Stitching News

 Trumpets up for the first photo please

Deb finished her Puppy Cushion. This was a tester project to see whether she would like to embark on a whole quilt full of cute puppies. I think the decision is a yes! Every fabulous and finished project deserves a toot toot toot fanfare. Cute cushions included.

Rose finished all 4 of her centre blocks and has started on the half blocks that will frame them. She's really pleased with her progress after a tricky start. Everything is easy once you know how isn't it.

I knew it! Christabelle had declared that she would have to park this project in order to finish another one she's quilting... She couldn't resist joining the 4 centre blocks, just to see how it would look and, before she knew it, the other quilt had been parked and this one will probabubbly be finished!

Gail wanted to make a baby quilt but with little time to get it finished she opted to use this lovely panel. Lick-etty-split a sandwich was made and the quilting had begun. There will be French Knots everywhere too. I have this panel in a pinky colourway too.

I hope you've remembered that my shop is now closed until Thursday. I have 4 days all to my very own self, sort of. Can you guess what I will be doing?

June is not far away now. I have a Checkley Sunday Funday booked in.
We couldn't get many Sewdays in this year so the lovely one day retreats have been missed, especially since the last one was at the end of February.
Sunday 30th June. 9.30am until 3.30pm. £20.00 if you book and pay ahead and £25.00 if you choose to pay on the day. The price includes a light lunch and hot drinks all day.

Then there's the Pilgrimage to Festival Of Quilts to book for, should you like to join us.
£36.00 which includes your show entrance ticket.

While I'm spending your money, we have a 3 night, 5 days sewing retreat in October for £485.00
Once again it's at Hillscourt Hotel Hillscourt Hotel in the Lickey Hills Country Park.
If you would like more information just email me and I'll send it to you, lick-etty-split.

Sandwich News

There were some huge sandwiches booked in this week. It's a good job I offer this wonderful customer service. Making huge sandwiches on the floor is no fun, not when they are this big and there aren't many floor spaces large enough in the average home, I bet. Getting down on the floor is all very well but getting back up again is a different story, so I hear! I push my classroom tables together so you don't have to know about that discomfort.

This Log Cabin sandwich belongs to Janis. The top was made with two and a half inch strips all cut from Fat Quarters, no Jelly Roll here. On the left of the photo is my rather overflowing grey fabric department, there are a few trolleys full too! and complementing Jan's sandwich beautifully is the latest finished quilt by yours truly, in my Quilty Quarters.

This sandwich belongs to Cheryl Cheryl. The Tilda fabrics were a lovely gift of fat quarters, which sent Cheryl over to the Tilda website looking for inspiration, there is a lot to choose from, if that's your cuppa tea! She chose this free pattern which turned out so lovely with the pale blue Moda Grunge.

When the tables are set out like this, it's a perfect opportunity to use the space to help decide on a layout, possible border treatments, possible sashing fabrics. Christabelle took full advantage, boy is this a beautiful project! 

Whilst the tables were set out in situ, I decided to make a sandwich of my very own, daft not to really. I stayed after time to do it when the shop was closed, because I can! This is the link to the pattern it's called Grow Free, Wild Flowers, if you dare go looking, there's so much inspiration to tempt you. Lots especially to use up stash you already own, scraps and all. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Stitching News

Izzy Whizzy, I've been bizzy! (I know you don't spell Busy like that, it's for artistic purposes) I've had my brain picked almost to it's bones this week. It's amusing how people think I can help with so many things and gosh, what a lot of mathemisms I've done. I've shared a lot of 'let's fix it with a bit of fudging' top tips. Mistakes can easily become creative opportunities to be embraced.
My classroom, as usual, has lots of lovely projects taking shape, quilt shapes of course.

This belongs to Shirley. She's used lots of pins to get those blocks perfectly pieced. Pinwheel blocks are little devils in the centre, all those seams coming together! I think there will be a couple more borders added to make it larger. 

Gail's gifting quilt is fabulous and finished, all but a couple of threads to tie off. The teddy's are all extra tactile with faux trapunto, Gail likes stuffing her applique! We won't see the quilt again as it's off to it's new owner but we can still raise those trumpets to give a Toot toot toot fanfare. 

Christabelle is about to finish the last of these blocks. There are lots and they are all beautiful! The pattern is by Anna Maria Horner and uses reverse applique, Chris quilted her blocks individually and will be using the apartment joining method. 

Rose's workspace looks super organised doesn't it. Lot's of little pieces all labelled up. Rose found the first block ever so tricky, but she's getting the hang of it now and produced two more blocks during class.

Stitching News

Unfortunately, for one reason and another, our May retreat had to be postponed. It was disappointing to all that were going, obviously, but I'm happy to report that most of the ladies were able to book up mini breaks elsewhere.
Carol had a small brainwave and asked about the possibility of retreating in my very own shop? You know I love to give excellent customer service! I decided we could have a 'Cheat Retreat'.
Coming to class one morning, sew all day and a bit extra, with obligatory nattering and giggles. In the early evening, leaving all sewing paraphernalia in situ, we could go to a local restaurant for dinner then head home, happy. Come back the next day for another lovely, long sewing day. Two whole days of sewing with no need to cart your overnight bag full of clean knickers and no need to worry about the things you may have forgotten because we would be in my very own, lovely quilt shop, super handy!!
We did it, just a few of us, we actually had a lovely few days.
So now It's a thing, A Cheat Retreat will definitely be repeated.
A Repeat Cheat Retreat Treat... ha ha, it gets worse!

We had a normal class on Saturday, lots of projects are coming along nicely. Backings were stitched in preparation for Sandwich making, which are booked in for next Saturday because they are huge quilts and will likely need all the tables.

Deb stitched her binding on, both sides by machine, which more folk are tending to do these days, lack of time, sore fingers etc and it's so much more accept-a-bubble than it used to be now that we ignore the quilt police ha! We need those trumpets please. Deb's fabulous and finished quilt needs a Toot toot toot fanfare.

Cheryl had been gifted a pile of Kaffe fabrics. Mostly the same design in lots of colourways. She wasn't sure how to use them so we had a bit of a brainstorm thing and then, lick-etty-split, a new project was started. Eventually, other fabrics invited themselves to the Kaffe Churndash party and it's all looking very exciting.

Deb made this dog/puppy using her Elizabeth Hartman pattern. She wanted to make one block before committing to a larger quilt, a very sensible idea me thinks. Deb used fabrics to make it look like her very own pooch. Once it's quilted it will be made into a rather cute cushion with an invisibubble zip!

Quilty Quarters

I have another fabulous and finished quilt to show you.
Do you remember this beautiful quilt top? 

I made it at the sewing retreat at the end of November last year. 

I recently made a sandwich of it.

This is the Quilt Norma made and had had it professionally quilted by Amanda In Stone. I was very interested to see it had been quilted in Wavy Lines top to bottom. (though on a long arm machine I think they have to do it from side to side) I hadn't thought to do that design, genius? Super easy more like!

My quilting done. Crusts trimmed off, and it wasn't raining!

Obviously my wavy lines are much more organic than the computer driven ones, but that's absolutely fine by me. Done, as they say, is much better than perfect! It took 3 bobbins of thread and only a few hours to quilt. My sandwich had been very well pinned so I was able to quilt top to bottom, so I didn't even have any ends to tie off nor thread in, winner!

I rooted for a binding fabric, luckily I found one then decided to stitch it on by machine. Usually I hand stitch binding to the back but since acquiring the Juki UX8, I love doing it by machine with the zipper foot and the walking thing. I was a bit miffed to have to make a new bobbin just to sew this two inch bit. I prefer to win the Thread Chicken game!

By the time I had the quilt finished, and ready to snap pictures of it, the wind had picked up and started to play at silly things, flipping the quilt over at the last minute. 

It must have wanted you to see the backing!

The wind did this too, perfectly staged! Clever wind.

I'll take the quilt to my shop later, you can to pop in to see it. 

The colours are really lovely in real life.

Toot toot toot for me!

Stitching News

I hope you all had a good Bank Holiday weekend. My shop is open as normal now, until the next Bank Holiday at the end of May. My shop will be closed on Tuesday 28th May making a good long weekend for my very good self, just so you can plan ahead! My shop is closed on Monday's and Wednesdays anyway so it's only 1 extra day.

Julie made a sandwich. She had to make it twice actually as I cut the first wadding a bit too small! Shocking customer service really but we soon had it rectified when I cut a larger piece. We didn't notice it was a bit short as the first sandwich was made on smaller table space so it was hanging over the edge! 

Mary finished her Table Topper. With all the zebras standing up the right way which makes her very happy. Toot toot toot Mary, another fabulous and finished masterpiece.

Stitching News

I broke my run on blogging. It is, what it is!

I spent Monday afternoon in my shop, waiting for the Smart Meter guys to come to fit, yet another! smart meter. Did they rock up? Blooming no!!! I have stronger words but I won't shock you with those, ha!
While I was waiting, I cleaned stuff, nooks and crannies- fabric is a very dusty business. I stopped worrying about the dust a long time ago. I try hard to keep on top of it but it is truly impossi-bubble. I never charge extra for the fuzzie layer though! Seriously, I really try hard to keep on top of dust. I even cleaned the windows, thank goodness for Henry, bless him, he helps me a lot! 

I changed the quilts on display which always makes my shop look lovely. Fresh and floral this time.

Once all the cleaning and tidying in my shop had reached it's interesting-ness capacity, I decided to get this beautiful quilt top sandwiched. It took time a plenty, it's a large one! The photo was taken while I was up a ladder, had you guessed? It will be quilted soon.

Meanwhile, in class, I didn't get much opportunity to take photos. Shopping customers come into my lovely shop and I get distracted! The ladies in class pack up at the end of their day and all photo taking opportunities are missed/forgotten by my very good self. We have a lovely time all day and it's not until blog writing time that I see what I didn't do...Take pictures!

Luckily, I took one photo at the start of the day. 

This top belongs to Julie. She started it on Saturday with two Tilda Charm Packs from her fabric stash, there was another round of border strips added after the photo but, the top is finished! Julie has chosen her backing fabric already so there very well might be a Tilda Sandwich making session very soon.