Monday, August 27, 2018

August UFO

My UFO to work on was It's a small world by Jen Kingwell published by Quiltmania. I did leave it very late in the month to restart it, but I went to the Festival of Quilts for a few days at the beginning of the month, and if I am honest, I have been avoiding this project. 






Bank holiday crafting finish

I surprised myself yesterday by finshing my new project - the haunted birdhouse by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. 

I also added a frame of a purple ghostly fabric from my scrap bags and inserted it into a 5" frame. I now realise I have a number of other stitcheries that need framing so will add them to my 2019 UFO list.


And I added wadding behind the Stitchery before adding the borders and added four layers of a stiff pellon behind the Stitchery. Then I glued down the purple fabric and ironed a circle of felt onto the Pellon.


I now realise it's a little off square, but what haunted house isn't a little wonky and run down? Now yo continue with my August UFO.


Sunday, August 26, 2018

Bank holiday crafting

Tomorrow is the last bank holiday in the UK, until Christmas Day. Whilst I have made good progress  on my August UFO, I decided that it would be a fun idea to start a small project yesterday. It is a small cross stitch pattern called Haunted Birdhouse by The Frosted Pumpkin.

Instagram is to blame as this new Halloween pattern popped up on my feed. Before heading to the supermarket, I quickly bought and downloaded the pattern. I printed the colour key and added the pattern to my Kindle downloads. I then pulled out a small thread box, added a pair of snips, needle and sourced the necessary threads form my stash. I had to substitute for several colours by referring to the project photo.


I have a plan to finish this over the long weekend by stitching out the black frame first, then today, I will do all of the white areas, then finish everything else tomorrow. I do one section of white and then a section of colour.


You can see that the black of the border is complete and I have made good progress on the tree house. Today I will finish the border and white sections.

Monday, August 06, 2018

Holiday prep

I am headed to the Festival of Quilts on Thursday but this year, I am staying in the city centre, as this was a last minute booking and the NEC hotels were silly prices. I regret having paid for a hold suitcase but it's booked and paid for so I will shop until I drop.



I always take a project with me to work on, even if it's just on the plane or at the airport. I bought some wool got my birthday last week from Dragon Hill Studios. I am using the metropolitan stripe colourway and divided it into two balls. I hoped that the cake started at the beginning of the grey stripe so wound off about 40 grams until I got to the end of a pink stripe. I then cut the yarn and wound it back into a ball so the yarn started with grey.


It's true that a striped yarn almost knits itself as you just want to get to the end of another stripe. I have knit a third stripe today and need to putting it away or it will be finished before Thursday.


I am just under an inch away from the heel turn. I think I will do the heel turn at my quilt group on Wednesday morning and then put it in my hand luggage.