Stitching News

We had a lovely day on Sunday. A one day sewing retreat is a perfect tonic. We had a full house (hall) and lots of different projects were being worked on and, generally, everyone's happy to be interrogated about them too. We love to share and borrow ideas don't we! Our next Sunday Funday Sewday will be on March 26th and there are only a few places left.

Back in my shop

After a productive day of sewing at Checkley, Norma stitched the final borders onto her enormous quilt. Made mostly with fabrics from a couple of Tilda bundles. It really is huge, I couldn't fit the whole quilt top in my picture. it's going off to Amanda in Stone to be quilted

You can see the colours better on this shot. It is the wrong way up, I see that now but you get the drift. Next time we see this quilt Norma will be stitching binding on, 200 metres should do it!

Rose purchased this Moda Safari Charm Pack, she does like a quick make. 

It was so funny trying to choose the layout as every time we moved similar colours apart the designs were the same, it didn't stay like this picture either, we played "Switchy-Switchy", it's Charm Pack game!!

This is why Norma had been rushing to finish her Tilda Quilt. She had purchased a Beautiful Batik Fat Quarter Bundle recently and has been itching to get on with cutting them up and designing her next quilt. LARGE 18" blocks so she will only need 16 of them. only 256 Half Square Triangles!!

Tina had done her homework and arrived ready to make her first quilt sandwich. We chatted about quilting ideas and soon she was shadow quilting around the stripes. Tying off ends and threading them through to be buried, when she could find them. Sewing with black thread can be tricky, ha!

Stitching News

Our PM Pam decided to get cracking on quilting this large kiddie gifting quilt. It is a big one so 'we' decided it was going to be easier to quilt around all the blocks and the sashing then get all the excess wadding and backing fabric trimmed off. Pam can then add the binding making it a much easier project to manage, then she can go back to each block to do more quilting.

Rose is practicing PMS (Pleasing My Self) and making up her own quilt design using
Little applique wolves, very very cute wolves it has to be said! from one of her books. They aren't stuck in place yet as Rose's ideas are still simmering. 

By George she got it!!! New Sue had a bit of difficulty last week with these super-slender diamonds, but that is history. She's successfully made hundreds now. There will be purple diamonds too.

It's great when customers bring their projects in to show me what they did with my fabric, not that it is mine once they purchase it, ha! The beautiful Red print is one of my Art Gallery collection and, believe me, I have quite a collection of Art Gallery prints in my very own shop. Toot toot toot for the fabulous finish Mrs. Customer.

March Sunday Funday Sewday 26th March.
9:30am - 3:30pm  £20 per person for pre-paid bookings.
This includes all refreshments and a light lunch. 
Booking is essssssssssential.

From March the Pay on the day fee will be £25.00

07807530441

Stitching News, Beginners.

I teach beginners, mostly, with a very small project which can be made into a lovely cushion. I like that folk can dabble in all aspects of patchwork and quilting without committing to a large quilt, which might not get finished. I personally don't like to teach with a block 0f the month quilt, only because they take a lot of weeks and I think taking home a finished 'thing' is a far faster track to this addiction, HA! It works too.

Just 3 Fat quarters of fabric (your choice), a spool of thread, a zip, a square of utility/ugly fabric and a square of wadding is all you need.

Beginners will learn:-
Accurate cutting using a mat, ruler and rotary cutter.
Sewing an accurate quarter inch seam allowance with, hopefully, straight lines.
Good general piecing skills with top tips to help with seam matching.
Good pressing technique… a very important skill.
How to make and a small quilt sandwich.
How to quilt.
And we can turn your project into a lovely cushion with my fabulously easy zip inserting method. 

The workshops usually start at 10am and we should be finished by 3pm... 
What a lovely way to spend a day... then if you find you are hooked... and that happens a lot... you can start thinking about what to make next.
Here are a few randomly picked Beginner cushion pictures, all the same but so very different, just by the fabric choices.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of teaching a mother and daughter team.
They arrived with a Layer Cake and a Jelly Roll to share, which threw a spanner in my '3 Fat Quarters' normal plan.
As you can see from the pictures below, we made an alternative plan and the ladies went home with 2 splendid, new, Patchwork cushions. toot toot toot!
They had a fun day and I'm pretty sure more projects will be made.

Stitching News

Beano has been experimenting. There's a whole quilt idea in her head and she's testing out the blocks she plans to use. There will be four inch Saw Tooth Stars, bold and bright with mostly primary colours. It looks like the experiment is working too.

New Sue has started a Bed Runner for gifting. The blocks were proving to be so complicated that there could have been Cup Coasters instead. But we persevered and it paid off. Look at those long and slender points, No Foundation Paper Piecing used, just good old traditional method, cut the shapes and sew them together!!

Fiona wants/needs a new runner and this Charm Pack was a perfect colour theme. 

This simple looking plan is the start of...

A Twister!! People do seem to enjoy making the Twister projects.  They are a little bit fiddly, especially with the smaller blocks, but the projects give enormous pleasure as all the faffing comes together, have you tried a Twister project?

All Day Di had almost finished her splendid apron, even stitched on the frills and the backing before she realised that she hadn't done all of the applique stitching, so she started her day with quite an amount of unpicking. All was back on track lick-etty-split, as you can see.

We had a retreat booked for March and 3 of us had decided to work on the same project. It's fun doing that, they all look so different yet the pattern is the same.

Anyway, sadly and rather annoyingly, the location decided not to run the retreat, they left it a bit last minute to tell us too! now we're all disappointed. These are some of Pam's blocks, she's decided to crack on regardless, as will I.

Stitching News

 Well, here's a new thing, blog posts 3 days in a row? ha!

 Farmer Lynda stitched a very wise owl for a birthday gifting postcard and sent me the beautifully 'staged' photo, Thank you Lynda. It's a totally toot toot toot-able project, fabulous and finished no matter the size!

Rose made this very large floor cushion/pillow to gift along with the quilt I posted about, the one with the very impressive facing? remember? Well this time Rose has learned how to put a zip into the edge of a cushion, as opposed to hiding it under a flap!

It still looks like there's a flap but it's not, it's a sneaky trick, ha!

Toot toot toot Rose, another fabulous and finished project, just in the nick of time too.

 Rose (a different one)  has been bitten by the quilting bug. She needed a baby quilt and, as you know I cut and sell these marvellous I Spy Six Packs. They can be joined together lick-etty-split which helps make everything go faster or add sashing and corner stones if you have more time, easy peasy.

Toot toot toot Rose, it's your first finish fanfare!!

Tina's first ever quilt is coming along very nicely. The yellow-ish fabric is not yellow, my camera is playing tricks, it's Xbox green, so I'm told. There will be an Xbox sandwich made soon.

Stitching News

Halloooooo, these pictures are from last Thursday so I'm just about keeping, sort of up to date, slightly last minute but done.

First up is Lady Lidl, Our very own Lady!!! 

Actually it's All Day Di showing off her newly found love of triangles. She is super chuffed with her very own self for making these star blocks, and rightly so.

And she loves the backing too. Toot toot toot Di, a fabulous and finished project that will look marvellous in your new kitchen.

Now that the table runner has received a loud toot toot fanfare, Di has moved on to a little more applique. She's actually made this design once before and loved it so much that she's doing it again, that's the short version of the tale, and it's all you are getting from me, ha!

Sister Susie is making a wonderful and large reading pillow, isn't it cute! The pattern is sold for a quilt but as you know, we please our very own selves, we can purchase patterns and use the applique designs however we want to. That there flower is coming out of the pocket, not sure you can make out the pocket in my photo.

We have a lot of this going on in my classroom, especially on a Thursday afternoon. Elizabeth Hartman patterns ask you to prepare all the tiny little bits and to label them. Believe it or not, there's going to be dogs made from Shirley's pile of bits, watch this space. 

There will be swans a plenty made by Jan, such a clever pattern. 

There's usually quite a bit of muttering going on when folk start to piece all the bits, understandably it has to be said. 

Jan made one swan block up at home, and after a troublesome time with the beak, she's now happy with the first one, a very smart fellow indeedy.

 

Stitching News

As you must be able to tell, Mary Poppins and her marvellous Magic Carpet Bag never did turn up. I do feel like I'm hanging on to her Umbrella though and floating over the to do list!! ha ha ha Longer daylight hours will help us all have more time, for sure.
Here goes on a little catch up...

Jean Bean is up first with a fabulous and finished, totally toot toot toot-a-bubble gifting quilt. Baby is just about one year old and is sure to love her pretty Log Cabin quilt, the pinks are all Tilda fabrics. I hope you can see the absence of any binding? We discovered Facing, yes, Facing a quilt, who knew?

Beano almost always puts something fun on the back of her projects, 'Hello Sunshine' this time, inspired by the backing fabric from an Art Gallery Fabric collection. You can see the facing around the edge. We are impressed with this method and you are definitely going to see more of it.

Our PM Pam is playing with frogs. She is not a lover of the real frogs, she doesn't like what they feel like, which is odd as she has never touched one. These Art Gallery Fabric frogs feel very soft and smooth, so she's chopped them up 'fussily' This project is going to be a cutie.

Gail spied a moment with a bit of space later in the day, not quite enough so Beano got moved!! She was happy to help Gail by moving, which is just as well. A sandwich was made and quilting will be comencing very soon, Unless we get a garage storing situation, oh Dear Gail will never live that down, he he

Our PM Pam has been rooting around at home. There was a lost book, so her Quilty Quarters had to be cleared up and tidied up until the book was found, along with a couple of started, not finished, projects. Including this Purple Cow. She is going to be magnificent, The Purple Cow, I'm loving her already.

I'm trying to quilt my Churndash Quilt, I've been giving you glimpses of it. 

This is just one bit of the quilting, I'm changing thread colours for almost every section, what a daft idea it's turning out to be, but I've started, so I will finish.

There's a Checkley Sunday Funday coming up, 26th February 9.30am - 3.30pm.
If you plan on joining us, and you haven't already booked and paid, please would you?

It helps me with the advanced planning and preparations.

Sunday Funday Sewday Dates

I'm shouting the dates for 2023 so you can plan your stitchy fun year. 

Sunday Funday Sewdays are held at
Checkley Community Centre, ST104NB

Sunday Sewday 26th February 9.30am to 3.30pm

Sunday Sewday 26th March 9.30am to 3.30pm 

Sunday Sewday 30th April 9.30am to 3.30pm 

Sunday Sewday 28th May 9.30am to 3.30pm 

Sunday Sewday 25th June 9.30am to 3.30pm 

Sunday Sewday 30th July 9.30am to 3.30pm 

Sunday Sewday 24th September 9.30am to 3.30pm 

Sunday Sewday 29th October 9.30am to 3.30pm 

Sunday Sewday 26th November 9.30am to 3.30pm 

9.30am – 3.30pm. £20.00 payable on booking.
Refreshments and a light lunch. Please bring a mug.
There is Ample parking.

Stitching News

I'm thinking of getting one of those big carpet bags, you know the ones I mean?, Mary Poppins uses one, all that stuff neatly tidied away into one bag. A bit of magic to help with the tidying and cleaning maybe? Does anyone know where I can find one? I could probably make good use of the actual Mary Poppins if she happened to come with the Big Carpet Bag, so that would be ok too. Spit Spot.

Susie finished her fabulous diamond cushion at home, hoooooray, and sent this photo for a Toot toot toot fanfare. A well deserved one as this project has tested Susie greatly. Diamonds might not be some girls' best friend, Ha! Susie assured me that there will not be a second one. Though it would look great on that there diamond-y patterned sofa me thinks

Jan made a very neat job of turning her table runner through. It can be tricky keeping pointy-points and her dress making skills came in handy. Beautiful straight lines of quilting finish it off ready for a toot toot toot fanfare for a fabulous and finished project.

Susan treated her very own self to a Jelly Roll last year! Last year wasn't so long ago really, though it does feel like at least 11 months ago,, anyway, she came to my vey own shop to purchase a few additional fabrics, also last year, and here it all is this year as a fabulous quilt top.

Tina, a new addict we found. She came to my shop to look, just to look! A few weeks in, after making the beginner cushion and purchasing her very own sewing machine, she's designing her first quilt. Based on the X Box, I believe it will be fabulous.

Christine has been forced into using fabric that she doesn't really like to make this bed runner quilt. None of it is from my emporium and we have had a good giggle with her about that. Now that the colours are all sewn together, in Christine's own "special" way, it doesn't look bad at all does it.

Our Sunday Sewday was great fun, 22 ladies sewing all sorts of things. Very inspiring.
The next meeting will be on Sunday 26th February, a note for your diary?