Stitching News

August!!! As promised! (or rather as I had threatened) I'm here writing another blog post with photos. We have need of your trumpeting skills for this one. It seems the problem I was having with my photos was caused by Google! That and my rubbish skills.

Christabelle is first up with her gifting quilt. Her brother is moving into his very own new home soon and this quilt will be a family gift to him. How lucky is he!

The back is Moda brushed cotton and it feels super snuggly. You can see Chris's quilting very clearly from the back, free motion and walking foot stitching. Toot toot toot Christabelle, a fabulous finish.

This is Gail's quilt, also for gifting. It's Jan Mullen's Stargazy Daizies design. It's not quite toot-toot-a-bubble as the hand stitching needs to be completed on the binding but we probable wont see it again. Gail had Amanda from Stone to do a lovely job of the quilting.

Gail chose this fabulous Art Gallery fabric for the backing which co-ordinates beautifully. Let's give it a fanfare anyway, it's almost finished and is definitely fabulous. toot-itty-toot.

As I missed a couple of weeks blogging, we need to zoom ahead to Jackie's sandwich making. I wrote about her appliqueing the hearts to background without solid plan and as if by magic, the result of our brainstorming appears! Isn't it wonderful! Once Jackie makes a plan there's no stopping her.

This sandwich belongs to Joanne. The original design, in the Material Obsessions book, was all set on point but Jo pleased her very own self and set them in rows, as you see. Perfect pointy-points everywhere and lots of scraps used. Jo will be quilting this all by her very own self.

Bev's been appliqueing vines and flowers for her borders. It was time to review how they were shaping up so I pushed the tables together, sandwich style. Bev wants to work on the borders at our next, and rapidly approaching retreat. It's a rubbish photo because the most finished borders of beautiful flowers are over the table where you cant see them. You will have to wait to see them. 

More progress for Lesley's quilt. More fish, more birds and lots of bubbles have been added. Lesley wants to embellish a bit with embroidery threats. Some of the creatures will have eyes and fancy bits. Lesley must be feeling confident about finishing all that because she purchased the backing fabric.

Catching Up

 Almost a whole month has flown by. It's been too hot for heavy thinking!! That and fighting with my computers tics. I hate the updating. Now I can't make some things work at all and as to where the photos are going pfffft, anyway, here goes...

Our Jean Bean has moved away from town, to a new place, far, far away. (not so far, I'm adding drama!) But she's coming back up to these here parts to join us for Quilting Retreats, which will be great. Just before she left town, she decided to make a test block or two so she will be good and ready for our October retreat. Which is amusing as there are 3 months or so, with lots going on until then. I'm thinking remembering how to piece the block might not be totally successful!

Pam is working on another Elizabeth Hartman quilt design. Here's the link..

https://elizabethhartman.com/products/cottontails-quilt-and-pillow-pattern

Pam decided to start with the flowers as they looked easier.

Jackie had spent time appliqueing hearts onto the background fabric with no real plan, I think she has 2000 heart blocks! We brain stormed a bit. What size quilt to make? Will there be other blocks,? What size blocks to work with? How many more pinks? that kind of thing. There is a plan!!!

This is also Jackie's project. Bright and beautifully pieced, as always. This quilt top has been set aside for a bit, waiting for a sandwich making session. The pink heart quilt is needed first so all stitching time will be used on that one.

Turtles and octopus have been added to Lesley's quilt. A few more fish too. It's coming along nicely. The shapes are tricky, especially the octopus, but worth all the fiddliness.

Di completed another block, so that's 2 of her 12 done. Can you see she stitched lots of lines to make the books look more book-ish? It took ages but Di didn't care. PMS !

If I can figure out how to get the photos to appear, yes there are more in my phone! I will post again before another 4 weeks passes by.

Meanwhile, I have seats available on our coach to the NEC Festival Of Quilts, £25.00 each but there are no entrance tickets included now. You can order them online or purchase them at the show.

Dates To Note

I have lot's going on in August. Please note the dates!

Our Annual Pilgrimage to Festival of Quilts NEC Birmingham

Sunday 2nd August. 

£40 includes show entrance ticket. There's still time to book.

Shop open Tuesday 4th August.

Shop Closed Thursday 6th August until Tuesday 11th August

Open as normal from Tuesday 11 August - Saturday 15th

Shop Closed Tuesday 18th, 19th, 20th August.

Shop will be open, and back to normal, from Friday 21st August 

Stitching News

The weather people say we're winding up for another heatwave in these here parts. My advice for you is to stay cool, indoors and sew! It's very wise advise you know.
Steady progress is happening with many projects in the classroom but people pack up so quickly at the end of the day, too fast for my memory and camera! 

We're all enjoying watching Lesley's progress with this wall hanging. All the animals are stitched on and the tree is finished, though there are more birds to add I think. The brightly coloured fish have started to swim in too.

Mary's been working on these applique blocks for a while and is almost finished. She wanted to play with the layout as she had decided not to follow her pattern instructions, PMS Pleasing Mary's Self !!!!!

The original pattern has many borders and filler bits around each block, see in the picture? Mary didn't want to do all those bits. A few mathemisms were needed and a bit of careful re-sizing of the blocks, but we did it. It looks completely different!

Jackie has finished almost all of the units for her Gypsy Wife/Boho Heart inspired quilt. Jackie designed her version all on graph paper. Lots of the blocks are teeny-tiny, she started stitching the millions of thin strips together, it is looking sooooo good, very bright too. I just managed to take this picture as it was being folded and packed up for home, with the promise that I can take a better picture next week.

This customer kindly brought in her finished quilt to show. I love when that happens, very satisfying to see my shop's helping to make beautiful projects 😇The pattern is by Robin Pickens and called 'Beanstalk' When the customer came in search of the backing fabric, we had a conversation about making a pieced backing to use up the beautiful fabrics left over from the top. Obviously, I can be very persuasive!

Wow, look what she did. Absolutely fabulous, perfectly co-ordinated with the front and very much finished so, you know what to do, trumpets up!!! Toot toot toot. The quilt will be sold in an auction to raise money for a very good cause. Gosh, I don't think I would want to part with it.

Stitching News

Half way through June already!

The lovely long days are great for creativity and, apparently, gardening. 

Norma put the final stitches to her beautiful wall hanging. Then she decided she wanted it to be large enough to be used as a lap quilt. Adding the two borders brought it up to a good size. Norma chose the backing and quickly prepared it so that it could be delivered to Amanda in Stone the next day, when she was to be picking up her finished quilt. 

Lesley added lot's more animals and more of the green tree bits. I was going to say leaves but they are very big leaves in the grand scheme of the design of quilt. They must be bunches of leaves?

Di started another new project. The idea was to practice a design, this one is about twelve inches, that could be made much smaller for use in a Postcard challenge, which is about six inches by 4 inches. The end result looks great but it was tricky enough at the large size, Di will go back to her drawing board for the postcard.

Gail finished her cushions so we need our trumpets polishing. The block is Card Trick, a very popular block that's not always as easy as it looks if you want those pointy points all accurate. Toot toot Gail, fabulous and finished, complete with covered zips!

As I mentioned, Norma has been to Amanda in Stone to pick up this beautiful quilt. Apart from the background and sashing blue fabric, it's all been made using Norma's stash of scraps. I can't quite believe how many quilts Norma's made to use up said scraps, and the bags don't seem to reduce in size! It just needs the binding now.

Pam also went to Amanda in Stone to pick up her quilted quilt. She went with Norma, they are a mischievous pair when together! Pam's quilt is huge. What a performance it was holding the quilt up for the photo as only short ladies were available! All but three of the coloured fabrics are different. Can you spot the three that were repeated? This quilt also needs binding, which I was informed by message yesterday, has been stitched on ready for a hundred evenings of hand stitching.

May Retreat Photos

I just want to say that I didn't take any of these photos. I never even thought to get my camera (phone) out to snap away as I was too busy chilling! It's lovely that someone else took photos though, because I get to share a few pictures. Just the ones made by people who regularly give me permission to show you what we are up to. I never post pictures without permission.

This applique project belongs to Our Norma. It's an Australian designer's pattern, Irene Blanck of Focus On Quilts A few of us got together to make up an order so we could share the shipping cost, aren't we smart! Norma has set it to one side now because she might make it larger to use as a quilt rather than a wall hanging.

This is Norma's new project. You shouldn't be surprised to see that it involves colourful applique, it's her favourite thing to do. She was inspired by Lesley's project from the Quilt Lovely book.

Di was/is chuffed to bits with her fabulous and finished applique cushion toot toot toot. She took the pattern and the fabrics but had done no other prep, so this was quite an achievement.

Bev was working on her floral applique borders to go around this Tilda quilt top. She couldn't disturb the applique at photo time. If she had held it up it all the little petals and leaves would have fallen off!

Lesley was also doing Applique for the whole retreat. Tracing, gluing, cutting and sticking the animals then stitching with her Juki blanket stitch, our favourite method. Though Lesley is also a skilled hand applique-er

I've never been a fan of Advent panels. Until now that is. They are great fun to make and free motion quilting with scribble-y stitch is great practice. This will be a shop sample to show how fabulous they look made up. There's a dog one too. You can book a class or two to make one, I have top tips!

I also made this "Thing" It's a hanging pod. I went to town a bit with the quilting, because I had lots of time and I love quilting! It's not quilted at all on the pattern though. A bit more PMS. It's hanging in my shop so you can see it if you pop in.

6:30am every day walking. Pleasing my very own slef. It goes for miles and miles

What a fabulous start to every retreat day!

We had cracking thunder storms too.

Sandwich Saturday?

You won't believe it. I pleased my very own self and had a sandwich Saturday, today.

A Sandwich Saturday but ON A WEDNESDAY!!!

It's only a little one and I need to get it finished to hang in my very own shop. Perks!

 Last week we had a sandwich Saturday on a Friday! 

There were two sandwiched made and both belong to Christabelle.

You've seen the steady progress Chris made with this quilt. For it's tooting time I will get close up photos so you can see the beautiful detail. I know I have said that already in a previous post. It's worth repeating!

This one is Christabelle's 'hurry up' quilt. 

Gifting will be done as soon as it's finished.

She's already started the quilting actually.

And here is the evidence. Work In Progress. 

Chris spent all of Tuesday quilting. Another 5 days should do it!!!

Shop Talk

Fabric arrived in my shop a few weeks ago, before I went off for my retreat shenanigans. Included in the delivery was the Makower Prehistoric range. They are quite cute and dinosaur-y with some great mixer/blender designs but 

This panel is only 60 cm wide, long and thin, as most panels are. I think it needs a bit of something to help it be a useful quilt size. Of course that's my very own opinion.

We had the same dilemma with this alphabet panel that Lesley used to make her Archie quilt, too narrow for how long it was. It turned out perfect didn't it. There's not a lot of point me writing a name for a shop sample though. Obviously, I would write Anders!!! but then I wouldn't be able to give it to anyone but Anders and he already has a lot of Nangie Quilts.

I had a brain wave. But I am hopeless at drawing. I had many attempts actually, they were all rubbish. Eventually I went to YouTube and asked it for 'How to draw a dinosaur footprint', AMAZING!!! start with three lines and add oval shapes, I was so impressed with the result.

I got out the sticky stuff and traced off these 5 foot prints. Stuck them to my chosen fabric. Committed, no going back. I soon cut them out, in between serving customers, like multi tasking! They have been sewn onto that background now, with blanket stitch, my favourite applique stitch! Do you think they look like links of barbecued sausages? ha ha ha. It's not finished yet.