Contented

Ardingly Quilt Show

On Saturday I went to the Ardingly Quilt Show with my friend Helen.  This is actually the first quilt show I have been too, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it didn't disappoint - we had a lovely time!  After a quick cup of tea we headed into the quilt display room and, wow!  So many amazing quilts!! The amount of work that must have gone into them was quite staggering. Honestly, I feel a complete and utter beginner by comparison!  I did  manage to take some photos but didn't get all the details on the individual quilts, so I'll just quickly share the pics with you.

Look at the handquilting detail on this one - never in a million years will my stitches be as small or neat as this!!

I think this one (above) may have been my favourite.

Most of the quilts were what I would call art quilts - not too many that you could imagine snuggling up under on a bed or sofa, and it wasn't til I got home and looked properly at the programme that I realised, the majority of the quilts had all been made by a fairly small handful of people.  Still, it was fascinating to look at them all. 

Once we'd finished looking at the quilts, we headed down to the lower floor where all the suppliers' stands were.  And it was heaving!!  Still, it would have been rude not to buy something (that's what I keep telling myself anyway!) so I did make a little purchase at The Quilt Room's stall:-

A new 6.5" square ruler and a couple of half yards of Lecien fabric, that was just far too pretty to resist.  I could have spent a small fortune there, to be honest, but I managed to restrain myself to just this (oh, and a little finger presser gadget that I forgot to take a pic of).

And the best thing of all?  I think our little jaunt may have helped to get my sewing mojo back, as it seems to have been a bit quiet recently.

R x

Winter Stitching - Mid point check in

                                                   

This week, Sarah at FairyFaceDesigns is asking us to check in on our winter stitching lists, to see how we've been getting on.  I don't think I've done too badly, but judge for yourself:-

1. Finish Duo Quilt Along - done!

2. Finish the Heathers quilt. This was meant to be a long term project but once I got the bit between the teeth I just had to go with it so - done!

3. Requilt Joe's quilt - done and, no, I'm not showing you - it's got more ripples and puckers than an austrian blind, but he doesn't care so neither do I!

4. Christmas sewing - done - 3 cushions

    

5. Restock etsy shop - uh, nope.  Must try and get started on that.

6. Make new footstool cover - again, no.  Maybe next year...

7. Make new cushions for our bedroom - no, but I have bought the cushion forms and made a tentative start on one of them.

8. Try new techniques - um, not yet, but hoping to soon.

9. PIF's.  2 left to do

10. Scrap busting - yes!  I had a really good sort through all my scraps a couple of weeks ago, some teeny ones got passed on to a new home and I have been cutting 3" squares for a scrappy quilt to be made at some point.  Also, it's amazing how much difference it makes when you press and store your scraps neatly, as opposed to just all crumpled up and chucked in a bag!  Now, instead of a jumble sale of bags in the corner I just have 2 containers with my scraps in - much better!

So, that's 4 definites out of 10, not too bad I think, and there's still time to get the other things checked off the list before the end of the winter.  

How has your list been going?

R x

 

Checking in

Hello.  I'm still here.  Just thought I'd check in and let you know that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I'm just struggling with anything creative at the moment as my mind is still very much preoccupied with "Joe stuff".  We're all fine, and he's happy but I am finding the whole palaver of trying to get the appropriate help for him in school to be extremely draining.  Long story short - our request for statutory assessment was turned down, we are going to apply again but in the meantime his teachers are telling me on a weekly basis that he needs more help, but it could be 6 months or more before he gets it, if at all.   All incredibly boring and frustrating and it has left me wondering if he might be better off being home schooled.  Not a decision I would take lightly, but it's a possibility.  

In the meantime, I've been unable to focus much on anything else - hence no blogging and no sewing either.  However, hopefully that is going to change as I got my partner allocation for the Mouthy Stitches swap at the weekend, so that will be good to have something to take my mind off all the other stuff!  It's a secret swap, so I obviously can't reveal who I'm making for, but I have done a bit of stalking and am starting to form a few ideas about what to make.

This morning I had a little rummage around in the fabric cupboard and came up with this selection - purple linen teamed with some of the Outfoxed prints by Lizzy House.  Even if my partner shows no interest in this, I will probably make something with it anyway, as I think they go beautifully together!

have a great week

R x

Mouthy Stitches Swap

My inspiration mosaic for the mouthy stitches zippy pouch swap.

After having sworn off swaps for the past 8 months or so, I have recently signed up to a new one. The Mouthy Stitches swap group has been set up on Flickr by 3 fab bloggers - Hadley, Susan and Cindy - with the specific intention that this is a group for people that like to chat!  Over the course of all the other swaps I've taken part in, one of the biggest complaints is always non-communicative partners, so hopefully there will be none of that with this one!  The sign ups have now closed but I'm really looking forward to finding out who my (secret) partner will be.  It's a nice, small, low-pressure swap - we are just making one zippered pouch and then including a fat quarters worth of scraps and that's it.  No other extras to worry about.  Thanksfully, I have plenty of scraps still (!) and also quite a little stash of zippers so I won't have to spend any money at all until it comes to posting time, so a very thrifty swap too - what more can you ask for?

R x

On the bookshelf

New books - although I only received one book for Christmas this year (Print & Pattern 2), I was lucky enough to receive some Amazon vouchers too, so wasted no time in ordering a couple more, Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin and Pretty in Patchwork Doll Quilts by Cathy Gaubert.  I've been a bit pre-occupied lately with some Joe stuff going on, so not really really in the right mindset to start any new, big projects, but I've enjoyed browsing through all of these, and they are giving me lots of ideas and inspiration.  In particular, the Pretty in Patchwork Doll Quilts book, which arrived yesterday, has so many designs that I want to have a go at, it will be difficult to decide which one to try first!  At the moment, I'm thinking it's a toss-up between these two:-

A ticker tape quilt (I must be one of the few people in blogland who hasn't made one of these yet!)

&

 

A super cute, paper-pieced apple design.  Paper piecing is on my list of new techniques to try so I think this one might just have the edge.

At the moment though, I am re-quilting Joe's old quilt.  It was, I think, the 3rd quilt I had ever made and it's not my proudest achievement, although he loves it.  It was fairly sparingly handquilted with embroidery thread but it has been so well used (read: flung about all over the place!) that the thread was pretty much disintegrating!  I decided to just stick it through the machine to try and get it redone as quickly as possible but it has become glaringly obvious that it was REALLY badly basted - you would not believe the amount of puckers (not to mention actual pleats!) that are appearing on this thing!! Bizarely, the back is absolutely fine!  However, because it is an old quilt that has been well used already I'm not actually worrying about it - I doubt very much if Joe will even notice that I have re-quilted it!  But I will be adding to my list of future makes a new quilt for him, one which I can assure you I will take a lot more care over!!

R x

Scrap busting

It seems that, all over blogland, people are trying to get their scraps under control, and I am no exception.  Before Christmas I collected all my scraps into a huge John Lewis carrier bag, as they were threatening to overtake the dining room, but even I know that's not the most efficient way to store scraps.  A major scrap "audit" was in order.  I'm planning on making a scrap quilt at some point so, yesterday, with everyone back at work or school, I set about going through all the various bags within the big bag and sorting all the bits into various categories, and also made a start on cutting out 3" squares for the scrap project.

This in itself of course, generated even more scraps!  I'm trying to be very realistic about I will or won't use so I currently have on the table:

1. Fabrics to be cut into 3"squares

2. Larger pieces to be kept

3. Pieces that are too small for the squares but big enough to be useful - which I will be getting rid of (see below)

&

4. a bag of trimmings and other bits that are really too small (or ugly) to be of any use to anyone.

Pile no 3 is actually getting quite big, and will be even bigger by the time I've finished cutting all the squares, but it does include some really small scraps, some no more than about an inch wide.  I figured anything less than that is really not usable, but I can't bring myself to just throw away these other little pieces - they could be very useful for applique, or really tiny patchwork!  

I need to think about what to do with them - I may sell some as scrap bags but not everyone wants really tiny bits so I think I will offer them out to anyone that wants them. If you're interested just drop me a line - first come, first served - and I'll be happy to send them to you but, due to postage costs, I will limit this to UK only.

Another of my goals for this year was to de-clutter, so I think this counts as a tick for that as well - bonus!

R x

Yesterday I finally got the sewing machine back out and made myself a little needle case.  I've been meaning to make one for a while - I have needles all over the place stuck into various pin cushions so I thought it might be wise to try and keep them all in one place.

I based it on this lovely tutorial by Amy at Lots of Pink Here and just adapted it slightly, omitting the scissor pocket and putting in more felt pages for needles.

It's a great tutorial, very clear and easy to follow, so I really enjoyed putting it together. It was just the right, little project to blow the cobwebs away and get myself back in the mood for sewing!  

Now that the weather is slightly better today (god, wasn't it awful yesterday?!  Our garden flash-flooded but, luckily it drains away pretty quickly once the rain has stopped) I have managed to take some pics so I can show you the gifts that Emma sent me.

Some pretty pins and a fab little notebook.  Now, I love notebooks and writing lists but this one is too special to "waste" on to-do or shopping lists so I have decided to use it as a kind of journal project in list form, that I can keep and look back on.  I've never been able to keep a diary but writing lists of my favourite things or things I want to achieve is much more do-able!

Em also sent this gorgeous fabric basket!  Remember how I said our gifts to each other were spookily similar?  We both sent notebooks and fabric "storage" - great minds think alike, eh?  I'm going to start cutting squares for a scrap quilt soon and so I will use this to collect all the squares, until such time as I decide to get on and actually put them together!  Thanks again, Em!

Tomorrow Joe will be back at school - Peter went back to work on Tuesday and Will went back to school today so it will be nice to have the place to myself again!  Although it's a very short term again - only 5 1/2 weeks til the next break!  I wonder how much I can achieve in that time...

R x

Christmas makes

On my Winter Stitching list I had included some unspecified Christmas makes.  Well, I did indeed make some Christmas gifts and, now that Christmas is over, I can at last show you what I made.

I decided to go with cushions and I made 3 - one for my parents, one for Peter's and one for my brother.  

This is the one I made for my brother.  He lives on his own so I was quite restricted by what fabrics I could use - despite living with 3 boys I don't have much in the way of masculine fabrics! It was constructed as a regular log cabin, which I then cut into quarters and re-orientated the pieces to make a new pattern.  I also tried the trick of binding the edges, which worked beautifully!  

Next, I made this one for Peter's folks.  It's very tricky making something for someone else, as I'm never quite sure what fabrics they would like - I didn't really have anything that fit in with their living room decor but I thought this would go nicely in their conservatory.

Finally, this is the one I made for my mum & dad, an appliqued tree.  All the leaves and the trunk were hand stitched so it took a few days to come together, but I was very pleased with the result and, more importantly, they liked it too!  I'd like to give more handmade presents next year but have learned that I definitely need to start earlier!!

I also made a little fabric trinket tray for my friend Emma - the first time I've made one of these but it was very simple so I think this is something else I will be making more of.

I also sent her some choccies and a notebook. Next time I'll show you what Emma sent me - our gifts to each other were spookily similar!

R x

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful time over the holidays.  We had a very quiet but lovely Christmas Day and it's been more of the same since - just chilling out at home being very lazy and watching lots of telly.  Now, though, I'm ready to take down the decorations and try and get back to normal.  I don't do resolutions, but I have written a list of goals for the coming year - it includes stuff like, exercise, de-clutter and use up scraps!  The dining room table has been taken over with Christmas stuff, so I'm now looking forward to clearing all that away and getting the sewing machine back out again!  It's lovely having everyone home, but when we're all here I never feel that I can really get on with stuff like sewing (or even blogging properly!) so it will be quite nice to have the house to myself again next week once everyone has gone back to work and school.  

In the meantime then, I'll just wish you all a Happy New Year, and I hope 2012 brings you everything you hope for.

R x

Merry Christmas!

Ho ho ho from Santa Joe! (Image created using Photofunia.com)

Just wanted to pop in quickly and wish everyone a very happy and peaceful Christmas.  (Or, if you don't celebrate Christmas, then I hope you just have a very lovely time.) I also wanted to thank everyone who reads this blog for all your lovely comments, support and friendship this year.  I know I don't always get round to answering all my comments but I appreciate each and every one and I consider many of you to be true friends, even though we have never met.  (Although I hope to put that right with some of you next year...!)

Happy Holidays and see you in 2012!

R xxx