Monday, March 18, 2024

Monday makes

 Yesterday felt productive even though I don't have much to show you today. I worked on my Folk Art Sampler blocks and made good progress. More on that on Wednesday. I even made the effort to fix the rabbit's eye.


These little foundation pieced blocks from Quietplay have been in progress since the sewalong so it was good to finish them even though I have no plan for how to use them.


Another small job was to replace the mustard neck band on this sweater hoody dress I added a bock to in January. whilst the grey isn't a perfect match it is much more wearable, and I can always add a scarf. It is now packed to go to retreat.


One of today's tasks is to work out what interfacing I need to buy for the bag Lizzie and I will be making at retreat. Our local shop stocks Vlieseline so I need to work out what is a suitable replacement for the interfacings specified in the pattern.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Friday finish - dancer

 

Dancer by Barbara Ana from Creative Poppy was my project to complete for February for my Guild's UFO challenge. I completed the stitching and in a rush to take a photograph I used a spray to help eliminate the folds in the linen. BIG MISTAKE!! Of course, this is a hand dyed linen and is not necessarily colour fast which resulted in a water mark on the right hand side of the piece.

I have now added a piece of lace to the piece to cover the stain and framed the piece. The frame was purchased from a charity shop and painted with blackboard paint by my husband. 


Wednesday, March 13, 2024

WIP Wednesday - folk art flowers

 
I have a little more progress to report on my Folk Art Sampler blocks from the sewalong with Art East Quilting. I have now finished four flower blocks which are from weeks 10 and 18. I know we're only on week 10, but I thought that as these are straight forward blocks, I would stitch them now.


I've also cut out two and a half acorn blocks. Why a half? I found that I didn't have enough of the yellow fabric to complete the block. I like this fabric from Winterglow by Ruby Star Society so I have ordered a whole yard.


I will stitch up the two acorn blocks that are cut and then probably move on to the week 8 ducks as they are large blocks. The ducks are 10" finished blocks so less fiddly than the 6" blocks. I should then ut some of the eight bee blocks as when they're complete, with the other blocks stitched so far, they form a borer around the central star block. I can't resist piecing sections together as I make progress.


It doesn't look very impressive so far, but I have completed four weeks of the ten released so far. Can I catch up by the end of the month? Or will I get tired of cutting out such fiddly blocks!

Monday, March 11, 2024

Monday make - folk sampler leaves


The Festival of Creative Arts finished yesterday, and we dismantled the exhibition in about 90 minutes. I am left with some entries to return to people and some certificates which weren't collected. I was delighted to get home to an ansaphone message that the one trophy I was missing for the prize giving tomorrow will be returned to me today. Such a relief.


It's time now to get back to some stitching and retreat preparation. We are now on week 10 of the Folk Art Sampler with Art East Quilting and the leaf block released yesterday was a good place to restart this project. The fact that it's an easier block made that an easy decision.


I have cut out a few of these blocks ready for retreat but I need to ramp up my cutting schedule and probably tidy my working space to make cutting out easier. But I now have three weeks complete out of ten. I have already started cutting out the week 2 acorns so that should be the next block to tackle.


 

Friday, March 08, 2024

Friday finish - Summer basket

 


I bought this pattern and the baskets for the other three seasons in a destash. I had taken out my Halloween Terrarium to work on but there's unpicking to be done, so it soon went back in its bag. I thought one of these would be a quick and easy stitch. I used floss from my stash and replaced the light red with a pink and went for turquoise flosses rather than the greener aqua flosses suggested.


I watched the video of how to finish the pillows on Youtube and they are bigger than I expected. With my patchwork experience, they should be quick to finish - famous last words. I have pieced and quilted the cushion front so far. The turquoise fabrics are by Alison Glass and the red is by Libs Elliott.

I plan to finish this cushion and the Dancer by Barbara Ana over the next week. I now need to focus on my Challenge UFO for March which is the Halloween Terrarium by Tiny Modernist.

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

WIP Wednesday - new start

 

I love a good sewalong and I also love foundation piecing so this latest charitable project by @happysewlucky caught my attention. I have always loved a good stripe too. I am planning to do a 1 to 1 swap with UK quilty friends rather than join in with the official swap. 

I made a test block yesterday and was so annoyed with myself with the mistake in the black and white stripe. This is option B in the pattern, and you cut squares on point which I found very wasteful of the fabric. I will be repeating this B block for a friend but planning to sew the A block to swap as it uses straight cut squares.



Monday, March 04, 2024

Jersey Eisteddfod

 


I was busy all last week with taking in 660+ Needlework and Textile Art pieces for our section of the Festival of Creative Arts. I have a great team of helpers who are there for practically six full days and we are not a young team!!


I like to have a Christmas corner and this year we have two Christmas trees, a tree skirt and lots of Christmas cushions. These tables greet you as you enter the hall.


We always have a great display of quilts which starts with this beauty and moves onto a whole wall of quilts. My husband kindly arranged the quilts, and he knows I like to move through the rainbow, and he did a great job.


We have brilliant senior school textile teachers and the students' creations come in on mannequins which shows the creations off to their best. We did have to use some double-sided tape and pins to keep some of them decent! we group them at the back of display to draw visitors in.


Some of the mannequins are heavy and awkward to move so they are delivered direct to the hall.


We had help from two husbands during the week so on Friday we only spent half the day putting out the entries. Large macrame pieces are probably the hardest to display due to the weight.


Unfortunately, I can't show you the winning pieces until after the show closes, but I did win a trophy. I enter under a false name so that the adjudicator is unaware of any entries from the committee.