Tula Pink project bag

I haven't done much sewing this month so to get back into the swing of things, I decided to do a quick project. 

I cut into the Elizabeth Selfie by Tula Pink and paired it with some Essex linen from I want her stash. Add some Kam press stubs bought from Amazon and it was finished. There are some changes I would make when I make a blue version, but overall it was a success.

I also made a DPN cover in the leftover fabric. I added iron on interfacing to both projects to give them some extra body.

Ready to add my new 3S shawl started at the Fig Tree yarns knitting group that I went to on Friday for the second time.

Don't these stitch markers match the project bag beautifully.

Farm girl Friday week 28 strawberry and maple leaf

Wow, where have the weeks gone, only ten more blocks to go and I have made none of them. august continues to be busy and September looks much the same with two trips planned.

 

The first block this week is a scrappy maple leaf with fabrics straight out of my scrap bag. I'm not sure about the Cotton & Steel arrows but as the quilt will have 100s of different fabrics I'm hoping it won't stand out too much. This is a six inch block. There's only one more block I want to make in the six inch size so I may have to make some more canning blocks to fill spaces.

 

 

And another scrappy block - this time a giant strawberry. It looks little unripe. Having used so many fabrics from my scrap bags, how come they aren't looking any less full?

 

 

And another group photo. It's amazing how many different fabrics can look good together linked by the white and low volume backgrounds.

 



Beachside quilt

 

 

Doesn't this pretty quilt remind you of all the good things about living by the sea. I have been on an Angela Walters course recently at The Cotton Patch in Birmingham. I was planning to put the classes into practise, but Anne wanted a quilt for a gift quilted and slipped this one in the bag too. So I was very bold and have tried out two of Angela's designs on this quilt.

I did have issues with thread snapping, but thanks to lots of hand holding from the Longarm learning FB group, I got is sussed for the larger quilt. Here you can see the back and forth lines that I thought looked like either the sea or wind. I also did a square design in the borders and sashing and treated the yellow and green outer borders as one.
 

Farm girl Friday week 17 pinwheel and postage

 

I must start sewing some more blocks as these were sewn several weeks ago and August has been full of short trips. Again I made a six inch and a twelve inch block this week.

 

First the six inch postage stamp block which is from my scrap bags and is a little bit not square. However once it's in the quilt, I hope it looks better.

 

 

I'm loving this block with it's cheery colours, full of dots in every fabric. The turquoise is from the last I Want Her Stash bundle that I received.

 

 

And here's a colourful group shot.

 

Siblings Together August blocks

Nice simple disappearing nine patch using 7 inch squares for Mary. Finished just in time to post at the airport on Saturday.

Sunday stash - I knit London edition

Lizzie and I were in London for two days last week to enable her to go to GOSH for an injection. Whilst we were there we did a spot of shopping and also went to see the play 1984. Very disturbing and not recommended for young children. we also tried for tickets for Hamlet but weren't prepared to queue all day.

 

 

We shopped at Westfield Stratford where we also had lunch at Wagamama. There I bought some disposable piping bags from Lakeland - what a spend thrift I am. Even Lizzie was restrained. Lizzie was ahead of me in developing a sinus infection and I blame that for my errors of our trip - losing my boarding card and taking a wrong turning to get to the theatre.

 

Any how, I had researched the locations of all the stops on the London Yarn walk in September and found I Knit London near Waterloo. So off we toddled. With directions from the shops owner we were soon there. I was like a woman possessed. I bought two balls of mass produced sock wool - Regia stripe mania in colour 06371. I want to try out a recipe for Vanilla bean striped socks by Emily O'Grady so this wool will be caked up ready to put in my suitcase for my trip to Birmingham in a couple of hours. That's if I can buy some smaller needles at John Lewis as my order hasn't yet come. Whilst packing this morning, I've realised that not only did I leave my row counter on the plane ten days ago but also my tin of stitch markers. Double damn.

 

The other ball is Austermann self patterning wool in colour 257 with no plan.

 

 

The next three beauties were dyed by the shop owner. I've just realised there are no names on the wools and they are all on a  Ziggy Stardust base which is 75% superwash merino, 20% nylon and 5% stellina. From the website the middle colourway is moonage daydream.

 

Time to go and finish packing. I only have hand luggage for five days so I need to choose what to pack very carefully.

Farm Girl Friday week 16 peas and carrots and pie cherries

I'm keeping up with these blocks and this week I have made one six inch and one twelve inch block. First is the 12 inch block called peas and carrots. I've kept to the them with my colour choice using mini pearl bracelets and some Carolyn Friedlander.

 

 

For the six inch pie cherries block I used another piece of the Carolyn Friedlander green with some hexagon low volume for the background and then raided my scrap bags for everything else.

 

 

And here the two blocks are in a group shot. I'm loving how they're coming together.

Hap Bee birthday

 

I had hoped to see the recipient of this needle case last week, but our paths crossed over the English Channel. I thought I'd share it today before I forgot to take a photo.

 

The pattern is by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery and is called bee keeper. I used the bee linen which I bought at Frau Tulpe in Berlin. The spotted binding is a premade binding.

 

On the inside I picked out the bright green from the linen and the brown of the bee hive for the felt.

ALYOF August 2015

 

Well July was a bust, I can't even remember what my plan was, but not much got done. This month I plan to quilt my Moda Building Blocks quilt once I have finished a customer quilt which arrives tomorrow. There are lots of new Prostitcher block patterns in the recent update so I plan to try some of those out.

 

This isn't the best of photos, but it does illustrate a good use of some temporary scaffolding that my DH has erected. This is a big quilt and I plan to ditch around each block and then work on the blocks one at a time. The biggest blocks might have feathers in the setting triangles and then ruler work elsewhere.

Farm Girl friday - Out to Pasture and Patchwork Pumpkin

And I'm still keeping up on week 15. Wish I could say the same about the My Small World sewalong.

 

 

And first we have Out to Pasture in 6" from my scrap bag - I see some vintage Sweetwater and Summerville.

 

 

I don't have many oranges in my orange scrap bag so I had to chop into some FQs. Lots of favourites here including pearl bracelets, Zen Chic and Carolyn Friedlander.

And here is how the blocks might look together with Old Glory from last week.

Farm Girl Fridays - week 14 - Introducing Penny Pig

Week 14 already. and I'm keeping up. Lori Holt has been doing a number of Farm Girl Vintage retreats with extra block patterns for participants. One such pattern is Penny Pig, which was released yesterday along with a delicious apple. Here is Penny Pig minus her embroidered details. we are about to go out for my early birthday lunch so I will embroider them after lunch. we are celebrating today as Matthew is working a double shift (lunch and dinner) tomorrow.

 

 

Then the blocks from the book are Old Glory

 

 

 

And Old Red Barn. I even found the quarter square triangle block in my scrap basket and it was the perfect size. The grey fabric is Little Apples by Aneela Hoey.

 

 

And here are the two 12" blocks together. My design wall is now overflowing, so I'm considering starting to sew a few blocks together when I tackle next week's blocks.

Pen Pals - spring day at the carrot farm

And this is the last of my finished cross stitches for the moment. There are still three in the series to finish. Two are over half done and one is in kit form to grab and go. I much prefer the yellow border in this stitchery to the white border.

Pen Pals - Valentine's Day

 

Looking back I haven't shared this completed cross stitch. This is also worked on the dotty linen. It was this pattern that persuaded me to change all of the other patterns to a coloured border so as to better stand out on the linen.

 

This is pattern 203, called Valentine's Day. I still don't know how I'm going to display these completed stitcheries.

Pen Pals - Ice Cream, You Scream!

 

I have just finished this small cross stitch by The Frosted Pumpkin Sitchery, just as they  release the next in the series. I took three of these in kit form to Birmingham to work on and I managed to move all of them on and I now have four out of seven complete. Once I'm up to date with them, I can move onto the many other cross stitches I have in progress.

 

 

As I purchase each pattern, I print out the coloured chart and the colour key. I then laminate them back to back to work from. Then I get a zip lock bag and add the threads from my stash and the dotty aida. Then I know what threads I need to buy or substitute. I now need to make up my kit for pattern 208 and find the box of threads that I know is somewhere in my stash.

Goody Goody Binding Bag Sew Along with Lella Boutique

Vanessa of http://lellaboutique.blogspot.co.uk/ has recently designed a Binding Bag in her new fabric range. Fat Quarter Shop has organised a Sewalong for this free pattern available from Vanessa's blog.

 

I cut out most of the pieces for this quick project on Tuesday before catching the boat to St Malo with four friends. we had a lovely time, the boat was on time, the sea was very calm and we had a lovely lunch in Saint Servan. Farmers were protesting so the ferry company warned us to allow plenty of time to return to the ferry terminal. This only affected us after lunch when we took a bus to the supermarket as we were dropped off further away than we expected. When we left the shopping centre, there were tractors at each exit but the taxi arrived in ten minutes and avoided any protests on the back streets back to the port.

 

I started sewing the bag this morning after taking daughter, Lizzie to the port. On the left hand side you have a pouch for your binding clips. On the right hand edge, you turn in a quarter inch seam and I pressed the two seam allowances into the middle of the two layers, so the pouch is seam free inside. I bought most of the fabrics for this at the Cotton Patch last week.

 

 

In the centre of the pouch you have a ribbon for your threads. In the pattern this is made from fabric, but I used some ribbon. It is also meant to be attached at the bottom with Velcro and as I had no Velcro to hand I added a Prym press stud. The strawberry pocket for scissors has been replaced by a square pocket.

 

 



 

On the right hand side is a pocket for treats. I added a lace trim to the pocket from the haberdashery stash given to me by a friend's Mum.

 

 

And here's the finished interior ready for use by it's lucky recipient. The fabric range is mostly Indelible by art Gallery Fabrics.

Farm Girl Fridays - week 13 - Mama Hen and Milking Day

 Apart from an appalling photo, I'm please with this block. It's a nicely designed block but a bit fiddly at 6" square. Again all scraps from my scrap bags.

 

I'm not sure where this orange feather fabric came from, but it looks great on this Mama Hen block. And it's all going in the right direction without need for the ripper.

 

I think next week I'll mix the blocks up a bit instead of just adding the new blocks to the bottom. it's coming together nicely.