ALYoF - July 2015 - Typewriter

 

It is fair to say that I have been dithering about what to work on this month. I am away for a week so wanted a smallish project as I also want to finish my cosy blanket. This project which will be familiar to some and which I haven't shared before is a Paper Piecing designed Shapemoth for a Fat Quarterly Retreat class from 2013. All I completed at the retreat was the two pieces which make up the centre with the carriage return bar thing. Fortunately I had put everything together in one project bag and put it all on my WIP shelf.

 

 

So yesterday I worked on the block along with some more Farm Girl Vintage blocks, printed out the instructions from Shapemoth's blog as we weren't given any hand out at the retreat. Then I found a few pieces missing so I printed out those too. So it is all organised on a clipboard and I think another couple of hours and I'll have all of the pieces done and ready to sew into the block. It's a 16" block so I have several options in mind:

 

Cushion

Tote bag

Laptop bag

 

First I'll finish the block.

Linking to:

Sunday Stash - mix tape and sock yarn again

I know more yarn purchases. What can I say, they're just so pretty. Only one purchase this week from Fondant Fibre again. And if you're tempted, there is a shop update every Monday evening at 7pm.

 

And first the little extras included by Deb. A sample of spangle in the colourway - Don't Mocha Me which has a very pretty gold thread, a lollipop which was delicious, a stitch marker - very useful and the cutest lip balm in a mix tape cassette. That takes me back. I will use the sample to start a sock blanket. Perhaps I might even find the right needles to start before my sock needles arrive.

 

I love pretty wrapping. Heightens the excitement,, even though you know that you bought it for yourself. But you don't know what I ordered, so I should move on to unwrapping it.

Aren't these pretty. The aqua is more green than I was expecting but I'm sure once my needles arrive and I actually start, that it will look very pretty knitted up.

And here are the labels in case you need to know!! I need to go out tomorrow and buy one more ball of yarn for my Cosy Blanket. I am six inches from finishing the last row. I have the wool for the edging so hope to finish it in the next two weeks. I am off to the Cotton Patch in just over a week's time - fortunately they don't stock wool. In preparation for my trip I have downloaded Art n Stitch onto a new laptop kindly loaned to me my Nick.

Linking to:

Farm Girl Friday - week 10 Furrows and Gingham

 

Week 10 of 23 weeks of blocks to sew along with Lori and friends. Not quite half way yet, but the accumulated blocks are filling up my design wall. I needed more 6" blocks to fill in holes and also so that the quilt doesn't continue to grow too big.

 



Furrows was foundation pieced. I drew the block in EQ7 and printed off the pattern onto photocopier paper. All of the patterned fabrics are from my scrap bags and follow the colours Lori used in her blocks.

 

The second block is gingham which is a little wonky, but once paired with all the other blocks and quilted, will look okay. I'm not sure if the background fabric is bike tracks or pearl bracelets. The dark orange is definitely grunge by Basic Grey.

 

ST quilt bee - July 2015 for Jane

 

Jane chose great granny squares for us to make this month for a quilt for the charity - Siblings Together. However it was down to me to do the drawing first. The diagram above is just random colours.

 

I dipped into my box of 2.5" strips which doesn't seem to grow any smaller. And I chose the turquoise spot which is from a riley Blake backing as it was on my table. Less now to put away. Jane has asked us to leave the blocks untrimmed so that it easier for her to make all of our blocks the same size, which is always a challenge with bee quilts.

Friendship star baby quilt

 

I am very lucky to have trusting customer quilts who hand their quilts over to mutual friends ( thanks Jane) to give to me, in the anticipation that I'll choose a suitable pattern and thread and get it back to them. This is a delightful little quilt for Judy's friend's grandchild. Unfortunately the expected girl turned out to be a boy, so it's back to the drawing board.

 

Pantograph is elegant stars

ALYoF - Flora Supply case

 

My goal for June was to make the Flora Supply case by Clover & Violet. The binding I order was the perfect colour but the wrong width - my mistake. I found other bindings in my stash that were either too small, too big or the wrong colour. I requested that my DH pick up some binding from my LQS in aqua or mauve. He did well.

 

 

Using folded elastic was new to me and my lines of stitching aren't very straight, but I'll do better next time. All of the fabrics are by Alison Glass from her Sun prints and Ex Libris collections.

 

I'm not sure how I'll use this case yet but I am very pleased with how it turned out.

 

Linking to:

 

 

Farm Girl Fridays - week 9 - fresh pears and feed and seed blocks

Oops it's already Monday and not Friday. My blocks were done but other things got in the way. I must make a son next week's blocks so it doesn't happen again.

 

I'm loving this fresh pears block which once again uses fabric from I Want Her Stash club. The May and June delivery should arrive next week and I've seen June's fabrics which are lush.

 

I went a little wrong with this block and the green fabric should be where the white is. Too late, it's not being changed, so this is my variation.

Sunday stash - birthday edition

It is Lizzie's 17th birthday today. I did spoil her with one big present wrapped in minions paper. There is one smaller present to come - thank you Claire for being the intermediary.

 

And for those who'd like to know what colour I bought for Lizzie - it's crystal blue.

And just to prove I'm  a sucker for pretty packaging - don't you love the tin and the pouch. Here are some skin care stash purchases.

 

Firstly is the Liz Earle anniversary versions of cleanse & polish. You will see that the cap is missing from one and it is already in the bath room to be alternated with my regular cleanse and polish and another product. I am working through the miscellaneous beauty products this year and I just have one cleanser to finish and one large  moisturiser and some small Olay samples. However I have loads of body lotion to also use up. I'm tackling it one bottle at a time.

 

 

And then in the potty pouch is a trio of Murad products to try. I had already put them in my carry on luggage to take on forthcoming trips, I'll be interested to see how the products feel.



 

And this was my most exciting purchase of the week from Fondant Fibre. I am impatiently waiting for my cable needles to arrive. I bought completely the wrong size so they have been returned for exchange. I have also bought a pattern to go along with a YouTube video to knit toe up. It is printed out and ready to put in my planner for safe keeping.

 

The colourway is Dook Dook Dook. I should Google the name to see if it has a story. And I'm back. Hmm I wish now I hadn't Google the name. however it is a beautiful colour.

 



As well as the yarn, I was sent a cute stitch marker along with a coupon code for when I next order. I am following the shop on Instagram as they occasionally have limited edition kits and yarn.

I also received a mini skein called London Calling. How apt. It's thicker wool so I must check what weight it is.

I have been thinking about buying the yarn for the border of my cosy blanket which is moving along and I have about ten stripes until I have finished the body of the throw. I was resisting buying it online as I know I will buy extra to get free postage. Jan told me on Wednesday that a local shop had new stock so I bought it on the way home from our quilt group along with some DPNs from a local charity shop and a size gauge.

Linking to:

Ex Libris by Alison Glass

My target for this month was to make the Clover & Violet Flora supply case. The pattern was released on Monday (with 50% off) so I quickly bought and downloaded the pattern. I then printed it as a booklet and it can be stapled, hole punched and added to my A5 planner.

 

On Monday, I also ordered the supplies I needed for the pattern which includes a zip, fold over elastic, medium weight interfacing and a few other bits. I am still waiting for them, so I have been crocheting my cosy blanket and watching Youtube videos on knitting. They are addictive and Little Bobbins podcast gave me a few ideas to make whilst waiting for supplies. the first was an open wide zippered pouch. google is my friend and I soon found Noodlehead's free tutorial. I then cut and paste it into Word and also printed it as a booklet.

 

I chose Ex libris again to co-ordinate with my as yet unfinished Flora supply case. I couldn't find any suitable zippers in my stash so I bought one when making a stop at Rondels Farm shop yesterday. They had only one zip in stock which was a blue 14" zip which fortunately was okay for my purpose. However next time I'll buy a longer zip and add some iron interfacing to give the bag more body.

Then inspired by Little Bobbins, I made a cover for DPNs also using ex Libris. I'm sure you can see a theme here. Yarnie Nana also featured this on her podcast and gave a demonstration of how they worked which helped me in the design of my cover. You store your needles in the cover and the sock dangles down through the poppers. I will need to buy some more poppers as I only have grey and white, but white worked for this.

 

With the remainder of the panel left over from the needle cover, I made a small needle case. No snap closure or ribbon which I find I never use.

 

No delivery of supplies has arrived this morning, so I'll have to be patient and wait until tomorrow. I have however received 100 glow stick bracelets which I will deliver to the WI office this afternoon.

Sunday stash - sock yarn edition

My wish to knit socks started with the purchase of a knitting book when we were in Melton Mowbray of all places which was near to Matthew's sixth form college - Welbeck. Last year I visited Loop with friends and thought more about socks. If I bought some yarn then, it hasn't surfaced.

 

Last weekend in London, we visited Westfield at Stratford and bought this skein in John Lewis.

When I got home, I popped down to the Harbour Gallery and bought some DPNs and a skein of this lovely turquoise. I tried the DPNs but I don't think they're for me, so I am going to try the magic loop technique. So I returned the DPNs and bought another skein, this time in a denim colour. I've since found out that I need to wind the skein into a ball before starting a project.

I also bought some cute stitch markers. I had found some jump rings which would do the job, but these were too darned cute. I have been in touch with the owner of the wool shop about learning to knit socks so I am hoping to start very soon.

Linking to:

Farm Girl Vintage - Farm Fresh Flower and Farmhouse

We are already on week 8 of the sew along and my array of blocks is already looking quite large. More 6" blocks are called for.

 

 

 For the farm fresh flower, I made a 6" block using some Sweetwater fabrics along with Dashwood Flurry

 

Some more Dashwood Flurry and two fabrics from one of my I Want Her Stash bundles. This is the first building I've made from the book and they all need to be 12" IMHO. I'm using similar colours to the book so as to make fabric selection quicker.

 

And here are my blocks so far. I think the colours are working and no one colour is dominating, but I think I need to choose something other than pearl bracelets for my blocks that need some Orange.

It's all about the cake

Last weekend we were in London and on Saturday we met a tour group at Covent Garden for a cupcake and macaron tour. We were guided by the lovely and enthusiastic George. There were tastings at every stop and even better we got a 2 for 1 through National Rail. Do you want to come on a tour with us?

 

Just follow George into Covent Garden.

The first stop was Laduree in Covent Garden, we all squashed into the small shop as George collected a bag of macarons.

 

I'm not sure what flavour my macaron was but there was no definite flavour. Lizzie had chocolate and said it was lovely. We headed to the nearby church yard where we were regaled with interesting facts. There were surplus macarons so one lucky lady won a box of three and a bag for being first to answer a food question. The answer was Punch & Judy which apparently originated in Covent Garden.

 

The tour website said we would stop at Lorraine Pascale's bakery, but apparently that closed over a year ago, so the next stop was BB Bakery where George bore our lovely strawberry cupcakes on a fancy cake tier. we were warned to grab our sample quickly as passers by have been known to take one. BB Bakery also do double decker bus and boat tours with afternoon tea.

 

 

Next we headed to Leicester Square, into China Town and then into Soho which is an area I don't know. This trip we tried to not do our usual route of Marble Arch to Regent Street, Leicester Square and Covent Garden and enjoyed our trip more for doing that.

 

 

In Soho we ate at the Hummingbird Bakery and had a full size red velvet cupcake. I know they are very popular, but I don't really see the attraction. I'd rather have something zesty, so on to the next stop.

 

Yauatcha is a Michelin starred restaurant and a welcome comfort stop. I chose a yuzu macaron here which I kept for later. Unfortuantely it had a chocolate filling which rather overpowered the yuzu shell. Beautiful displays though and George's favourite stop on the tour.

 

The website also said we'd stop at Patisserie Valerie which I wasn't looking forward to with any excitement, but again the website hadn't been updated and we stopped in Carnaby Street at the relatively new Crumbs and Doilies. Owner Jemma came outside the shop to tell us about that day's flavours and the history of the shop.

 

I chose a key lime pie mini cupcake, very nice. I even bought Gemma's book to immerse myself in later.

 

 

We headed through Burlington Arcade to Fortnum & Mason - our last stop. Have you ever spotted the Chanel cipher on the lamp posts in Westminster. Now we know the story of unrequited love and a public demonstration of that love. I had never been in Fortnum & Mason before so this was a new stop to me. Here I chose a salted caramel macaron to eat later.

 

 

 

 

You may be surprised that  we didn't put any weight on last weekend, though today could be a challenge. To celebrate the WI's centenary we are having an afternoon tea at Government House. each WI has been asked to contribute sandwiches and a cake. I have to make cake for 24 (i.e. two cakes) - one for Hel's belles WI's contribution and one for my contribution as a Board of Trustees member. I decided to try out the Malteser cupcakes from Jemma's book. Each recipe makes 24 cupcakes. I have loads of icing left so may make some more for Father's Day afternoon tea with the family.

 

I have kept one cake back for Lizzie to try. But should I have stuck with one Malteser or three? Three certainly covers up any icing technique shortcomings.



 

 

Time to put raspberry jam in my Victoria sponge and pack it ready to take to Government House where we are setting up at 11 am ready for a 3 pm start this afternoon.