Florence dress

 

I purchased the pattern, fabric and buttons for the Merchant and Mills Florence dress from a shop at Sunny Bank Mills where the Great British Sewing Bee is filmed. The dress is voluminous and I measured as a 16. I had initially decided to go for the size 12 but chickened out when getting ready to cut out the dress and traced size 14 instead.

I think this is a perfect summer dress and should be cool as temperatures start to rise. I had finished everything except the buttons before I tried on the dress and realised that the buttons went at the back as the back hem was 12" lower than the front hem. I spent about 45 minutes unpicking the seam, overlocking and gathers. Annoying but it had to be done.

I love the vintage buttons and only one needs to be undone to get the dress on. I think I'll be wearing this a lot this summer.

Nightingale pouch

 

We were impressed by the array of Nightingale Pouches by Centre Street Quilts  so having purchased the pattern, Lizzie decided we would do another sewalong over Facebook Messenger. She works a nine day fortnight so has every other Monday off. Lizzie received her bundle of prequilted fabrics last weekend when her Dad visited her and Matt in the UK, so it's time for me to starting prepping ready to sew on Monday.

Whilst browsing my Tula Pink stash I came across a forgotten scrap bag of Tula Pink from Olive & Flo Handcraft. I marked out the correct size for the quilted panel with washi tape on my cutting mat as a guide.

I was surprised that the scrap pack yielded a large enough panel for the outside of the pouch. Most of the fabrics are not ones I have in fat quarters so it is very varied. I quilted the panel using a Karlee Porter Graffitti quilting digital design called pearls and feathers. I am now ready to sewalong with hardware and binding in black and white. This weekend I need to clear the decks and finish the dress I am amking.

Sherpa gilet

This is the last make from the May retreat. It's a free pattern from Purl Soho for a quilted vest. I bought the cosy sherpa at Pour l'Amour du Fil and the Liberty bias binding was from Ecolaines in Rennes. I just used one layer of fabric and overlocked the edges. I did seams at the sides and shoulders which I bound with binding. I then bound the armholes and around the gilet. I even remembered to add a label to the back of the gilet. 

I hired a new Atelier 6 at the retreat but I struggled to sew this fabric on it even when I used the walking foot. However, I switched to Lizzie's Atelier 6 and that did a lovely job. I'm looking forward to using this as a layering piece in the autumn.

Hello Autumn

 

I finished stitching this freebie Friday pattern from Primrose Cottage on Saturday, so it was a priority to finish it into a cushion on Sunday. I looked for matching fabrics on Saturday evening, but my stash was not producing anything, fortunately I found this Ruby Star fabric which picked up a number of colours from the stitched piece. I made a simple 6" pillow, and it is ready for autumn.

I have also stitched two rice bags as I mislaid my original rice bag which I rely on every day. The first rice bag was a little small, so I stitched a larger version on Sunday. I was just finishing the stitching ready to take downstairs to fill with rice and lo and behold there was my original rice bag next to my overlocker. We now have a nice collection of rice bags!

Tilly and the Buttons Frida shirt

 

I bought the Tilly and the Buttons new pattern for the Frida shirt at Stitch Festival in March. Lizzie and I started the pattern in April and finished it at retreat in May. The fabric is by Seasalt and could have been bought ten years ago. It was perfect for the shirt apart from the right and wrong sides looking identical which caused me some head scratching when installing the plackets on the sleeve cuffs. This was a new technique to me but after finding a good Youtube video, I was back on track. Lizzie didn't have that trouble as she did the short sleeved version.

We bought some lovely ceramic buttons in Nantes and Lizzie had those, so I had to wait until retreat to add the buttons. The cream buttons on the front were purchased from Fabworks in Yorkshire. A pleasing make.

Summer blessings

 

I am pleased to hae achieved one small goal for this month. I have finished the Summer Blessings Friday freebie from Primrose Cottage. I was pleased to find some of this yellow dot fabric from Moda to finish the piece. I put some crushed walnut shells at the bottom of the pillow and scraps of wadding to fill the top.

I have also found the Sew Quirky Moon Bunny pattern to complete the UFO challenge this month but the pack of fabrics wasn't with it. Today I plan to photocopy the pattern pieces so they can be cut out and look for the fabric pack.

June 2026 plans

 I am only making small achievable plans for the month as my energy is very low and the hospital even slower!

The UFO that has been chosen for our group challenge this month is a Sew Quirky project. My first task is to locate the project and kit!!

The weather at the moment is perfect for this dress which I plan to start cutting out today. First, I need to decide the size that I need to sew. I have circled size 12 on a copy of the pattern, but I think 14 might be better. It has a lot of positive ease but I don't want the dress to be too big.

I picked up this Primrose Cottage work in progress from my basket last week whilst waiting for this month's UFO to be drawn and it should be achievable in small bites as I can't sit for long periods of time.

Another Primrose Cottage project which just needs to be finished into a pillow and displayed in my tiered tray.

I also have two customer quilts being delivered later today which I can work on steadily once set up.

Stash bee - rainbow stars

 

Kerry is the May bee mama for the Stash bee and posted her instructions earlier today. As the weather has broken and it is much cooler today, I decided to have a go at making two 12" blocks. It seems that I have fewer low volume fabrics than I thought and some are more off white than white. 

The block is called Falling Star by Sarah Watts of Ruby Star Society and was a Moda Blockheads 5 free pattern. I will package the blocks up over the weekend ready for hubby to post them on Monday when he goes int twon.

Summer blessings

Summer blessings by Primrose Cottage was the free stitch for May for being a newsletter subscriber. I find it uncomfortable to sit for more than an hour, so this has taken longer than I had anticipated. Today is a bank holiday and it's hot, so time to finish off the small bees and flowers. I will make this into a small pillow but need to find some suitable fabric.

Stash Bee - plus blocks

My local friend, Jane, recently started a stash bee so as to use up our stashes and scraps. Jane's block was chosen for May, and I initially stitched these at the Modern Quilt Club retreat. I was using an unfamiliar sewing machine, and I was disappointed that my blocks were not coming out at 6.5" square. Once home, I unpicked and resewed the blocks and I'm now much happier with the outcome.

My month is July, so not long to wait and that is also a retreat month so I might collect some blocks at retreat.

Barbara Ana - Spring

Having completed winter, I decided to finish Spring too. This is number 1 of our UFO challenge 2026but the number hasn't yet been called. As you can see I had made good progress already with Spring.

I did make a counting mistake on the bird on the right-hand side but decided that it didn't offend me, and I added an extra blue cross to that side for balance. I have decided to put away this project until number 2 is called which is summer. However, I have updated my floss ring to include only the summer colours.

I spy quilt complete

 

I finished piecing this quilt top at retreat, so it was a priority to quilt it on my return. The quilt is for a Christmas challenge for the Wednesday group that I attend, but it's good to get ahead.

I used the digital pantograph Malachite and a multicoloured thread to quilt the top. I used the backing that was already loaded on my long arm from the Tula Pink Roar which I quilted with car interlining instead of Bosal in the middle for Lizzie. There was no black or white in the quilt top, but a black and white stripe for the binding is often a good choice.

I even remembered to add a small rainbow label on the back of the quilt and there is a rainbow block in the quit top.

Frida dress

Do you end up with lots of off cuts of dressmaking fabrics? I made the Aspen dress in a seersucker from Fabric Godmother in March 20205. I parceled the leftover fabric neatly in an Ikea Ziploc bag and it has lurked with many other off cuts. 

Last week I used the Frida dress pattern from two stitches to make this pretty dress in size T2 as a gift for a friend whose daughter is having a second baby this summer. I am surprised how much fabric that I have left and can probably make at least one, if not two dresses more. I think that these dresses could be a good retreat make if precut ready to sew. 

Retreat purchases

Just a few purchases from retreat. I bought the two stitches girls dress pattern as I thought that it would be a good way to use up scraps from the clothes I've made. The Oliver + S pattern was my raffle prize with the same thought in mind.

From A Beautiful Thing I bought two charm packs and a strawberry print to add to my strawberry stash. I also bought some magic pins which I left behind with my daughter, Lizzie. I left some other things that I didn't immediately need as my husband, Nick will collect my goodies when he visits the children and his family at the end of the month.

Also not pictured is the small stripology ruler that I bought to try out. I will report back.

I spy quilt progress

 

On the Saturday of my retreat weekend at Gomersal Park, I pieced the 81 5" blocks into a quilt top. Fortunately, I had a large bed in my room, so I laid all of the blocks out and then stacked them ready to piece together. This is now ready to quilt and perhaps bind, this weekend.

Still getting ready for retreat

Our Wednesday group Xmas challenge is to make an eye spy quilt for donation to a charity. I have taken the easy route and pulled out two Ruby Star panels. I thought it was going to take some time to find them, but they were actually in my Ruby Star box!

I also plundered my box of Moda solids for colours that toned with the squares in the panel. I was surprised not to have more dark blue fabrics. I have added a 1.75" border around the fussy cut squares and then trimmed the squares to 5". I find that the squares are a bit smaller than 3" square so i would prefer to trim them down for accuracy. 

I am stitching about ten blocks per day which takes about an hour and I hope then to be able to put the quilt top together at retreat.

 

Winter by Barbara Ana

Number 4 was chosen as our group's UFO challenge this month. Another of the seasons by Barbara Ana which I hadn't started.

I finished the piece on Saturday. There was a lot of white to stitch which doesn't really show up in photos. I now have Autumn and Winter complete. Spring is started and I may work on that in May to make progress.

Meanwhile, I have been doing tax returns for myself and my father's estate whilst also quilting metres of Roar by Tula Pink for Lizzie, so the fabric is prequilted for bag making. I should finish this job today.

Pour l'Amour du Fil 2026

When we arrived at the exhibition centre, there was a long queue. I was shocked as the French don't queue and I thought Thursday would be quiet. However, the red dress project which greeted you at the entrance to the hall, was only there for two days which may have changed the pattern for booking tickets.

This was Lizzie's first time at this show which is very different from, and much smaller than the Festival of Quilts. We started by looking at the rooms of quilts which were predominantly vintage, Japanese or traditional, which is not our aesthetic. This dress made out of tea bags caught my eye as an elderly friend keeps tea bags for recycling into bags in India.

We went up and down the rows of stands methodically but managed to lose each other in about ten minutes!! My obsession with strawberries continues and we also bought some Fimo buttons, but I think they've gone back to the UK with Lizzie. 

Au Fil d'Emma has the largest stand of modern fabric and I bought these two patterns along with some useful Fat Quarters and a blue FQ bundle for Lizzie for her birthday. I am joining a new quilt bee and I'm thinking of requesting stars in yellow, orange and red so a couple of these will come in useful.

I bought this vibrant pink fabric to make a gilet or similar. I thought had the same vibe as the Liberty Adidas shoes Lizzie bought me for Christmas. At our stop at Ecolaine in Rennes I also picked up this Liberty bias binding to cover the edges. If I have enough, I will also bind the few seams for a neater finish.

We had a lovely but short trip. Two 6am starts on Friday and Saturday, threw me a curve ball but I had a good night's sleep on Saturday night which makes all the difference. 

Getting ready for retreat

 

Having returned from France very early Friday morning, my suitcase was already out so I have started packing for the next Modern Quit Club retreat on 1 May. Less than two weeks to go now! I bought some lovely zippers from Ecolaine in Rennes, so decided to make a twice as nice pouch by Aneela Hoey for the pouch swap. These zippers were unusual as they look like ametal zipper with the end stop but aren't made of metal.

The pouch didn't take long to make but I made the same mistake as every other version I've made, I only cut two strips of the long striped piece but needed three. The pouch is now wrapped and ready for retreat. I need to decide what projects to pack for retreat next, which will entail doing some tidying to find a Ruby Star Society panel for a group challenge. I know I have one full panel and a half panel, but who know where.