Workshop On Saturday

Saturday 2nd July a workshop for playing with scraps....  Although this workshop was almost fully booked, some people have had to cancel so I have 3 places, should you be interested.
You must have quite a lot of small pieces of fabrics collected from your stitching fun so this should be a good starting point.

It always ends up looking like chaos...

We don't mind the spreading out and the sharing...

The results of a previous workshop, aren't they fabulous!!!

The requirements are quite simple really. I have copied and pasted them below for you.
Booking is essential and the cost is £30.00 

Mile-A-Minute & Crumbs Workshop.

Requirements:-

An assortment of scraps… anything larger than 1” is great, bring them all!

Longer fabric strips… 1” and wider, they’re perfect, even if they are wonky.

Thread... spools with ‘left over’ thread on them, we can use all colours.

Bring bobbins of ‘no longer needed’ coloured thread, let’s empty them!

Basic sewing kit including good scissors and pins

Rotary cutter, rulers & mat. 6 ½”  square or 9 ½” or 12 ½” square ruler…  all are useful

6” x 12” rectangle ruler will be very useful.

Please remember to bring your Sewing Machine, cable/foot, tools & manual with you.

Bring Glasses if you need to wear them. 

And, of course, your packed lunch (cafes, sandwich shops and bakery close by)

 Classroom opens at 9:30 for a 10am start.

Any questions, just ask.

07807530441

Stitching News

Sometimes we might want, or need, to gift quilts with a tight timeframe. Using pre-printed panels can help BUT lots of them are too narrow for how long they are... for example, 60cm wide but 1.15 metres long... a bit too skinny?
Keeping it simple for time, we don't always know quite how to correct that, not that it's wrong! This is an idea used by quite a few folk recently.
We chopped off one row of the blocks, trimmed them up and used those blocks as corner stones with fabulous border fabrics. It works really well.
Winner eh!

This is Sister Susie's gifting quilt. She took the same amount of care with all the piecing and very cool quilting using a variegated thread... the time was saved with not needing to accurately cut and piece the centre panel. Lick-etty-split this gives us a tooting opportunity for Susie's fabulous, fast-finish, toot toot toot. Susie did a Lovely bit of staging to show us her chosen backing too!!

Cheryl needed a lick-etty-split gifting quilt too. Her fastest option was to try to purchase my shop sample, ha ha ha... I would then have the dilemma of ME needing to make another so I just suggested I helped her make her very own, in one day... this is the sandwich, obviously, but Cheryl did almost finish it all, even to stitching the binding on... not quite tooting ready but a good days work don't you think.

I've amassed a bit of a pile of bits again. Not wanting to add any more to my already full to bursting, huge box of scraps, I set about using them up for samples for next Saturday's workshop.

Needles to say, I so much enjoyed playing with the scraps that I started YET ANOTHER quilt project!!! for goodness sakes, this addiction is out of control... whoooop whoooop!!!

On the subject of pre-printed panels, I've been doodling further options... this one though, calls for more time.... not a lick-etty-split project at all.

Stitching News

 Just a little catch up for you. I'm back in the 'forgot to take pictures' mode.
To be fair, I blame my lovely customers...
I always ask them not to pack up until I have taken a photo or two and they all declare that they are happy with that... it's a problem we all have, we start nattering and it all goes out of the window, ha! What a lovely problem to have.

 Sheila was very good to hold up her lovely table runner and I took a dreadful picture! I can't win, tut tut. this project is so much nicer in real life. The colours are bright and cheerful. I'll just have to hope it comes next week when it's finished and I'll aim to take a better shot, for your tooting!

Norma is mid 'big' quilt making and just wanted a little change. She had purchased a couple of the Tilda Bundles recently so we added a lovely background fabric and started to make random blocks from my block book.

We had a little production line, I cut the units and Norma did the pinning and sewing. Look at these two blocks... They are identical in units and the way they are pieced together but they look so very different with their colour placement changing.

Gail is making Snail Trail blocks in preparation for her Shakespeare In The Park quilt. It's a stunning Quilt design that Gail had started before Lockdown but there were babies arriving and needing quilts so she got side-tracked then she moved home... not good for sewing time! she's back with it now.

I don't know of anyone else with these Long Covid symptoms...

Our Beano has started sewing daily before 10am... we are flabbergasted! Before she had Covid she wouldn't get her machine out until 2pm... 

You can see the evidence, there's been lots of block production lately!

Our Pam is desperately trying to cull her scrap fabrics box. She tidies it up at home with great enthusiasm but after making only one block in class, she has her scraps all mixed up again... she does still love choose the right fabrics! This is a block inspired by one of Norma's quilts.

It's a Checkley Sunday Sewday this weekend. (26th June) I hope you have booked a place if you plan to be joining us. Pam's baking her absolutely delicious Lemon Drizzle again!!!

Festive Wall Hanging

I know we have the start of a heatwave happening from today, that's what reminded me to post about Christmas project preparations!!! I tell you, my efforts to please with customer service are just wonderful, ha!
There's a pattern on the Moda Bakeshop, do you ever go looking there? So many lovely projects that you can choose from for your pre-cut packs. Obviously, they don't have to me made with Moda fabrics alone.

I had printed off this pattern for a festive wall hanging way back in 2016. Who knows what happened as to why I didn't make it, it is so lovely!
Never mind I made it now.... here you go...

All cut out and baubles prepared

60cm of background fabric needed.

All put together, easy but does have fiddly little bits 

I didn't want to make the bitty border as per the original.

 I wasn't using a Mini Charm Pack.

 21⁄2 " Border strips look just as good to me

Sandwiched and simple quilting lines, good old walking foot!!

After echoing the tree shape- to death! I went back in and did a little ditch hopping around each bauble and I know I should do the centre first for those smarty pants folk who might comment, I practiced PMS (Pleasing My Self)

A few straight-ish lines in the borders and it was finished up to the Binding. 

I had already stitched a binding on and finished it, but at the last minute decided I didn't like the fabric choice so I took it off again. Can if I want to!!

It is finished now though with the same fabric on the binding as on the borders, it looks much better.
 This lovely wall hanging is hanging in my shop right now. 

I have a cunning plan, bit like a special offer really. If you purchase the background, border, binding and backing fabrics from my very own, and rather lovely shop, I will give you 22 Christmas-ssy 2 1⁄2" squares for your baubles.

Alternatively, I have little packs of 22 x 2 1⁄2" festive fabric squares cut ready at £2.00 each.
There is a plan to put on a workshop or two to make this if you would prefer to do that. Details will be up soon, I hope.

Stitching News

 
Rose is thoroughly enjoying playing with her Arty-Farty-Please-My-Very-Own-Self projects. Yes, just in case you are wondering? That is a real method!  Basically there will be one little wall hanging quilt for each season. They are still works in progress so we can watch them evolve.

Sue has chosen to do a few simple quilting lines on this table runner. That is enough to stabilize everything so she has been able to get her binding stitched on. After the hand stitching, Sue will go back to do more quilting, there might even be a bit of Big Stich hand quilting, one never knows with Sue.

This splendid quilt was made by Jean Bean. She had a picture of a quilt to inspire her but no pattern so we had to figure it out.  It's amazing what you can do with piece of paper, a ruler and a pencil... this is proof! The brief was 'No Tiny Bits'! there are lots of big bits here so that worked well. A stunning gifting quilt. There's no binding, did you notice? Jean has faced this quilt... that was a learning curve well worth conquering!!! Toot toot toot Beano, a Fabulous and Finish, just in the nick of time! toot toot toot. Happy New Quilt Andrew!!!

The Return Of Workshops

Workshops are returning, whoop whoop? Are you thinking "It's about time Angie" ??? I get that, but I've had a lot going on!
Classes have been back to normal for many months. They are quite organic really with everyone working on their very own projects... they are more like Please My Self sessions, lots of fun, inspiring and VERY productive.
Now, maybe, it's time for a few more structured sessions, at least I hope it is as they take a bit of planning.
The first one Saturday 2nd July, will be Crumbs and Mile-A-Minute. You must have quite a lot of small pieces of fabrics collected from Covid stitching so this should be a good starting point.

It always ends up looking like chaos...

We don't mind the spreading out and the sharing...

The results of a previous workshop, aren't they fabulous!!!

The requirements are quite simple really. I have copied and pasted them below for you.
Booking is essential and the cost is £30.00 

Mile-A-Minute & Crumbs Workshop.

Requirements:-

An assortment of scraps… anything larger than 1” is great, bring them all!

Longer fabric strips… 1” and wider, they’re perfect, even if they are wonky.

Thread... spools with ‘left over’ thread on them, we can use all colours.

Bring bobbins of ‘no longer needed’ coloured thread, let’s empty them!

Basic sewing kit including good scissors and pins

Rotary cutter, rulers & mat. 6 ½”  square or 9 ½” or 12 ½” square ruler…  all are useful

6” x 12” rectangle ruler will be very useful.

Please remember to bring your Sewing Machine, cable/foot, tools & manual with you.

Bring Glasses if you need to wear them. 

And, of course, your packed lunch (cafes, sandwich shops and bakery close by)

 Classroom opens at 9:30 for a 10am start.

Any questions, just ask.

07807530441

Stitching News

Fiona Too was able to make her sandwich at the very last minute of class. With a long weekend ahead she might just be able to sneak in a little quilty stitchy time. The pattern is for a wall hanging but using a slightly wider background fabric and adding borders it's now a great size kiddo quilt.

All Day Di is confidently making her star blocks. I think there are about 50 to go. She says something 'clicked' and she understands what she's doing now, what she doesn't understand is why she was afraid of triangles in the first place.

Bev had prepared all the tracing, cutting out and sticking of the pictures for her gifting quilt so was ready to start the applique stitching, which she has never done before. We decided to start with the letters as the shapes are less fiddle-y. She mastered that Blanket stitch didn't she!!!

Janis made a Hippo!!! She said that she didn't really understand what she was doing,... some pieces are quite tiny with little triangles sewn to them... she just kept saying to herself "Just do what the pattern says" and it worked. The Elizabeth Hartman patterns are so well written, that's all you have to do, just do as it tells you!!

We had a great Sunday Funday Sewday last weekend.

The next one will be on Sunday 26th June and I already have a good list of folk coming. There's always room for more, Checkley Village Hall is huge!!