Monday Make - Winter Wonderland

I finished stitching winter Wonderland by Lindsey weight for Primrose Cottage at the weekend. This is a free pattern from Primrose Cottage for signing up to their newsletter here. I have ordered crushed walnut shells from Amazon to fill the piece but the weather has been stormy, so boats have been cancelled for the past three days. Our mail (and food) comes in on the boat so I may have to be patient.

Cross stitch fully finishes

Whilst I am thoroughly enjoying opening my advent calendars from Stich Supply Company and Studio 7T7, I felt I should accomplish something every day. I decided that some of my cross-stitch pieces should be finished and ay frame that I no longer like, will be redonated to a charity shop.

The first of four framed pieces this week designed by Barbara Ana. Some of her designs are available in her Kofi shop Support Barbara Ana designs and some are available from Creative Poppy until they close their doors.

This was a simple framing job as no painting was required. I glued wadding to the mountboard and added the mount.

I love this wintery piece. It has a layer of wadding behind the piece and then is stapled onto the canvas.

This too a little more effort as I painted a few coats of chalky white to the frame and I covered the mount with some fabric from Carolyn Friedlander.

This petite strawberry piece is mounted in a frame from Atelier Bonheur which I purchased at Pour L'Amour du Fils show in Nantes. Perfect for a summer display. I have a heart shaped from the same company but first I need to find all of the pieces!

I have pulled a further six pieces and frames, so I hope I can keep up my momentum. At the weekend, I plan to mend one item and list some other items on Ecycle.

Extra Large Clam Up pouch

I made a large version of the Clam Up pouch - By Annie pattern at retreat in November for this week's sewing with Lizzie over FB Messenger, she wanted to also make a pouch for a Secret Sata gift. Her boss, Lizzie, loves capybaras and my Lizzie had bought this capybara fabric at Festival of Quilts in August. The perfect gift for a capybara lover.

I had sufficient of this Tula Pink fabric left over from the first pouch so decided to make a nesting pair. I quilted an allover 1" grid on point on my Janome atelier 7.

I even remembered to add a little tag to the tabs on the base of the pouch.

Today I plan to progress a cross stitch WIP and I also have an ultrasound and chest X-ray booked. Deep joy.

Trying new things

 

I received an email about an update to the Cleary Carry All Pouch pattern by Minki Kim. I had forgotten that I'd purchased the pattern o thought I would try it out with the new Gray Work by Tula Pink that I'd just received from Sew Hot.

As Seal the Deal is a directional print, I even cut the outside panel in half and put a seam in the bottom before quilting the panel. I used the edge of my walking foot as a guide so it's about a 1/2" grid all over.

I love the stripe for the binding and the leopard print vinyl from Studio 7T7 is a great match along with the random parrot label from Kylie and the Machine 2024 advent calendar. The method used to box the corners was new to me, apart from having used it on a tote bag. I felt this section was glossed over in the YouTube video and instructions, so I did unpick the last bound seams and just did a regular boxed corner. 

Today I am stitching over Facebook Messenger with my daughter Lizzie. We are both making a Clam Up pouch - a By Annie pattern. I have my quilted panel ready to go.

Finally finished

My testing of @sariditty's Waypoint quilt pattern is complete. It will be donated to Quilts for Care leavers in 2026. I used an Ikea plain grey fabric for the backing which was thicker than I would have liked. I used the digital pantograph Malachite by Urban Elementz. Onto finishing my next project.

Retreat shopping

A Beautiful Thing was the in house shop at the recent retreat. I preordered two metres of this Ruby Star Society star print for the border of my Jingle All the Way quilt by Kimberbell Designs.

Lizzie and I used up our whole stock of vinyl in July, so we have been looking for some additions to our vinyl stash. I purchased this leopard print vinyl from studio 7T7 as Emma, the owner was also an attendee at the retreat.

The small Aurifil box is perfect for carrying small spools of thread to retreat for top stitching and the lovely pouch was from a swap and was made by Paula Steele. I also bought some bag charms from Cheshire Designs but in the sewing room repaint, they have been misplaced.

 On the Sunda I heard from British Airways that we were being paid statutory delay compensation for our unplanned diversion to Bucharest in October. I had not expected this and so bought a little Ruby Star Society fabric and some labels from Sarah Hearts which I split with Lizzie.

Waypoint progress

I am still making Waypoint test blocks for @Saraditty. I thought I'd have been finished by now, however I keep making mistakes. I didn't spot that in my original eight blocks, that I had the corner four patch blocks wrongly orientated. Once that was fixed, I thought the end was nigh. 

I put the rows together to find that I had one too many yellow blocks and one too few green blocks. My job for today is to make another green block and finish stitching together the quilt top.

I need to get that one this morning as I have a lunchtime appointment for a Covid booster. I hope I don't have a reaction to this injection as the flu jab knocked me out for two days.