Stitching News

 We will be needing the fanfare trumpets!

Christabelle's quilt is huuuuge! If people keep making these hugs projects I will be needing a larger photo step! I can't get the whole quilt on my picture but you can see how fabulous it is. Made for gifting with time to spare. It all started with a Beautiful Batik Jelly Roll. Toot toot toot Chris, a fabulous finish

Rose finished her double sided baby gifting quilt. It all started with a picture of a quilt in a book. The pattern was made using this as the centre. When Rose finished the centre, she decided to make the round quilt, PMS at it's best, (Pleasing My Self!) 

There were strip sets left over so they were cut with the 10 degree ruler. Then two solid fabrics were chosen and chopped up with said ruler. Another fabulous and finished project that Rose made up as she went along. Free-Wheeling for the quilting, Rose loves that liberating style. Toot toot toot Rose, a fabulous finish.

The Tuesday Class took themselves off on a wonderful, relaxing sewing Retreat last week. This is one of the projects Jean Bean was working on. Now it is fabulous and finished so deserves a fanfare, a finish is a finish! Toot toot toot

Another of Rose's projects, it's a good sized cushion made with a linen blend base fabric and wool applique. Embellished with stitch and beads. It's a very lovely cushion that just needs the hand stitching to be done on the binding, what a fabulous piece of sofa artwork!

Poor Pam. She came to class with the main centre of this project to work on the borders, that's quite normal, I know. But my shop was a bit quiet so I helped Pam with her cutting, it was like a marathon, she was toing and froing and stitching none stop. She went home (for a nap, ha ha) with the top and back ready to be sandwiched!

Bev's finished making enough blocks to start choosing the placement with the panel pictures. This isn't the order she chose though. First of all the blocks were all made up to the same size, 12 inches. Then we ran out of time, but you can see it's going to look great cant you.

Jan came to make her Swan Sandwich. Such a beautiful design.

There were other sandwiches made too but people pack them up before I get chance to snap my pictures, how rude!

Not many days left for August, it's flown by hasn't it, very slowly!!!

It's time to start planning your next Sunday Sewday project. 

It's the 24th September and the following October booking is for the 29th.

Catching up.

I've been busy this week. Lots of cleaning and sorting in my shop. You might well be shocked to see how much dust collects behind all those bolts of fabric. It's a big job emptying stuff from the shelves, I'll have arms like Popeye soon!! It takes ages too, but that's because I cant help but plan quilts with all the lovely colours and patterns.
This is the last week for 10% off a fabric piece for finishing a bolt. Most of my shelves are very organised now, thank you all for helping with that.

Farmer Lynda came to make her pirate sandwich. The original pattern was purchased at a quilt show, it's a Lynette Anderson design but Lynda has changed quite a few details making it much more to her liking. She said that this is her favourite quilt so far. Lynda has said that before but then we do that, us quilters, don't we. The design for quilting it has been decided.

There's a lot going on at home, Builders and trades!! They are doing a great job but it's very disruptive and they arrive VERY early! Big important decisions had to be made. It's easy choosing fabric, if you change your mind you can just unstitch a bit and replace a colour. That's not the case when cement is used and I'm hopeless at choosing and deciding. That's why I like Ikea, you can walk around and get an idea of stuff in place before you purchase but the bricks and mortar is a whole other thing.  Progress has been made though.

The November Sewing Retreat plans are complete. 

We will be retreating from lunchtime, Monday 27th November to Thursday 30th.
It's our first time at this new venue and the price is All inclusive, not including your bar bill! If you would like more details about it please email me. We do have a few spaces available. 

Gotta Love A Panda

Merlot sews so many projects at the very same time that it's hard to keep up with her progress. She buckles down and gets on with it/with them, all the while thinking what to add to her  'want to make it' list.
She very much enjoys making the Elizabeth Hartman patterns too. All that itsy-bitsy cutting out and labelling up appeals to her. Not everyone's cup of tea I know, but when folk see the end result they love them and get tempted too.

Lookie, Pandas In Sweaters!!!!

Merlot made 7 adore-a-bubble Pandas, each one with a different sweater fabric, they are all sooooo cute. She will choose her favourite 6 to use on the main quilt, a good lap size and the remaining Panda will be used on something else, I forgot what though, tut! I'll try to remember to get more pictures in a week or so when they return for a Saturday Sewday.

A group of my customers have gone away on a sewing retreat this week.
There's another group going away to retreat in mid September.
Then there's the last retreat of the year at the end of November to look forward to. 

Is it possible to have too much sewing time? 

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Stitching News

Trumpets raised please for a fabulous and finished fanfare for Cheryl Cheryl

What an amazing project she made. 

A New York Beauty, or better still,  A New York Batik Beauty. 

My photos don't show how truly lovely this quilt is. 

Obviously you must be able to see that it's huge and I couldn't get it all in focus. When this quilt was started, I thought it a tricky task to choose pastel Batiks as most are big bold colours and patterns, but Cheryl has done exactly that. Pops of gentle colours with none overpowering the others, just lovely. It's her first dabble into foundation paper piecing and it wont be the last.

Cheryl quilted this all by her very own self and thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of free motion quilting on such a busy design, you can't go wrong really can you. Toot toot toot Cheryl, a fabulous and finished Batik Beauty and well done for gifting it already, many of us wouldn't have been able to do that, ha ha!

Norma finished her latest gifting quilt top. It's been made using only scraps and left over fabrics so she is very please with that. Usually Norma sends her quilts to Amanda in Stone for quilting but she's going to tackle this one all by her very own self, well it is a quarter of the size of her usual quilts.

Di was very happy to be able to say that she only has the binding left to hand stitch down to the back, which is a job she very much enjoys doing. What a beautiful gifting quilt perfect for a friend who loves flowers. It's almost toot-toot-able, but not quite yet. I hope we get to see it finished before it is gifted.

Stitching News

Blimey that week passed very quickly. Another busy week in my shop and classroom so, yet again, I took just a few pictures. Luckily some ladies sent me their progress photos too.

Deb is making the blocks for the Snowman Collector quilt. There are 12 in total and she's decided on a very different look. This snowman, on night sky, is adorned with buttons, military I think. Deb is really enjoying personalizing her project.

Farmer Lynda had her resident artist draw the faces on the pirates giving them more character. Then she palyed with her fancy Juki stitches to embellish the trees. There are words being appliqued next, Lynda is going off-piste for the next bits!

Jan had black and white fabrics left over from all those lovely swan blocks she made recently. She had purposely purchased a little extra of each with this Log Cabin quilt on her "I want to make this" pile. She's made quite a few of the blocks, the design layout is still to be decided.

Bev's decided to make different pieced blocks to complement a panel she found in her stash. Luckily I had some fabrics that co-ordinate with the panel, I think they are from the same collection. If cutting fabric doesn't go to exactly plan you can always improvise, as we did with that there tiny star!

Tina is back quilting her X Box inspired gifting quilt. It's mostly done, just the corners to be stitched  then it will be trim the crusts off time. The binding will be black. This is Tina's first quilt.

Christmas Corner is busy in my shop. Quite a few customers have decided to crack on with festive projects, that could be helped by our awful weather, leaves on our trees are turning autumnal and some ladies have confessed to turning their home heating on!