Stitching News

Lou Lou started this project quite a while ago... isn't it cute!! She lost heart mid way through piecing it though, as there are few typos on the pattern which made it tricky, so Lou put it away. It's out again now, the errors have been corrected, I was very helpful!!  After a little lesson on 'couching' Lou Lou got on with it and it's now ready to be sandwiched, fabulous.

This is one of Norma's "Cheap fabric Loot = Gifting Quilt, Lick-etty-split thank you" stories, I think this was number two of the four (or five) ... all things considered (ALL of them) I think it turned out quite well... Norma just has to hand stitch the binding, she can do that unaided, ha ha ha

Rose made up this very large cushion with her left over bits from the last quilt... (see previous post) You would never know it was left over bits though would you? It turned out rather splendidly... toot toot toot Rose, a fabulous finish.

Oh no... we just tooted Rose's fabulous and finished cushion and now we look at the photo of the back and see the binding hasn't been finished, Please join me as I rewind the tooting... toot toot toot... ha ha ha... it's the same backwards!!! I am amused.

There's a Wearable Sewing workshop with Carol on Saturday 30th, are you dressmaking??? Need help with the fit or the pattern??
Sunday 1st December is the last Sunday Funday of the year 2019. Chef says he's happy to take last minute bookings for lunch... Just saying!

Tooting For Lady Lidl

All Day Di, also known as Lady Lidl these days, is extremely happy with her very own self... this is the second Unicorn project that she has made using an Elizabeth Hartman pattern. She was very much more confident this time... Do exactly as the pattern tells you and it will all work out fine.

Di made this large Unicorn Cushion for gifting to a very special little lady. All left over strips used for the back and a covered zip has been skillfully included too. Toot toot toot Di, a fabulous and finished project!

Sunday Funday 1st December

I just received the menu plan from our chef at Feast With Friends for our Sunday Funday on 1st December at Checkley Village Hall...

Breakfast bars

Tea and coffee (available all day)

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Scrumptious Hot Chocolate with optional Rum splash

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Turkey And Mushroom Pie

Potatoes And Greens

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Followed by

Baked Cheesecake With Fruit

9:30am to 4:30pm  £20.00 per person (payable on booking)

I'm confirming numbers on Monday evening, so don't delay...
Please remember to bring your own mug.

Kate's Gifting Quilt

A blue and grey beauty, made by Kate... it's another huge quilt to which my photo doesn't do any justice. We have investigated and the problem... it seems to be that I have too many fabrics filling all the spaces where we used to take photos!!! ha ha ha, what a fabulous problem to have eh!!...  Kate pieced her project with the help of the 60 degree triangle ruler and a lot of patient pinning. We did our best for the pic, three ladies holding it up and draping it over tables... if you zoom in a bit you will see that Kate had it Long Arm Quilted by Amanda in Stone..

A fabulous backing happened... and I do really mean 'happened' We had a plan and Kate cut the fabrics. She prepared the centre, proceeded to sew the fabrics for our 'plan'... my mathemisms had a small issue, we still don't know what it was but other bits were added and we came up with this... Kate loves it and that's all that matters. Toot toot toot, a fabulous and finished gifting quilt.

Fabulous And Finished

Princess Jackie has one of her quilts all ready for gifting. I think you will agree that it's a fabulous finish? Most of the applique detail has been 'stuffed'... by that I mean it has had the faux Trapunto treatment, so very tactile!!!

Lots of Jackie's fabric stash used up on the backing too, we do love to play with our backings!! This is a heavy quilt, mostly because of the Trapunto... toot toot toot Jackie, another fabulous and finished gifting quilt. 

Rose is super happy with the results of this project. Made with Moda William Morris design Charm packs and skilfully co-ordinated solid fabrics... mostly Art Gallery. It's a great mix of traditional meets modern on the Railfence me thinks!!

And just look how fabulous the backing is!
Perfectly co-ordinating with the front side and you can see that Rose quilted with variegated King Tut Thread... I love it. Toot toot toot Rose.

Cute or what? New Sue made this one... all those lovely expressions, wonky and quirky and super fun... lots of detail and beautifully made. This pattern is from the Happy Quilts book, a favourite with my customers. Toot toot toot Sue, woof woof woof too! Not sure why I don't have a backing picture for you though, sorry.

Edna's Tooting Time

Just Edna's commission quilt!! It's good and ready for a Fabulous and Finished Fanfare, so... Toot toot toot.... It is absolutely enormous and I could barely get it in a photo inside my shop. I've taken a couple of angles for you to get the idea 

It's mostly made with Beautiful Batik fabric and a picture of a free pattern called Oink A Doodle Moo  I can't find the pattern online for you but the link will show you the quilt picture. Anyway, we didn't use the pattern really, except for it's look. The method Edna used saved a lot of work and over a metre of wasted fabric. Using the Tri-Recs ruler also helped the accuracy... as you can see, I hope

Obviously this is the back, perfectly co-ordinated with that fabulous front. You can see Edna quilted it all by her very own self (in her rather smart new sewing room) The quilt has now been received by it's new owners and Edna reports that they were thrilled to bits with their new quilt... and no wonder eh!

Stitching News

Here I am trying to catch up again. This blooming computer is too tricky (smart) for me. I still don't really understand what it's doing when I plug it in to my VERY EASY to operate Perfectly Purple Camera!!!... Why do they make all computers so blooming complicated? I only want a Margarita (pizza) not an Extra Special House Special cooked in 10 ovens with all the trimmings, whistles and bells and different size slices in different sized boxes!!! For goodness sake... 

I've just had time to find some of the photos this morning, I've tried to crop and edit them but all the buttons are different too! I think I'll be able to blog write now.. at least for a few days... 

In no particular order then...

All Day Di (Lady Lidl) brought in a new pattern, it's for a rather lovely winter themed Table Runner. Step number 1 was to make triangles for the tree... so she put the pattern down and went to make tea!!! ha... lots of people are hesitant with triangles and there's no need to be. Di thought she had done them wrong because there were no points... They look just like the pattern... no pointy-top points needed

Sister Susie trimmed up her table runner top (well, actually I did it, all by my very own self) and made a little sandwich. This project is much more of a medium grey, than how light it is in this picture, with a lovely little print for the centre and the little squares. Binding has been chosen too.

Fiona Too had done most of her quilting and just wanted to add a few extra lines. She's going to quilt around the spectacles to make them pop. We made a perfect backing for the cushion, a covered zip of course, with a flap in blue, to match the Woofie's jumper.

Farmer Lynda is making personalised reading pillows for gifting. This dinosaur unit will be the book pocket on the front of one of them. Reading pillows make excellent gifts, let's hope Lynda can finish them in good time... tick tock tick tock!! Especially with starting another one!!

Enid needed to make lots of little sandwiches and then to quilt them. Each of these is a bag part... a Big Quilted Panel Bag. It's going to be gifted to a seaside lover, who just moved away from the seaside, I think.

Beryl brought with her, a Fat Quarter Bundle that she had been gifted... (I shuddered with thoughts of Norma and her Fat Quarters of 'Loot') but it was OK, Beryl wants to make Bendy Bags, (not huge, lick-etty-split quilts like Norma usually does)

Our Carol is also making a gifting quilt. Isn't this fabulous! It's a pattern from Carol's magazine and will be perfect for the young fellow who will be receiving it. Here, Carol was pinning all the bits (and there are lots of bits) to a large piece of wadding... like a design floor!!

More pictures will be posted soon, (crossed fingers) it's chores time here.
Oh yes... Checkley.... Our Sunday Funday Sewday is only two weeks away... Have you booked and paid? It's Sunday 1st December... I'm confirming catering numbers on Monday 25th November

Stitching News

Pam made this fabulous Christmas Tree Wallhanging using this free pattern from Makower UK. She says that the pattern was quite simple and the project came together very quickly once all the cutting was sorted. As you can see this is now a tree sandwich.

Kate just got her large quilt back from Amanda, the local Long Arm Quilter. The quilt is huge so I couldn't fit it all in my picture. Kate cut all the binding and was able to get it all stitched on ready for hand sewing during the evenings. We will have a tooting session soon me thinks.

All Day Di (also known as Lady Lidl) Purchased a new template for drawing around before quilting in the background of Elizabeth Hartman Unicorn, quite a fiddly shape to stitch with a walking foot!

Farmer Lynda is making two personalised reading pillows... they make excellent gifts and promote reading to boot!! This bit will be the book pocket... Roxy lives on a farm... the clue is right there, in the fabric choice eh!

Sewing prevention season is fast approaching... I can tell by all the customers visiting my Christmas corner with good intentions of making things 'just in time' ... 47 days to go.... so says this website.

Stitching News

Our Carol finished her festive Foundation Paper Pieced baubles. She said she has enjoyed making them and will definitely make other projects using this method. Borders will be added and a sandwich will be made very soon. Not long to go now... Sewing Prevention Season is just around the corner.

Gail decided to stay with the bright theme for her borders... after that thinner, pink stripe she chose a bright yellow Art Gallery fabric for the final touch, outer border... we can never have too much colour... that's why those bees are smiling!

It's a coincidence that Christabelle started her quilting in the yellow! Chris decided to quilt using the pattern as a guide so there will be a lot of thread colour changes and many a million ends to tie off... but it will be worth it.

Princess Jackie is quilting too. She is on a bit of a marathon with both quilts being made for gifting very soon. These projects are heavy as Jackie has poooooophed the details with extra wadding... scrumptious and luxurious feeling.

Jean Bean is making petal applique blocks, she's been working on them for quite a while, she only needs about 200 or so... no rush though... they will be made into a quilt for her very own self... there's plenty of time to read the papers, peel an orange, drink copious amounts of tea etc... it might look like procrastinating, but we shouldn't be fooled!!! ha ha ha

Norma's Stitching News

Norma is at it again!!! Another bundle of fabric loot pieces arrived in her bag and another easy quilt was needed, to be finished Lick-etty-Split. Once again I came up with a simple design for Norma... I though it was foolproof actually as all sashing the pieces were the same size, silly me! Norma's first test block was perfect and she was very happy with the idea... she continued to cut for all the blocks, excellent job! Then I left her to sew the fabrics together... First block... one strip was too long so she chopped it off... even though she knew she had cut everything to the right size she still chopped the bit off that appeared to be too long... it was a bit that she needed to sew to the next bit!!! It's a good job that I won't write exactly what Norma declared as she realised what she had done!!!... and yes, my eyes are rolling upward... Oh how we laughed! She's got it now... this quilt will be done in time.

Quilt Sandwiches

Rose's Railfence sandwich.
Made with Moda Charm packs and Art Gallery Solids

Christabelle's Quilt Sandwich.
Made using the Color Girl pattern that was incorrectly printed!

Stephanie Iceland's sandwich.
This is a special gifting project.

Princess Jackie's pastel sandwich.
With extra filling!!

My Very Own, started during our retreat.

Beginner Workshop

Tia's beautiful Batik cushion... Lots of skills learned 

Fabulous zipped backing to complement the front.

Julie chose a festive theme, bringing fabrics from her own stash

Completely different on the back but still with a hidden zip.

Stitching News

Jean Hill's fabulous and finished Strippy Tote bag, beautiful colours, all Batiks! Jean started this at Lynda's recent workshop but she had decided to make her tote larger. Those beautiful buttons are a smart idea... old buttons covered with new fabrics! Toot toot toot Jean.

Rose is cracking on with her beautiful Batik blocks. She loves heather-y colours and is chuffed with her fabric choices... I think Rose might keep this project.

New Sue made a beautiful Batik table runner for a friend, I posted about it recently. Now said friend needs matching place-mats... 8 in total, Sue was surprised at the amount of binding needed for such small quilts... she grumbled about all the corners to be turned too, ha ha ha

Always up for a challenge is Christabelle... This is a pattern from Anna Maria Horner, called Folk Flower not only is it reverse applique and strips on the bias, Chris is fussily cutting all the flowers and leaves too.

Princess Jackie has all her blocks made for this second quilt from the same pattern, colours and fabric choices are Jackie's idea of pastel tones, ha ha ha.... still bright in some eyes though eh! This second quilt will not have the sashing, it didn't need it.