Manic Wednesday

Wednesdays are always rather manic. To start with I run Rainbows, Brownies and Guides on Wednesdays. We start at 5pm and finish Guides at 9 but often it takes another half an hour to get completely tidied up. Generally I don't work on Wednesday as I need to get the activities for the girls organised but when I have a lot of marking to get done I try to do some of it in the morning. This morning was no exception and I spent some time marking. By 11am I decided I needed a little time to myself so I set the machine up and pulled up The Splendid Sampler on my computer. This is a sew along that started earlier this month. The blocks will finish at 6 inches and there are 100 blocks with a block being released on a Thursday and one on a Sunday. Three blocks plus a bonus block have already been released. 

I meant to start these blocks on the day they were released but........ well you know what its like. Anyway I decided I would try and make the first three today, after all they're only 6 inch blocks so how long would that take? Block 1  is Hearts a flutter by Pat Sloan. This is a nice straightforward block that looks very effective. It went together very quickly and I'm very pleased with the result.

I still need to stitch the heart down. I was going to machine stitch it but I have decided to do it by hand. I also need to trim the block.

Whilst on the heart theme I decided to make block 3. This block is called Lots of love and is designed by Melissa Corry from Happy Quilting  I realised this block would take a little longer to make but I thought it would be reasonably quick. For some reason I seemed to find it impossible to stitch this block correctly. I had to unpick several seams and some of them several times. It took a long time to get it right but I'm now happy with it and it is a lovely block. The instructions are well written and the pictures are really helpful, it was just one of those days. Anyway I finally managed to sort it.

With hindsight I wished I'd made the three lower hearts  a stronger colour so there was greater contrast. By the time I had finished this block I didn't have time to make block 2 so that will be a little job for tomorrow or Friday.

Having struggled to get that block right I had time to finalise the activities for the meeting. Rainbows and Guides was all planned but for Brownies, one of the activities was making Danish Hearts They make a little basket and next week we will be making biscuits to give as a present in the basket. Several of the girls said they'd made them before at school and rushed to get them done but were disappointed when the couldn't open them as a basket. By the end of the evening they had all managed to make their basket and they are excited to be making biscuits next week. I forgot to take a photo of the hearts so here is one from Google.

Tomorrow I'm at work again and teaching all day but I'm looking forward to relaxing with some stitching.

Lyndsey