks like lace and is one from our Art Gallery selection. This lovely work will be made into a round cushion but we decided it should stay square until the very last minute to keep it stable.

Christabelle made this fabulous re-cycled bag from her daughters favourite, old jeans... the jeans circle method is fun to do. The back pockets have been used inside the bag and, as you probably guessed, that's the waistband used for the bag top... I am chuckling right now thinking I could make a huge tote bag with my waistband!!! ha ha ha ha ha.... Toot toot toot Christabelle

One more fabulous and finished fanfare for
PM Pam made this lovely cushion cover... lick-ety-split... just to fill in time... the block is Card Trick which is one of My Mum Gwynneth's favourite blocks

Moda Bella Solid Fabric

In my very own quilt shop... the one I might have mentioned a few times... I sell Moda Bella Solid fabrics. Fabric companies charge a premium for purchasing half bolts, that's between 25 pence and 40 pence extra per metre, to purchase 7 metres instead of 14 metres on a full bolt. So, I started to purchase full bolts of Bella Solids, to save you money! The problem with that is, full bolts need more room on my shelves... I don't have enough shelf space as it is... So we roll off half of a bolt, approximately 7 metres onto an empty board, wrap it up in it's original packaging, label it and I take it home to store. We came up with a system to help us know when we run out of a colour of fabric in the shop, did we need to order more or was there a half bolt at home. It works well... but it's no longer just the Bella solids stored at home. If I can save you money by purchasing a full bolt and saving 7 metres at home, I've been doing it!...
 I have enough fabric stored to open another shop!!! 

Stitching News With Tooting

Kate's Lynda came to play and, lucky for us, she remembered to bring her finished and fabulous Railfence quilt... toot toot toot! I love seeing the Railfence blocks used to make larger quilts. Lynda used Indian Batiks to make the zig-zaggy pattern... with variegated yellow fabric making all the other colours 'pop'

Toot toot toot for a fabulous and finished kiddy quilt made by our very own Barbie. It's a panel, probably vintage as Barbie has owned it for quite some time! She highlighted lots of the detail with black thread, using her darning foot, so she was drawing without a safety net.... FREE-MOTION Barbie!! 

Maid Marion made a start on her little Advent Stockings... a pre-printed panel from Makower. They are a little bit fiddly, if only for their tiny size, but each one finished gave great joy and a whoooot whoooot from Marion, he he he

Kate spotted a quilt in my sale trolleys... by that I mean that she saw perfect fabric with which to make a gifting quilt... After a few mathemisms (calculations) she purchased all the fabric she needed... for a snip at £5.00 per metre. By the end of our Friday Quilt Club day, Kate had all of the blocks cut out. Borders stitched on and corner 'Snowballs' stitched... she even joined some blocks into rows. So... quite a speedy design!

My Mum Gwynneth has decided to make her very own Christmas cards this year. There are such a lot of these little festive squares available... do I need to tell you where from? Mum cut out each little picture, stitched just inside the last little border with metallic thread, you have to have bling on a Christmas greeting card eh! then sat fraying all the little edges ready to stitch them onto cards... quite labour intensive but fun to to while watching the TV or something like.

Stitching News

Sheila almost finished her fabulous Feathered Star table topper... just the binding to finish stitching, which may well be finished by now, today. Can you see how Sheila quilted her background fabric?... looks good eh? The main fabrics are from the William Morris range by Fabric Freedom.

Josie could wait no longer for sandwiching space in my very own shop so, she sandwiched her delightful dog quilt at home... there's a black polyester/cotton sheet on the back of this lovely quilt top... Oh, remember... I told you Josie was a rebel!! Josie's grey fabrics are from one of the William Morris ranges by Moda

Josie has decided to "get better with her accuracy"
She's practising with these little 4" Churn Dash blocks with some fabrics she found in her stash at home... they would look great in a quilt just the way they are, I hope Josie makes lots more so I can persuade her to join them together.

Caron played with decorative stitches on her new sewing machine. 
She chose a different one for each Charm square and used a lovely variegated thread... and now her lovely Tote Bag From A Charm Pack (which is available as a workshop on a Saturday soon, check out the workshop tab at the top of this blog) is finished... ooooh, toot toot toot Caron

More fabulous and finished tooting is needed for Carons new cushions, As there are owl eyes everywhere, including the back, maybe we should tahoot tahooot tahoot the fanfare? She's making a third cushion now and is using the flying goose unit to make a splendid Sawtooth Star block. 

Stitching News

Giggly Gillian's current project... It's going to be a door panel... like a wall hanging but specifically sized to fit one of Gillian's doors. The leaves have been cut out of one of my delicious Batik fabrics... the tree trunk will be a much better shape... that's just a piece of brown fabric folded to represent a trunk... you'll see next, next time...

Princess Jackie wanted to make a little seat cushion/pillow.
She loves to do appliqué and I wish I had taken a picture to show you how this pillow front looked by the end of class, sooooo cute... there was a butterfly, a sunshine, a tree... hopefully I can show you next time.

Rose, she of scone fame... always seems to pack up before I snap a picture of her work, I had to be alert to get this one... What you see here is part of a quilt she's making for a fundraising event... the block is called "Remember Me" and the colours are those used by the hospice... what a lovely idea.

Gail was kept nice and warm all, all day by her huge Stack-n-Whack Kaleidoscope quilt... it's so big that she couldn't keep it off her knees...
such rosy cheeks she had, all day!

New Sue is already half way through piecing this kiddo play mat that will be quite like a regular quilt. There was quite a bit of switching round of the rows to get everything even and all the fabrics spread out but success came eventually.
It will probably be finished next week eh! ha ha.

"Can I take a picture of your bag please Annbacan?" I asked
"Which one?" she replied as she got them all ready
Actually, two are those lovely desk tidy/pin cushions that Jenny Barlaston teaches, don't you love Ann's fabric choice?
Shall I tell you where she purchased it or can you guess?

PM Pam had purchased some owl fabric but she didn't want to cut it too small.
We pondered about that for a while and this is how it's coming along... lovely isn't it and best of all, Pam is very pleased with her quilt top.
There are borders to be added yet of course.

Just Jan wants to use up every little scrap of her yellows and greys. She had loads of triangles left over form making her quilt, so...  she made lots of HST's (Half SquareTriangles) which she is joining together an a happily-hap-hazzard way.

That's a bumper catch up post isn't it!

Fabulous And Finished

Morning Judith finished her little quilt Toot Toot Toot.
The fabrics were all chosen by her Hubby. He purchased a workshop and everything Judith needed for the day as a birthday gift... what a lovely idea.

The back of Morning Judith's quilt so you can see the fabulous quilting she did... Walking Foot and Free-Motion quilting with a delicate blue variegated Metler thread... I have every colour of variegated Metler thread... did you know that? They call them Silk Finish Multi and they're quite lovely...most variegated thread comes on larger spools... Metler offer a choice of large or small, small being just 100m

Krafty Karen finished the last of her fabulous Dresden Plate cushions ... with zips!!! wooohooo We love making Dresden Plate cushions!! Toot toot toot Karen... they are just lovely. She has a lovely matching set of four now so, I'm guessing, she will get back to work on the blue Jelly Roll Sampler next time.

New Sue says she "faced her demons" and survived!! This quilt was started, she says, two years ago... it's a fantastic patten for showing off beautiful fabric that you just don't want to cut up... The demons though?.... they are the quilting ones... Sue used both Walking Foot AND Free-Motion quilting and to her... it was like winning the World Cup.... delighted doesn't begin to describe it!Toot toot toot Sue.

Three lovely little cushions, elegant, fabulous and finished for tooting... also made by New Sue. Each is a 12" pillow and I have to say.... sooooo very cute! I want some cute little cushions now... I see one or two being added to my already stuffed full to falling off sofa I might have to purchase a sofa for sitting on next, haha

Mrs Lady From Derby's Attic Window quilt. She brought it to show to us when she visited last week... isn't it clever how fabric choices make the 3D effect... The allotment fabric has so many fun things to look for!
Fabulous and finished, toot toot toot Mrs Lady From Derby...
Did Mrs Daughter From Derby find out  that you came without her yet! ha ha ha