Simply Solids retreat - secret sewers

Our mission for this swap was to stalk a fellow retreater whose name we had been given by Pippa and make three gifts for her. The smallest to be given on Friday, a medium size gift on Saturday and the final larger gift on Sunday when we would reveal ourselves.

 

I was lucky that my recipient was on the next set of tables to us, so I could drop my gift on her table when she was distracted or absent from the room. I made this Kilner jar pin cushion before finding out that a similar class was being run at the retreat. The first gift didn't get much of a reaction which had me worried.

The second gift delighted Iris and I heard her say that she loved the fabric. I wasn't the only swapper to make the goody goody binding bag. Free pattern here.

 

My final gift which was also made from Indelible which I purchased from Cotton Patch was a Super Tote by Noodlehead. Many Noodlehead patterns were made for this swap. I used Soft & Stable instead of interfacing and it makes a sturdy bag but is expensive. I would have happily kept this bag for myself. Iris seemed delighted with the gift when she found it under her table, an hour after putting in there.

 

And the gifts I received were all delightful. Gill stalked me well. I received an orgy of Bonnie & Camille/ Apparently I was difficult to sew for as I made every item Gill was considering. My first gift was a charming needle case with a yarn charm and some needles.

 

Then I received a lovely scissor case with some Bonnie & Camille fabric. Perfect.

 

 

One of my gifts was also wrapped in a FQ of Bonnie & Camille. All of the Bonnie & Camille goodies will go straight into my basket dedicated to Bonnie & Camille. Hmm. I am making a basket pattern at the moment using scraps of Bonnie & Camille so I might add these into the mix.

 



 

And just when you thought it didn't get any better than that, a bag to fit my A5 Filofax into. Apparently Gill got some funny looks when she went to Paperchase to take some measurements. A perfect set of gifts. Thank you once again Gill.

 

 

The blue snips are very useful and are the same ones Jane added to her second gift. I must put them in my tool pouch for today's all day sewing session.

 

And just as you thought I'd finished, here are some photos of other people's gifts:

 

We put all of the gifts on a table to admire.  Jane received chicken themed gifts from Helen. we sussed that out early as the gift appeared after she came to chat with us.

 

Jacqui made these lovely items from a not yet released fabric line from art Gallery Fabrics. The bag is a Craftsy pattern apparently.



 

Many wished they had participated as each and every gift had been carefully thought out and beautifully made.

 

Maria had to buy orange fabric for her recipient Jenny who loves orange.

 

 

Come back tomorrow when I will show you the contents of the very generous goody bag.

ALYOF thimble berries quilt for project Linus

 

After several years as a UFO, this Thimbleberries scrap quilt has been finished and is ready for donation to Project Linus. You can see that even the backing is pieced from miscellaneous Thimbleberries scraps.

  

The quilt was already half quilted and unfortunately, half trimmed, but I unpicked a few bits and then practised some techniques from the Angela Walter's class I took in August. I didn't find that my machine moved very smoothly but the Longarm Facebook group recommended moving the brackets holding the pols and then took the weight of the poles off the machine. Matthew moved them for me whilst I was away for a few days.

 

The quilt has been washed to remove most of the felt pen markings and is now ready for donation. My machine was delivered by my husband to the Cotton Patch on Saturday as he headed to his parents from Loughborough Uni where he had dropped off Matthew for his second year of Mechanical engineering. I heard yesterday whilst in Manchester Airport (long story) that the machine had been serviced and UPS have it on their van ready to deliver to Nick at his parents' home today, thereby saving me about £150 of shipping to and from the UK.

 

 

 Now to decide what to chose for my October goal. I think it will be my Farm Girl Vintage or possibly not.

Farm Girl Friday - week 22

 

My first block is a small and perfectly formed Welcome block. Unfortunately I think I will have to remake it as a 12" block as I am short one 12" block. Never mind, it's an easy one to finish. The deep pink fabric is Alison Glass and came with the turquoise in an I want her stash bundle. The cherry fabric is by Lori Holt.

 

 

 

I used the same fabrics again for the Waterturn block for which I drew my own foundation pattern in EQ7. the green corners are by Carolyn Friedlander and has possibly been overused in this quilt.

 

 

 

I'll have to find a use for the little welcome block - a project bag perhaps?

 

Farm Girl Friday - week 21

 

Only two more weeks and four blocks to go. I love this sunny sunflower with the Crops block which combine to make a lovely big block. The sunflower uses fabrics including Basic Grey Grunge, Cotton + Steel and Carolyn Friedlander.

 

 



And this 12" Tumbleweed looks great in fabrics by Lori Holt, Moda dotty and the turquoise print is from I want Her Stash again. The water melon fabric was from a friend's destash.

 

The blocks look great together and I'm keen to get the top pieced together so I can quilt and bind it for A Lovely Year of Finishes for October.

Farm girl vintage - week 20

Week 20 and just three weeks to go in the sew along. At least 40 blocks made in sizes ranging from 6" to 18". I have added the pig block recently released by Lori and this week I have made my version of the corn on the cob block.  The first block is summer star and the sunflower yellow and grass green fabrics shout summer.

 

 

The Sunday morning block is only 6" large and I love the summery green that I chose for this block too. All of this week's blocks sort of co-ordinate, but not deliberately so.

And then there's the summery corn on the cob block, but my variation of it. Again it looks very summery.

 

And here are this week's blocks together. I think they go well together. I like the 6" by 12" corn on the cob block. I think I need to make my crops block from June into a flower with next week's sunny sunflower block. and I also want to make a 6" tomato block for next week.

 

Heart quilt

 

Another quilt for a customer. I used the same square design as the previous quilt in the border and wavy lines in the background to make the hearts pop. I need to find a quilt of my own to practise my FMQ now that Matthew has raised the back bar for me and the machine can move more smoothly.

Farm quilt

This is a customer quilt that I quilted last month using the Popcorn digital pantograph. I have heard today that the quilt was well received by the recipients .

ALYOF September 2015 - what was I thinking

 

This quilt has been in progress for about five years and was a book club pattern. I decided to use up Thimbleberries yardage and didn't have enough of either the cream or the blue so did half and half. I started quilting this after a Philippa Naylor course as there are feathers on some of the areas. Having decided to finish this as my September project, it was soon loaded on my long arm.

 

 

 

I thought I might rip it all out and use it as a quilting practice piece, however once I reminded myself that this will be donated to Project Linus, I decided to just unpick one zig zag that hadn't been completed. You may notice my markings on the quilt , which will need a wash once finished to get rid of the marks.

 

 

Whilst I was machine quilting this quilt on my Bernina, I obviously thought it was a good idea to trim away some of the excess, which made loading it on the long arm, a little bit of a challenge. I then found the greater challenge was moving the machine smoothly and I found that my bar was too low and was restricting the movement of the machine. My son was kind enough to fix that whilst I was away.

 

 

So even though this is my September goal, I have already finished quilting it, it has been fully trimmed and any ends sewn in, ready to be bound. The next challenge is to find the red version of the green stripe for the binding. At last this quilt may get finished.

Sunday Stash - Harrogate edition

A quick update on purchases at the WI Centennial Show in Harrogate and some online purchases that arrived whilst I was away.

 

 

 

In the craft area of the show there was lots of fabric, but I resisted. At one point I was holding two bolts which I put back. However I did succumb to two balls of wool from West Yorkshire Spinners which are the Blue Tit (centre) and Bullfinch (right). I did ask on one stand if they had Blue Tit and I was met with a frosty reception. They obviously didn't know the limited range of  wools that they had on their stand which included many WYS wools, however around the corner, was the much more friendly Pendle Stitches. I then made this bag at the HP stand including a photograph of the said Blue Tit yarn. I also bought Crazy Zauberball in the colour Indisch Rosa from Jane's favourite shop - Eternal Maker.

 

 

This appalling photo shows  a purchase from Deramores, which I hoped would arrive before we left for Preston so I could continue knitting my socks. Despite advertising that they post out the same day, this parcel only arrived after we left on Thursday or Friday and was despatched on Tuesday. Very disappointing service and I could have saved myself money if I'd known that it wouldn't have arrived in time.

 

 

The I Want Her Stash Club has also arrived and I knew who had curated this bundle immediately. It's very me and was selected by Camille Roskelley and includes many fabrics from Hello Darling. I also received the bundle curated by Amy Sinbaldi, but it's too peachy and insipid for me. It will get used, but not as quickly as other bundles.

Farm Girl Friday - in a rush

Just time before a flight to share a few pictures of this week's blocks. First of all a simple star in 6".

 



 

Then the spring star:

 

 

And a group photo: