Stitching News

Morning Josie layered her little owl and made him into a sandwich...
Owl sandwiches? Oh my.... he he he
Good progress was made on the quilting during the class

Jeannette Dilly's quilt is fabulous, large and quite a hefty weight. She'll have muscles like Popeye's at this rate... thank goodness for the large 'hole' and great lighting on her Juki HZL 600 Exceed sewing machine... the 'humping' will all be worth while... what an amazing site this quilt will be on her bed!!

Di Butterfly also sandwiched her little quilts and started her quilting.
This delightful design, beach and huts, is not from a purchased pattern, oh no... it's Di's very own design! How very Arty-farty eh... We've decided that she found her wings, I wonder what she will come up with next?

Brenda Barbara's work table is full of bright prints... 
with co-ordinating, no...actually... well matching magnetic pin cushion! 
I see it now... I missed that until now looking at my photo! 
Brenda's quilt blocks are coming along a treat.

Diane's latest quilt top is almost done. She's going to personalise it but I can't remember whether it will be with applique or with shadow quilting...
ooooh... we will have to wait to see that!
This is a free pattern from the marvelous Moda Bake Shop, we tweaked the pattern sizes so Di could incorporate the About A Girl panel.

Annette came shopping, she needed help choosing sashing fabrics for her Stack-n-Whack Kaleidoscope blocks and I think we cracked it. A few ideas bounced about with a few mathemisms and all was sorted... beautiful blocks!

It's such a treat when customers bring back their projects to show how they got on making them... We try ever so hard to help whether it's designing, math or fabric choices... and I think the customers see that and feel we are part of their process. Toot toot toot, this play mat is fabulous and finished and deserves one of our fanfares!

Sue's Goodie Bags Workshop

Another fabulous Goodie Bag workshop run by Sue Oakley. Lots of fun for everyone. Here're the  pictures of the fruits from the day and I hope you notice the delicious fabrics and those fabulous zips... I have a lot of colours of these crafting zips in my very own shop and at 14" long they are only 45 pence each! A-Maaa-ZING!! ha ha 

Stitching News

Christabelle is first in the queue for a toot toot fanfare for her fabulous and finished wonky squares quilt. This was made with a Moda Layer Cake, Avant Garden, There're some great and funky designs in the collection. 
Update... for the free pattern click here

This is the back of Christabelle's totally toot-able quilt... Just look at the quilting! lots and lots of  tiny free-motion stitching... This fabulous quilt will be hanging at Uttoxeter Quilt Show this year where you will be able to see it for your very own self... it's much more stunning than my photo shows.

Toot toot toot-etty-toot... this time the fanfare's for New Sue's fabulous and very well finished quilt. It's another from one of the Pre-cut books that Sue seems to be working her way through... Once again there is some wonderful quilting for us to see

Taadaa... done with a walking foot... just fabulous!! Sue had every plate and bowl out of her kitchen cupboards to get the right size circles... ha ha ha
Who needs gadgets eh? This quilt will be gifted very soon.

Back to basics... I decided to have a smaller beginner project so that anyone new to patchwork and quilting could have a good taste of what's to come... all in one full day or two weekday classes... this cushion has been a perfect choice... Since I displayed my samples, with zips, everyone wants to make simple, and rather stunning cushions. New Sue mentioned how much fun it was being a beginner again...
well... she's no beginner is she!

This is the back of New Sue's cushion... yup... with a zip!
So there's another toot toot toot fanfare needed for Sue's fabulous finish...
And the good news is... she's keeping this one!

PM Pam made this fabulous Tote bag over the Easter break. It's made with Beautiful Batik fabrics... I have a huge selection of Beautiful Batiks... did I mention that before?
It's a lovely deep bucket-ty tote and there were whispers that everyone will be making them now! ha ha ha it's a free pattern from the internet.

Toot toot toot again... PM Pam made this lovely tote bag with the instructions from my Big Quilted Panel Bag but she made the lining separately as it's got co-ordinating pockets on the inside too... all of the fabrics were left over from a quilt Pam finished recently... what a great idea!!

Giggly Gillian is on a finishing roll... this lovely tree quilt was a special request from a family member... it just needs the binding hand stitching and the hanging sleeve stitching in place but we probably won't see it again... Love it Gillian!

This is also a project of Giggly Gillian's... She purchased the pattern and fabric kit from a quilt show, last year I think... the blue fabrics are Indigo dyes, lovely and rich. Gillian just needs to add the binding... she's keeping this quilt for her very own self!! 

Our newest beginner, announced that she had thoroughly enjoyed her class and was surprised how relaxed she felt... she booked herself in to come again. Barbara got the centre of her Quilted Cushion block finished... I love these fabrics!... 

Saturday Sandwiches

I went to the SPQ (Staffordshire Patchworkers And Quilters) April Soup and Sew Day on Saturday to spend a luxurious day chatting and stitching with like minded ladies... it's a rare treat to have your lunch provided so more minutes can be spent stitching!

I  left my trusty Jean Bean and My  Mum Gwynneth in charge of goings on in my very own Patchwork and Quilting shop.
Two large sandwiched making sessions were booked for the tables too... So, many pins were put in place... a special thank you Jean Bean for remembering to take pictures for us... the quilts look fabulous.


I bet no-one even noticed that I wasn't there...
I could get used to having a day off you know!!

Stitching News

Not many pictures for Stitching News today... me forgetting to take photos... and there have been many great opportunities... life's busy-ness and my shop's busy-ness all have aided the lack of blog fodder... but here are the few I did manage to capture  

Jeannette Dilly very proudly held up her finished quilt top.
This has not been a problem free project... recently the decision was made to unpick and re-make that large centre star with new fabrics!!... she just did it...
"Hats off" to Jeannette for perseverance, determination and sheer stubbornness
"I will not be beaten by a quilt top".

Fiona Too was taking her time with Stitching-in-the Ditch of her inner border strip...
It's a 1" cut strip so finishes at only a half inch wide...  It looks fabulous Ditch stitched on both sides, of course... 'ditch hopping' looks great too! ha ha

Sister Sue is at the very same stage as Fiona Too.
Taking great care to get those stitches as close to the ditch as possible.
Now she knows why Shadow Quilting is so popular... it's much easier to do and far more forgiving.... Matching thread colours to the border fabric strip is a great top tip!

Farmer Lynda finished her applique ducks... very sweet, they came to life once the tiny eyes were stitched, ahhhhh. Right, after a few ideas were tossed about for quilting, Lynda marked a few lines with a water soluble pen then used an iron on, tear away stabilizer to write words. They will be stitched through... no decision was made for the question... machine stitching or hand embroidery? Either way, it will be fabulous... I am sure of that.

Getting Back To Normal...

That's it then for our Easter break... today my lovely little Patchwork and Quilting shop will be open as is normal and we will be waiting for you! 

This next Saturday, 11th April, we have a sandwich making day planned. You do have to book your slot... bit like an appointment really, though you are allowed to come early to help pin the sandwich in front of you... or you could wander around shopping for fabrics while you wait, ha!

Next Saturday we have a workshop with Sue Oakley, her expert workshops are always popular. This one is labelled Sue's Goodie Bags and below are some the ladies made during the first of these workshops.

The fundraising raffle ticket details are now finalised and tickets will be available very soon.
Here's the information for you....

If you would like to buy some tickets online for the raffle you can do so by  making a payment for your tickets via the blog

www.michaelgoodwinsailing.blogspot.co.uk/

or by emailing bluestarraffle@yahoo.co.uk

Tickets will also be available from Sue Oakley & her team from April 20th if you wish to buy in person.

Please, please feel free to publicise this as much as you would be able to.

I better get my very own self down to that shop of mine... see you later?

Stitching News

Let's start with a toot toot toot Fanfare for Peggy's fabulous finish.
Made with the lovely About A Girl range of fabrics which, I must say, is proving to be very popular indeed. Peggy is thrilled with  her finished quilt
So... she started cutting up Jeans... more on that soon enough.

Last week during class, Fran Cup Cake purchased on of our new bag patterns. When we opened it and saw it was very  wordy with few pictures... we panicked a bit! We love picture heavy instructions. I have to say that the written instructions were really good and... look What a fantastic bag Fran made! toot toot toot it's just fabulous! Fran came to my shop yesterday to show it off and to choose fabrics to make another bag for her lovely and lucky daughter!

Gail's making good and steady progress with her quilting... if you remember she made 3 large quilt sandwiched not so long ago... one quilt has already gone to it's lucky new owner... so, she spent the morning shadow stitching the Bento Boxes, just the borders left to quilt but it was time for a change for the afternoon, Gail made a great start on quilting her beautiful Batik Bargello... 

This is Rose's new project... she's using a Moda Layer Cake and a pattern from one of the Pre-cut books. The first task was to choose and sort the fabrics into sets of 4... some folk find this to be the tricky bit but Rose says the sorting is her favourite thing to do.

Sporty Sue's had her eye on my Hexagon quilt for a week or two... She's given in to the urge now and has started to make one for her very own self... she was surprised how easy it is to make for how fabulous it looks when finished... I tell you... I don't make difficult projects... They are all easy once you know how!! ha

Stitching News

Rose came to make a beautiful sandwich.
Made with lovely colours of fabulous fabrics... shall you guess from where they were purchased? Might you need a hint or clue... Naaa? I thought not.
This is a rather large quilt so Rose has decided that it won't be coming to class to be quilted, it will be stitched at home.
Needless to say, Rose had to start another project! ha.

We had two more ladies come for the Basics For Beginners workshop. They had a lot of fun and most excellent and very helpful top tips were learned...
with just two ladies to teach it was a piece of cake!

They both did ever so well and even prepared the backs with zips!
Two very different colour choices... one from Mum and the other from her daughter... what a lovely way to spend time together! 

Joanna has almost finished quilting all of her blocks...
I think there are 24 or so. She trimmed them all to a cunningly perfect size and chose her sashing which will be used to join the blocks together... the winner was a luscious and rather scrumptious Moda green fabric

This fabric is in my temptation trolleys at the moment...
I love it!!
I cut a metre or so and proceeded to play Hidden Wells.

Oooooh Fabulous, Look what happened...
I hope to work more on this over the upcoming break