Stitching News

There are so many beautiful colours appearing on our trees. It's very inspiring in the sewing department. Beautiful rich, warm colours.

Bev wanted her Autumnal 10 minute block quilt finished. The top just needed borders of random bricks. The centre had been completed a while ago but, as often happens, it was placed on one side when Bev spotted new blue fabrics!

Taa daaah it's done now and ready to be sandwiched.

Such a clever, and very easy, design

 The cushion making continues. Our Pam made another! She does love making smaller projects. It's not really procrastinating, Pam is about to start quilting the Garden Retreat quilt which was sandwiched at Checkley Sunday Funday Sewday. 

Judy spotted the Gnome place mats that Di was making for gifting and, obviously, purchased the book. It's the best thing about sewing with company, inspiration on every table!

Panels are great when you need a quick quilt for gifting. Luna Twearly needs two quilts, those baby's roll in in little groups, like buses, ha! Just add a couple of border strips and your top is done!

Then spend time quilting as much or as little as you like. Luna has quilted loads of little details, like all of those spikey bits on the worm! There's a lot of tactile detail over the quilt but this was my favourite creature. Toot toot toot Luna, a fabulous finish!

Lookie!! Di continued piecing curves. 

She is very proud of her very own self too. 

Just 3 more blocks needed to make the cushion plan.

Di is also learning how to do Foundation Paper Piecing. 

I think this is a practice block for something spectacular.

We will have to wait for more news.

Stitching News

 Lots of lovely projects being worked on in my classroom. Here's a quick catch up.

Gail's Shakespeare In The Park quilt was getting us confused so we laid it out on the floor to find the way. On point settings always bring a challenge if you try to do them on a small table top. It's really taking shape now.

Princess Jackie's cute little piglets! Choosing perfect fabrics for the job is half the fun and makes all the difference to the cuteness, don't you think?

Christabelle can confidently call this a Lick-etty- Split quilt deign. Once the fabrics were chosen and the 2 and a half inch strips cut, it was plain sailing! Chris didn't want to cut into the 10" Layer Cake pieces, I don't blame her, they are rather beautiful

At the very same time Chris is working on her New York Beauty blocks. Very much inspired by the one Chery Cheryl just finished, Chris is using up lots of bits of fabrics and is hoping that each segment will bring a little memory of the quilts Chris has made, a lovely idea.

I have more pictures but I need to crack on.
I have so much to do in my very own shop this week.
I've ordered another Aurifil Thread stand and delivery is imminent. This one to house 200 metres size spools. I have no idea where I am going to put it.
The Mettler stand is still in the way! I'll have to come up with a sales tempting opportunity on the Mettler Threads so that it will you to empty it a bit quicker.
Would you like me to do that?
Yes of course you would!!
OK, so I'll have a think about that!

Stitching News

September is proving to be a bit manic isn't it? Kid's back to school. Millions of birthdays! Last minute holidays, a bit of sunshine and now the night's are drawing in too quickly. Fabric is arriving at a scary rate, my very own shop is so disorganised at the moment, in a beautiful and inspiring way, ha!
Some of the ladies, including the Saturday Working Girls, have gone off on a sewing retreat, lucky spuds. I think we should just about be back to normal for the rest of this week.

Louise Merlot made lots of wee thistle blocks for her quilt. After choosing her favourites for the actual quilt she had three lovelies left over. And what do you know? Three is perfect to make a matching cushion, and you must know by now that we all love to make a cushion!!

Lou Lou decided that her quilt centre of Half Square Triangles was just the right size. She wanted to add a border and, as she had a lot of those 5 inch squares already cut, we decided to go with bricks. The inner border is a gorgeous Moda Grunge.

Deb has been stitching away at home. She is still enjoying all the planning and fabric choosing for each Snowman Collector block. Don't they look fabulous!

 Deb walked up to my shop, from the car park, she popped into the supermarket and found Mince Pies!!! It was a very, very, very, hot-melty hot day in my classroom too, how funny it is that we prepare for Christmas while we sweat! Oh, I meant perspire!! It's way too early for Festive food isn't it.

It seams that (see what I did there?) Merlot is on a stitching roll as this is also her quilt top. Adorable Pandas In Sweaters, another Elizabeth Hartman pattern, of course. There was a plan for a black border fabric but after adding that inner pink one, the plan changed. It really didn't need black after all. Sandwich time soon!

Di's getting on with her Christmas gifting projects, how cute are these table mats!! The binding needed to be just over one WOF so there was need for a join, just one join making it very easy not to sew the binding on with a join landing on a corner. Di got hers bang on a corner though. That takes a certain kind of skill! I shouldn't really mention that Di cut her binding perfectly at 2 1/2 "... but she left that at home and used the 3 1/2 strips that she found in her bag. It was a hot day, brains were melting. After all that and with a bit of unstitching, the table mats survived and look great. Toot toot toot for the fabulous & finished one.

This next weekend it's a Checkley Sunday Funday Sewday. 24th September,  9.30am - 3.30pm. 

Refreshments and a light lunch are included and the cost is £20.00 paid in advance and £25.00 to pay on the day. You still a few days to book a space if you fancy a one day retreat.

A Look Back To A Batik Beauty

I'm not a big fan of Facebook. I have to use it because of my shop but that doesn't mean I understand much about it, well that's not real breaking news is it! Sometimes Facebook throws up a picture memory that I have completely forgotten about. Like this one below.
I have reposted it today as it is still a great blogpost and because this free pattern called Roaring Waves is still available. Pam made her quilt in September 2016 and I still love it.

Fanfare For A Fabulous Finish!

I know.... close your mouth!!!! ha ha ha
Wow is this an explosion of colour and happiness
Oh how I love PM Pam's quilt. I love the beautiful Batik fabrics (all from my very own wonderful shop) I love the colours Pam and Jean chose and I  love design too, this link  will take you to the fabulous and free pattern if you would like to make one for your very own self... it is Super easy to do and it's a great introduction to how a Bargello design works, Pam and I both agree on that point!

And with the very small amount of fabric left over from your fat quarters, you could add these quirky little strips to your quilt backing... Pam's Quilting design was super simple to do and look how amazing it look on the back... 
Thank goodness for the walking foot!!
Toot toot toot-etty-toot Pamela! this is most definitely a Fabulous Finish!

Now... I am just thinking aloud here... I will tell you what I am thinking... between me and you, obviously... we can't really have everyone knowing this... would you like to make this design but you have no idea how to go about choosing the right fabrics... or maybe, you don't feel confident about colour... maybe you are great at choosing fabrics and colours.... if you only had enough fabric to choose from.... I can help you with all of these dilemmas you know... pop on over to my very own shop and taste the excellent customer service we offer... but only if you want help, we also allow you to play with my fabric to help you get exactly what you want... so long as you leave my shop happy, I am happy! I love feeling happy!!!!!

Beginner Cushion Plan

Just on a whim, I tweaked the beginner cushion maths, just to make it easier to make and finish it in a day. The new maths and written instructions needed testing.  A cushion using sewing notions fabrics? Why not? I love it, it was very easy, of course!
3 ladies came to the workshop on the Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed learning all the basics of patchwork and quilting by making their very own cushion, I forgot to get photos, again!!

When Pam saw my cushion, she immediately wanted one for her very own self so, she purchased the 3 Fat Quarters needed and lick-etty-split the cushion was complete. Pam's done shadow quilting and my cushion has quilting lines through the squares. Just in case you think it's the same cushion! Carol saw the cushion so she has one now, with diagonal line quilting and Di purchased the 3 Fat Quarters to make a sewing cushion on the upcoming retreat. How funny we are! Toot toot toot everyone, fabulous and finished cushions galore.

Pam's cushion on her sewing chair. Perfect!

I had made one cushion front but didn't like the balance, basically it didn't! I wanted wider border strips. Not one to waste supplies, I quilted it anyway and made a second cushion. This time I added binding.

With bits of the fabric left over from playing with the cutting maths, I pieced the two backing halves and quilted them, this makes the cushion feel quite luxurious indeed. I just have to finish hand sewing my binding. I do love a homemade cushion, don't you?

September is proving to be a very busy month personally (lots of birthdays) also busy in my very own shop.
Someone ordered more fabric because big boxes arrived on Friday. Just when I was beginning to see shelf spaces I go and fill it all up again, for goodness sakes, will I ever be ready to retire?

  

Stitching News

 Another productive week in my classroom. Christmas Corner is getting busy too, that's the little nook full of Christmas fabrics and a few festive panels, Advent ones mainly.

We passed a huge milestone in Gail's patchwork journey to the Park with Shakespeare in it! All, yes ALL of the blocks are made. Just a little bit more cutting was needed for the setting triangles and we were off, joining them all together, so exciting! Can you see the design coming to life?

Beano continued with her quilting. She's decided to stitch slightly different straight lines for each colour. This is a great quilt pattern for playing with straight line designs. We do love walking foot quilting. 

These beautiful floral prints are from a Moda Layer Cake that Christabelle had purchased a while ago. It's one of those 'too beautiful to cut up' Layer Cakes so Chris has been searching for just the right design, She found it! It's going to be beautiful. Here's the ink to the pattern.

Princess Jackie purchased this fabric from the Festival Of Quilts. It's a sort of velvety fabric, perfect for extremely posh cushions. Jackie found a perfectly coloured Batik in my very own shop so there's piping and covered zips on each of them, Toot toot toot Jackie, fabulous and finished and very posh!

Only two weeks left to book a place at Checkley Sunday Sewday. £20 paid in advance and £25.00 to pay on the day, but you already know that, ha!

Stitching News

I've lots of inspiring quilts to show you. I have even more that I would have liked to have shown you too, but there are no pictures of those, ha! I have many lovely customer making the most wonderful, and all very different, projects. They inspire each other with quilt designs, colour and fabric selection. My shop is such a happy place. Even though folk tell me there is too much choice in fabrics, impossibubble I say.

Let's start with shiny, polished trumpets. Raised good and high for Di's Fabulous and finished flower show gifting quilt. She added embellishing with embroidery and buttons and that's made all the difference. The quilt has been given to it's very lucky new owner who was quite overwhelmed, I bet she was. Toot toot toot Di, it's truly fabulous!

Norma came to make a flower quilt sandwich. She's going to quilt this one all by her very own self as it's not too large. At least she thought it was small until she sandwiched it. Too late now, it will be done! Wavy lines and zig-zags were discussed.

Our Pam is making some smaller blocks for yet another new project. Smaller blocks need smaller pieces. The smaller the pieces, the more tricky is gets to have pointy points in the right place. Accurate cutting and very accurate Seam allowance is everything. She did really well, with this second block!

Farmer Lynda has decided to add to her piecing skills too. 

She's never cut using her 60 degree lines on her long ruler before so she was chuffed to bits with her very own self when the block worked out perfectly.

Pam has been working on the squares for the back of her Quilt Retreat top each time we've had a Sunday Sewday at Checkley. There are lots of table space there so it was easier. A dry lawn is not always availabubble!

This is Pam's Garden Retreat Quit top, the backing is just the right size. Whatever get's trimmed of will be used up too. Now the back is finished there will be a sandwich made soon. It's looking great, don't you think?

Sunday 24th September is the date for your diary for our next Sunday Sewday. Let me know if you want to go won't you?