Mid-Life Crisis !!

Where did July go ? I guess two weeks in Scotland, followed by a week in Cornwall and then a five day trip with our Granddaughter has left little time for updating my BLOG.

First let me introduce you to Lucy.. my "new" car, well actually she is a 19 years old Mazda MX5, and I plan a lot of fun driving her around. I have always wanted a red sports car and had to wait until I am 64 to get one, she is automatic, which is taking a bit of getting use to. The only time I have driven automatics is while on holiday in the USA, so I feel I should be on the other side of the road!

To complete my "mid-life crisis" I have started a diet, let my hair grow long for the first time in years, and moved the walking machine into the house so that I can get fit.

24th June 2009

Wow. what an exciting start to the day. Postman called at 7.15 am with a USA parcel from my Spring Mini quilt swap. Not only is the quilt wonderful and the machine quilting brilliant, there was also chocolate and FQ's enclosed. Thank you so much Maya.. I love it.

On the left are the 9 completed Baltimore blocks [ from Fatcat patterns]. It has been a struggle to get the machine applique done, but at last they are ready for the next step.. not sure what that is going to be yet!

Holiday in Scotland

Just back from two weeks holiday in Scotland where I tried to find time to make a USA paper pieced star each day. I actually managed to make 11 stars [see photo] of the 30 I eventually want to make. They are from Carol Doak's book 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars.

Most of my time was taken up watching dolphins from the lounge window, I had never seen them in the wild around the coast of Great Britain and three days I managed to watch them. Plus grey seals were lolling about on the beach near our hired cottage. An added treat was seeing an Osprey flying over the Spey River estuary.

A visit to two patchwork shops meant my stash busting is not doing too well this month!

Back home I have 1078 emails in my in box! so a lot have been deleted or I will never catch up!

Four projects worked on in May / June

Playing catch up with my blog.

I am working on my Baltimore blocks, machine quilting them, 5 completed and 4 partially done.. really want to get them ready to join together.

The chicken pincushion was my swap and went with a length of liberty fabric to Polly auntpollysporch.blogspot.com.

The snails trail quilt was finally backed, quilted and the binding sewn on.. another UFO bites the dust!

Final photo is of the June lottery block sent to Carol Doak's yahoo group..
Talking of Carol Doak, I have started to plan making a 30 star paper pieced quilt from her book. At the moment I have the patterns printed and some of the fabric cut out.. watch this space.

Carol Doak 9 Patch

Carol Doak via her yahoo group has offered two great prizes of SIXTY fat quarters. The competition is to make a 9 patch block from one of her patterns.. so this is my entry.. I would just love to win.

Decided to use Christmas fabrics and have now made it into a cushion, probably for the church quilt show in September.

I think I am in a foundation paper piece mood, as I have printed off 30 stars from Carol Doak's 50 USA State Stars book, now to decide on the fabrics I will use.

Two Swaps finished

I have joined yet ANOTHER group.. Carol Doak's yahoo group and find they are running a block lottery. The foundation block on the right will go off to the swap lottery, and when 20 are received the names go in a hat and one person wins all 20.. so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.
One reason for joining this group is that many years ago I started using one of Carol Doak's books to make a star quilt of all the USA States I had visited. 26 at the last count! I need to re-start this quilt !!

The table mat on the left is for the Spring swap and features a blue cow, called Daisy, I have used a heat resistant batting and backed it in Christmas fabric to make it reversible.
Blue Cow is from a children's TV show a favorite of my granddaughter, and I thought it would be fun. The pattern is one of Mary Mayne's.

Swapping Mad!

I have just joined two swaps, one with the Quilting Gallery http://quiltinggallery.com/ for a Spring Blooms Mini-Quilt, which I have been working on all day and now just have the binding to hand sew down, then I will post a picture.

The second swap is for a pincushion with www.quiltathome.blogspot.com/ of Switzerland. Have to think of something to make for that.

It is such fun swapping with people around the world.. give it a go!

Chicken Oven Glove

A pair of chicken oven gloves.. trouble is they look to cute to use.

Pattern designed by Ann Harris.

Bears in the Farmhouse

Yee Haa at last the Judy Laquidara Bears in the Farmhouse top is finished. [See previous blog posts about the making of this quilt].

It will have to join the UFO pile for a while as I need to make a quilt for my neice's new baby, she or he, is expected soon.

Chicken time with the IAM group

IAM group meeting at my house on Thursday 2nd April.

Ann Harris came to teach us how to make chicken pot holders, we all had great fun and a lot of laughs!

Coloured Trapunto Workshop

Hamtune Quilters Northampton


On Tuesday 3rd evening I taught 33 ladies how to do Annie London's coloured trapunto. It was a fun evening and I will be repeating the workshop for the BQS group on Saturday 14th. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and quite a few managed to complete the whole thing in the 2 hours.

Bears in the Farmhouse

RIGHT
Step 3 of Bears in the Farmhouse, 12 blocks to this stage just completed in time. Now to work on Step 4 and add borders and join the squares together.
LEFT
Worked hard today and have Step 4 completed.. have to wait until 25th for the next step.

Stash Busting March

I'm a little late starting my March Stash Busting log. I have been trying to finish some projects.
January started with 620 yds
Added to stash 67 yds Used 81 yds Balance 31st March 606 yds.

Added 3rd March 13 yds [mostly cream ] Used this week 0 yds balance 613.25
Added 10th March 0 yds Used this week 3yds [fairy blocks] balance 610.25 yds
Added 17th March 0 yds Used this week 0yds balance 610.25 yds
Added 24th March 3 yds [gift] Used 6.25 yds [Attic windows/curtains] balance 607yds
Added 31st March 0 yds Used 1 yd [Chicken] balance 606yds

Candlewick Fairies

Having bought a book by Margaret Upston I have started a set of twelve Candlewick Fairies, each will be in a different Perle 5 colour. Managed to buy 40 skeins of DMC Perle 5 on Ebay for £12, a saving of about £30. The hoop I am using is brilliant and available from www.nosliphoops.com/lap-stands.html

A day with Abigail

Granddaughter Abigail spent the day with me making lace after breakfast and then attending a Weedon Quilt meeting, where she made a picture frame and note book case from a sewing kit.

Back to the lace pillow when we returned home to make a few more rows of her snake.

I started work on a set of Candlewick Angels.

Bears in the Farmhouse

First requirement for the Quilt Along.. make 192 half square triangles !

I used the "inklingo" by Linda Franz CD to print 17 pages of 2 inch HST [using A4 paper I can get 12 on a sheet] and quickly made 204 [ thought some spares might be a good idea!].

I will leave the paper on until they are joined together.. it makes them easy to handle, no bias to worry about.

Bears in the Farmhouse Quilt-Along

Bears in the Farmhouse with Judy Laquidara.
www.patchworktimes.com if you want to join her [ and me!]
These are my choice of fabrics for the Quilt - Along starting on February 18th.

Four quilts quilted and ready to have their bindings hand sewn.

England, Snow and Sewing

While England is in the grip of the snow, schools are closed, roads remain ungritted and everything comes to a stop, I have been working on my quilts and have three of them ready to hand sew the bindings down.

The black and red one is quilted with a fleece backing as a little snuggly quilt.

The light quilt is single size [quilted by me] and will be one of a pair of two for our holiday home. The darker quilt was long arm quilted and I have attached the binding ready to hand sew it down. I will attach full size photo's when they are finished, but I like to save hand sewing for quilt meetings.

Windmills from Charm Squares

Windmills from Charm Squares.

A project I am working on to use up Laura Ashley charm squares given to me years ago!

Stash Busting February

January started with 620 yds used 31 yds and ended with 628 yds ! MUST DO BETTER!

Added this week 0 yds [ Sales are over!]
Used this week 10 1/2 yds
[Backings, bindings and hexagons]
3rd February balance 617 1/2 yds

Added this week 00 yds
Used this week 5 yds
[Bento Box [ see picture] and binding Mexican Star]
10th February balance 612 1/2 yds

Added this week 000 yds [ third week running!]

Used this week 10 1/4 yds

[ Snails trail and fabric for Bears in the farmhouse]

17th February balance 602 1/4 yds

Added this week 000yds

Used this week 2 yds

[Backing snails trail and windmills]

24th February balance 600 1/4yds

Sticky Mats [reminder from my Jan 2009 entry]

Having a problem with threads migrating from my Happy Room which has wood laminate flooring to the rest of the house, Chris came up with a great idea. Sticky Mats !
They come in a pack of 30 and stick to the floor near the door, as you walk on them the threads stay stuck! Brilliant.

I bought mine from http://www.cleanroomsuppliesltd.com/95 x 45 cm small 4 packs of 30 layers £28 plus post and VAT £41.64

Also available from
http://www.floor-protection-resources.com/proddetail.asp?prod=Sticky%2DMat USA supplier

Sewing day today started with Nine 16 inch blocks ready for machine applique, patterns from fatcatpatterns. Also cut out a sample block from a pattern produced by Judy Laquidara for two quilts I plan to make for our holiday home.

Having decided to quilt my Green and Pink quilt myself I changed my mind and Chris took out all the safety pins so I could take it to Oakleaf Quilters to be long armed, I just could not face all that fabric through my machine.

Basting and BOM Block # 9

With Chris's help I have managed to lay out my Pink and Green quilt with 80/20 batting and a backing made from fabric I no long like [ got to use up the old stash]. I now need to put a zillion safety pins in to hold it together ready for machine quilting. Decided to have a go myself at machine quilting a large quilt, not my favorite thing ! But the £100 saved means 20 yards of new fabric!!

My first Baltimore quilt block applique [ actually #9 ? why do I always work backwards ?] is ready for machine quilting, and I am busy cutting out the other 8 blocks.

Bit Bag day with IAM group

Once a month 8 of us meet in my Happy Room to make lace, knit, cross stitch and quilt. Today we had a workshop making Bit Bags, two members missed the fun, but I'm sure they will catch up at the next meeting.

We named ourselves IAM because I am going to finish this and that!

L to R Maureen, Jenny, Clare, Dorn and Shirley I'm behind the camera. Ann is sunning herself in Australia and Penny is not well.

Woke this morning to snow, first of the year.

Here's my back garden.

Joined a new patchwork and quilting group, Truly Antique Angels. They are a very friendly informal group and I look forward to getting to know them all.

Managed to complete one of my many UFO's, twisted long cabin in Amish fabrics.

Also made the first BOM produced by the yahoo group BQL. Every "poached egg" is a different fabric from my scrap bag. I have used insulated batting so I can use them as table mats at the end of the year when I have 12 !

January Stash report

Tuesdays will be my weekly report day
Starting Stash 620 yds
Added this week 14 yds
[7 yds cream a jelly roll and Layer cake]
Used this week 8 1/2 yds
[ Pink & Green quilt, bit bag & mug holder]
Donated this week 12 yds to GD's school
30th December balance 613.5 yds

Added this week 0 yds
Used this week 6 yds
[Backing for Pink & Green quilt, BQL challenge block]
6th January balance 607.5 yds

Added this week 5 1/2 yds
Used this week 5 yds
[Baltimore blocks, In a swirl blocks, another Bit bag]
13th January balance 608 yds

Added this week 17 yds [ the sales are on!]
Used this week 3 yd
[ In a swirl quilt started ]
20th January balance 622 yds

Added this week 14 1/2 yds [last week of sales!]
Used this week 8 1/2 yds
[Star block quilts & charm square blocks ]
27th January balance 628 yds

Pink and Green Quilt

86 x 86 inches, this pink and green quilt was based on an idea in an Australian Patchwork and Quilting Magazine Vol 17 # 2. I started it a few days ago and now have the top ready, just need to find something suitable for backing and get it along to the long arm quilter when she opens after the holidays.

It has used 7 1/2 yards from my stash... yippee

STASH BUSTING START

STASH BUSTING START

Starting as I mean to go on... I've made a Bit-Bag and mug holder to take to workshops, only used 1 yard, but every little helps!

I have now cut out and started a quilt in fabrics and colours I never use, greens and pinks. Watch this space ! I scribbled a plan on a note pad and that is my design, quick and easy.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONEHEALTHY NEW YEAR
I found this photo in my parents house, while clearing out. It is 54 years old!!
I am Mary age 10 years and my sister Debbie is the angel singing on the stool age 7 years.
The innocence of childhood, when we strung cotton wool balls and paper chains for decorations, and put balloons on the tree. Sadly I do not know who the other three girls are.

Stash and UFO busting

Decided today was THE day.. time to start preparing for 2009 "Stash Busting" plus thought it might be an idea to UFO bust while I was at it !!!

I weighed 14 metres of fabric converted it to yards and found the weight worked out to be 4.3 oz per yard [ I refuse to measure in metres and weigh in grams ] I then emptied my fabric cupboard and weighed all the cotton quilting fabrics AGH ! Horror ! 2708 oz which is 630 yards. This will be my starting figure for 2009.

THE PLAN is to reduce this to below 500 yds and only buy what I cannot live without.

While I was in the sorting out mode I then thought I had one or two UFO projects so I'd add them to my list.. see seperate entry, but when did one or two UFO's become 20 plus ?

Sandie Lush Colonial Cushion

While attending a quilting workshop a few weeks ago someone mentioned Sandie Lush and her wonderful work, I said it was something I really fancied having a go at. Next thing I know a person I hardly know sent me two patterns and a kit she no longer wanted and had not touched.

Although I am not know for hand work, [ give me a sewing machine anyday!] I started the kit and could not leave it alone. I just love making the colonial knots and have now started my 2nd kit. Thank you Julie.

December First 2008

December First and another BQL challenge bag to make, so I set to early this morning and have made a Ballet bag for my 5yr old granddaughter who is performing in a concert on Friday and Saturday for the first time.

I have been very busy making Christmas presents but cannot put pictures up as family might see them!