Sunday 30th September

Seems like forever since I posted on here.  I have been working away in the studio and have got both Star quilts completely finished.  The Moonflower cushion I'm working on for the studio has been waiting for the bias tape to come which is here now.  I've made the stems for the Moonflowers and ironed them on and all I need to do now is all the topstitching.  Pictures of this will come as I get on with it.

This is Poppy's birthday quilt.  She is my great neice and I haven't met her yet.  She was two in August and I've heard that she loves her quilt.

I called it Poppy's Stars as it seemed appropriate.

The other colourways is for me and I love the rustic colours and vintage feel to it.

Both quilts were machines pieced using pattern from White Cottage in Seison (Called Floating Stars).  In the brown version the cut off star points were re-used to make a pieced border.  Both were hand quilted in the stars and machine quilted over the rest of it.

In September I also too Sarah for a make over and photo shoot.  We've picked some pictures and we're waiting for them to be printed.  I took a quick picture between photos with my phone but they don't do her justice.

She looks so grown up (but she's only 13)  She had a good time and she's really looking forward to seeing the pictures.

Grandma Mary is coming up at the weekend to see the kids, although Mike is out all day at a cub scout day and Sarah and I are going for a spray tan in the morning but we should be back before she gets here.  A local salon is having a promotional day for Cancer so we booked in for a pamper session.  Should be fun.

A few people have been getting a shock this weekend as I had a drastic haircut on Friday and it is now shorter than my husbands - only takes about 30 seconds to dry and style.

I've also had a new addition to the family - which is settling into the studio quite nicely.  Just over a week ago a friend came over to learn how to use a rotary cutter and get some basic tips on patchworking.  After she left I took a trip over to Birmingham and picked up my new sewing machine.  This is getting a good testing - after several days of being sick and not well enough to sew I tried to make up for it at the end of last week.  I've started a small applique dragon to go on the front of a sewing machine cosy and began piecing a quilt top just for practice in getting used to the machine.  Managed to break it Thursday morning when the thread was bunching up under the bobbin case.  Had to remove the needle plate and re-seat the bobbin case which seems to have fixed it completely.

Finished putting Mikes room back together after redecorating, just got to put the toy boxes back in.  Nearly there now.

Bed time now.

Sew again tomorrow.

Sally

September 11th (Tuesday)

This morning after dropping of the kids at school I went straight down to the studio.  In the hour I was down there I made the label for Poppy's quilt and hand stitched it onto the back of the quilt (photo to follow before I post it off)

Then I made the label for the Brown Stars quilt and pinned it in place ready for the binding to go on.  I haven't decided what to bind it with yet but I may piece the binding.  Photo to follow.

Tomorrow I will be going to my quilting group and I will probably spend all day hand quilting and hope to get another couple of blocks done.  Wish me luck...


Sally

September 10th

I've decided to follow Bonnie Hunter (quiltville  http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/09/one-hour-of-needle-thread-week-1.html) and aim for one hour per day of hand quilting, if I'm honest I'm going to have to work up to this as I've been banned from knitting and sewing for a while so my tendonitis hopefully goes away.  I am in less pain so I'm going to start.

The quilt shown at the top of the Blog is now at the hand quilting stage so that is what I'm going to work on, slowly but surely.

I took it to my craft group this afternoon with good intentions but when I got there I realised I had left my glasses at home, the tiny needle I use was not going to get threaded without them.  Someone offered to do it for me so I could try and start but even with her glasses she couldn't see it either.

 

 

I've got the quilt in a hoop and I've done a couple of the blocks so far, the square blocks are all machine pieced but the pictoral blocks are all hand appliqued and each piece is button holed around and some have additional embroidery on them too.

 

When the weather is nice I like to quilt on the deck in the back garden - being England I don't get to do that as often as I would like.

 

 

The garden is south facing and I get the sun (when there is any) all day until early evening when the sun moves around to the side of the house to the patio, so if I'm still stitching (yeah right) I can move round there to get better light.  Either place is right next to the kitchen.

 

Earlier this year we had the garage at the bottom of the garden insulated and converted to a craft studio for me and this is where I can hide and stitch.  I don't tend to hand stitch here as I prefer to be up by the house (and kitchen) but there's no where better for cutting and piecing.  I even made space for two desks so I can have a friend over to play (and you know who you are).

 





It's a bit messy but I like it that way, I've tried having it spotless but I just get hung up on tidying up and don't create anything in case I make a mess.

I'll keep up with the hand stitching as often as I can and will keep popping into people's blogs to see how they're doing and Bonnie, I pop in yours everyday, it keeps me stitching.

Sally

September 2nd

Well that's been a long break between posts - School holidays are very disrupting.

At the beginning of the holday Dave found out he'd got the job he'd applied for - fab - but a bit of a double edged sword as it meant he couldn't come on holiday with us to South Wales

Haven't done much this holiday, the beginning of it we didn't know about his job so we were careful.  Took the kids to see the Lorax which was good.

My Studio was finished (sort of) at the beginning of the hols but due to kids being home I have hardly been able to get down there to do anything.  When I have got there I'm still tweeking where things go and trying to get things labelled.

Drove down to South Wales with the kids and Dave joined us after work for the first weekend, he went back on the Sunday ready for work on Monday.  We drove down the Porthcawl and spent some time on the beach and had lunch in our favourite Ice cream shop.

 

 

 

On the Saturday I hurt my thumb and ended up in A&E on the Sunday morning where I was told I had Tendonitis and ended up with my left arm in a sling, I also have it in my right shoulder but can't put that in a sling too or I'll look ridiculous.  I then had three days where I had to totally rest my arm so no crafts (I took my knitting and hand quilting with me) and no cooking, so had to eat out for lunch and dinner every day.  It was really frustrating.  Spent the time talking and walking over to Porthcawl.

By the Thursday I managed to drive and took the kids to the Chocolate Farm - yum.  We had a really good day but the Sat Nav was playing up and we only just got there before the charge ran out.  Managed to fix it for the way back so we didn't get lost.

 

 

Mike was picked by Lawrence the demonstrator to show how quickly the chocolate sets in the moulds, lucky it worked.

We had the most amazing thunderstorm on the Friday which was also our 15th wedding anniversary.  Dave drove down and got to us just before 8pm

Mike collected big jewels through the holiday and ended up with quite a collection by the end of the week.

We spent about an hour per day in the arcades and collected the tokens and saved enough to have a Welsh mug by the end of the holiday - only cost about £25.  I also managed to get a Talking Tom toy from the grabby machine - much to the annoyance of all the kids around us - it's the must have toy and there was only one in the machine.  We had a bit of fun photographing it around the site.