Sunshine, Olympics and stitching

I have really been enjoying the sunshine and started the garden tidy up since the weeds have grown huge as a result of all the rain. It also enjoyable to walking Scamp without getting soaked.


I haven't seen much of the Olympics so far but I did catch most of the opening ceremony which I enjoyed and the men's cycle race yesterday. Neither of these were good for sewing to as they needed to be watched but I got quite a bit of knitting done.


Yesterday I decided to make a straight skirt for the summer. I have had the material for a long time and just hadn't got round to using it. It is Laura Ashley and was bought as a remnant.

The skirt has a side zip and a slit at the hem on the left side. The back has two waist darts but the front doesn't. Really quick and easy to make. I must get someone to take a photo of the things I make being worn. 


Lily Pad Quilting is gearing up to Pets on Quilts which runs during August. Click the button on the right to follow the link and find out what it is all about. They ran a test 'linky' party to make sure the links will work for the event. Whilst having a look at the links I came across Happy Quilting where Melissa is running a Tetris Quilt along. As I love the game I decided to take part. Follow the link to find out more. Here is my block for week 1

The blocks should be 5inch squares but I am using 3inch. The quilt along makes 6 blocks and the finished size was too large for what I wanted. My quilt will be 30 X 45 inches without the borders. This will be my Linus quilt for August. I now need to make my week 2 block as I am behind having started late.


Finally got round to getting started with free motion quilting. When I was last doing quilting over 20 years ago I did it all by hand. The machine really speeds the process up but I was wary of trying this technique because I had been told how difficult it is to control the machine when you first start. This is my very first try.

I started with just getting used to the machine without the feed dogs and then tried doing a leaf. I was not too unhappy with this start and have already progressed on with the technique. I will post next week to show my progress.

I have finalised my design for the little quilt swap I am taking part in, the fabric has been bought and later this week I will be starting work on it. However before then I have a quilt to bind and one to quilt and bind.