Slow down, it's Sunday!

All week at work has been rush rush rush so I planned on having a quiet and relaxing day. The fact that it was raining for most of the time made it much easier as I couldn't rush around getting any outside jobs done. This morning I settled on a little more sorting and tidying. This proved most beneficial as I found two £25 gift cards that Lucy and I had been given last year when we took the Guides to Switzerland. I knew they were in the house somewhere but just couldn't place where they'd been put. They'd got mixed up with the accounts paperwork from the camp. I guess next weekend Lucy and I will have a shopping trip which will result in us spending much more than the gift cards, but it will be fun.

I settled down with Scamp to finish off the hat. This didn't take too long but I did have to check out how to decrease stitches in crochet. I'm not even sure if I've ever decreased stitches before.  I then used an accent colour to go all round the edge of the hat and made braids to hang from the ear flaps.

My next job is to stitch the horn and the ears. Before I can finish the unicorn off I will need to get some more yarn. I need rainbow colours but I only have yellow, orange and green at the moment. I've got to pick up some fabric tomorrow so I'll also get the yarn. I'm really liking the speed that this project is going together. 

Towards the end of the afternoon I spent a little time planning my sewing storage. I love the planning stage as it's much less tiring and stressful than actually organising anything. I need to get a handle on the projects I'm working on and make a plan to move them forward. It's so easy to decide there isn't time to do anything in an evening when I get in from work but this just isn't true. This week I've spent a little time each day working on my hand stitching which is very relaxing.

At about 6 p.m. the sun suddenly popped its head out from behind the clouds so Scamp and I rushed out to enjoy a short walk. The temperature has dropped a lot but it isn't really cold and we both enjoyed the exercise. Having now had dinner and cleared up after it we are all ready for a chill out evening. Scamp keeps looking at my lap so I need to finish this post and decide what slow stitching to work on this evening. I think I may just decide to make the unicorn ears and horn so I can start assembling the hat. Once they're stitched I will pull out the latest bag lady and get a little more done on her. Scamp loves slow stitching on a Sunday as he gets to sleep on my lap.

I'm linking this post with Katy from Kathy's Quilts for her Slow Sunday Stitching Pop over and see what everyone has been working on today.

Lyndsey

Crochet time.

Thank goodness it's the weekend. Last week was tiring and the storm on Thursday night didn't help. The wind and rain really stressed Scamp and he whined and shook like a leaf for hours. We were lucky in London with no flooding or damage but I must admit that the storm was scary. Whilst teaching on Friday the rain was being blown horizontal by the wind which was interesting to watch. I was supposed to be visiting my brother in Leicester this weekend but he rang to cancel as the weather was so bad. As a result I had a free evening so I started a new project. 

I haven't done very much crochet in the last few years and certainly didn't plan on doing any now. When I went searching on the internet for a pattern to make a unicorn hat, I found a suitable pattern very quickly  all thanks to Google. I had been planning to knit the hat but what I found was a crochet pattern. I had to buy some yarn and hunt out my crochet hooks before I could make a start. I took the pattern with me to buy the yarn rather than just making a note of what I needed. It's fortunate that I did as it proved really useful. The yarn I needed was worsted weight which in the UK is double knitting or aran weight. The lady who served me was very helpful and found the perfect yarn and whilst chatting with her she mentioned that the stitches had different names in the US to the UK. The first thing I did when I got home was check it out on the internet and sure enough double crochet stitches are treble stitches in the UK. Having sorted that out I was ready to start.

I've now reached the point I need to add the ear flaps. This is a very quick project and should be done by this time next week. I can't wait to add the rainbow mane!

On Thursday I gave my student the quilt I'd made for her baby son. She bought him in to meet her fellow students and they loved having a cuddle with him. He's ten days old and such a little cutie.

Today I've also continued with my cleaning and clearing drive. I took all my clothes from the wardrobe and went through everything. I tried all the items on and several items are now destined for the charity shop. Tomorrow I'm going to go through all the clothes in my chest of drawers. Having now made some space I guess I can go shopping for some new clothes.

Tomorrow I plan on doing some sewing. It's lovely having a free weekend as it means I have time to work on my projects.

Lyndsey

Sunday at last.

This last week has been a little mad with lots of travelling for work and too little time at home. After the busy week a quiet weekend would have been a good idea but I decided to start a big sort out of all my personal and Guide paperwork and make sure it's up to date and filed correctly. It's the start of my plan to become a highly organised person! OK so it's never going to happen completely but I can dream. Plus if I get more organised I'll have more time for stitching. Here in the UK we have a new guide programme that covers all the age ranges.We have until August 2019 to implement it but Lucy and I decided to start it now. A lot of this afternoon was spent going through the old resources and consigning it to the paper recycling bin. The dust from the paper gave me a serious sneezing fit and Scamp joined in as well.

Once I gone through everything I'd planned for the day it was time to turn my mind to sewing. First I remembered that I hadn't shown you a picture of the completed baby quilt I made so I pulled the gift bag from the cupboard. The student has had her baby and is bringing him in to show the class on Thursday so I thought I'd take it into work and store it in my desk so I didn't forget it. It's a good job I decided to do that because when I took it out of the bag to photograph I found this.

Looking at it a vague memory came to mind. A memory of having unexpected guests and tidying it into the gift bag to keep it clean and out of the way. I sat down and finished stitching the binding on and then lay it on the bed to take a photo.

Mmm I really must get round to redecorating the bedroom. It was planned to be done during our summer holiday but we just ran out of time. I guess it will have to wait until Christmas.

Having done that my problem was deciding what to work on next. I need to take some time out to list all my projects. As they aren't all stored in the same place it's a little difficult to keep track of them. Getting organised will mean making a full inventory so I know where I am. My problem is that I love finishing projects but starting a new project is even more enjoyable. A year or two ago Barbara, from Cat patches, ran a NewFO challenge. Each month you had to start a new fabric project. Now that was no problem because I love starting something new but I still have several of them that aren't finished. I'm not complaining and it definitely wasn't Barbara's fault but I do need to finish up a few of them.

Anyway after a lot of indecision I decided to spend the rest of my sewing time today working on my grandmother's garden quilt. For this row round the central hexie is one of the rainbow colours and the outer hexies are white. I need to prep a whole lot of white hexies. It's a good sewing job to do whilst watching a movie or chatting and is perfect for a Sunday evening.

Being an English paper piecing project this is really slow but fun to do. It will be finished eventually. 

Tomorrow evening I'm going to make a start on reorganising the sewing projects including making a full list of where I'm at with each of them. For now I'm going to carry on with some slow Sunday stitching.

Take care and stay safe.

Lyndsey.

Welcome to my house

Welcome to my house blog hop. Before we start I must thank Carol from Just let me quilt for organising the hop. These hops are so much fun and I always end up adding projects to my wish list. There is just so much to inspire me when I visit other blogs. 

I must also apologise for not being able to post today but my computer was playing up. Last night when I went to check I had scheduled my post correctly, it wouldn't allow me to set it properly and when I tried to post it nothing happened. A quick meltdown followed but in the end I went to bed having sent Carol an email. I attended my meetings today and then headed home. Computer being sorted but I'm able to use John's computer to post.

This hop is about including a house in the project. I did think about making a mini quilt of our house. The house is a London terrace built in 1860.  You can get a rough idea of the houses in the photo below

So then I got to thinking about previous houses I've made and the first thing that came to mind was Holiday Lane. This was made from a given pattern for a blog hop and each Christmas since I made it, the pillow takes pride of place on the sofa.

Our house is number 56 so I embroidered that on the door of one of the houses. Wow that photo's a little blurry..or it may be my eyes.

I also made the schoolhouse block when I made the Votes for Women quilt. There it is in the final row but only the chimneys are showing.

In the photo below are the blocks before they were stitched together and the school house is in the top row.

For this hop I wanted to make something small and I finally settled on a mug rug. You really can't have too many mug rugs and I needed another for my desk at work. As there are no cloths on our floor if someone spills their drinks they come to my desk and grab my mug rug to help wipe the spillage. If I'm there I tell them off but they still use it next time. It ends up being washed quite frequently so I decided to make a second one.

I wanted a simple design as I love the way our Rainbows (5 to 7 year old girls) draw houses. I had fun picking the fabrics for the tree and I'm really enjoying the tree being full of birds. Our house has a red door and I wish we had a garden out the front with lots of flowers.

I had forgotten how fiddly the binding is on a mug rug. The house and tree were appliqued onto the background. To hold the pieces in place whilst I stitched I used this glue baste and I was very impressed. I loved the applicator which allowed me to put a very small amount of the glue on the pieces.

Now you need to go and visit the other blogs.

September 12

Beaquilter

Days Filled With Joy

Freckled Fox Quiltery

Wont-To-Be-Quilter

Why-Knot-Kwilt

Creative Blonde

Adventurous Applique and Quilting

Quarter Inch Crafter

All Thingz Sewn

September 13

Creatin' in the Sticks

Quilt Doodle Designs

Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!

Domestic Felicity

Life in the Scrapatch

That Fabric Feeling

Just Because Quilts

Hazel’s Daughter

September 14

I Like To Quilt Blog

Selina Quilts

Benita Skinner’s Creative Space

Nettie Sews and Lucky Quilts

Bumbleberry Style

Quilt Fabrication

Sew Golden A Chance

Just Let Me Quilt

I can't wait to see what everyone made.

Lyndsey

Blogger Meet and Greet

Welcome to the online Quilters meet and greet. My name is Lyndsey and this is my blog where I post about my quilting, knitting, walking, cooking and anything else that needs to be shared with my friends in blog land. I love my quilting on line friends as they are such a supportive crowd. Why not make a cup of tea or coffee and I tell you a little of what goes on round here.

My mother taught me to sew, embroider, knit and crochet when I was a child and it has always been my way of relaxing. When my children were small it always gave me a lot of pleasure to make their clothes and when I had time I'd be doing embroidery or knitting. As my children grew into teenagers and then adults I had more time to indulge my hobby and my son suggested that a set up a blog as it would be a great record of what I made. Before I started my bog I didn't take photographs of what I made so I can't show you any of the quilts I made years ago or anything else for that matter.

Let me show you some of my quilts and other makes. What made me want to get back into quilting was seeing a Dresden plate quilt at the stitching and knitting exhibition at Alexandra Palace in London in October 2011. I kept being drawn back to the stand to admire the quilt and before we went home John bought the pattern and fabric for me.

It was the use of the liberty prints that attracted me to this quilt. I'd never made a Dresden plate block before and it took me 6 months to get my nerve together to start the quilt. I soon learnt that the block is not as difficult as it's made out. I soon has the first block finished.

The quilt was going to be a wall hanging but it looks so pretty over my couch and is just perfect as a lap quilt. The borders and sashing took a while to put together as it's made from 1 inch squares.

For a long time this was my favourite quilt but then Christmas 2016 John bought me the fabric to make the Mariner's compass quilt. The fabric arrived just as I was diagnosed with breast cancer and although I enjoyed stroking and playing with the fabric it took me a while to start work on the quilt. The chemotherapy affected my concentration and it took most of the year to piece together. I renamed the quilt, the rescue quilt. Without going back through my blog I can't remember when I finished the quilt top but I finished all the quilting and adding the binding just a couple of months ago.

I had a lot of fun using different free motion quilting patterns. I hadn't done a lot of free motion quilting until this quilt and it was great fun to try different techniques. This is a very traditional quilt and also a very warm quilt. It's going to keep us very snug during the winter. 

The meet and greet is going on for the whole month so why not pop back again between now and October. I'll show you some more of my projects and tell you a little more about life in London UK. 

To enter for the Great Grand click on this button.

It's been great to meet you and I'm looking forward to seeing you again soon.

Lyndsey

Slow Sunday stitching

Today is slow Sunday stitching Sunday and instead I seem to have been tied to my computer doing work. One of these days work will slow down and I'll have more sewing time or maybe I'll just retire. I haven't been doing any interesting sewing this week as I had a lot of repair work to do. If one button comes of a blouse or a shirt then buttons on other items seem to think it's an invitation to drop off as well. Don't get me started on having to change a zip! Putting a zip into an item you're making is nice and straightforward but when one breaks it's a pain having to replace it. Anyway all my buttons and zips are now in full working order and hopefully nothing will need repairing in the next week or two.

When I've finished this post I am going to watch an episode of Vera and do some hand stitching. I've finished the two bag ladies I was working on, mostly because I took them to work and spent my lunch break stitching. . It makes a nice stress reduction time in the middle of the day. I left my stitching in my desk drawer so I'll post a picture of them later this week. For this month I'm going to work on my Christmas tree cross stitch when I have time at home. Here's where I'd got to when I last worked on it.

I'll also work on the next bag lady during breaks at work. I can't remember what her name is. 

I'm taking part in the quilters meet and greet which starts on Tuesday 4th at 8 a.m. Atlantic time. It will be a great opportunity to meet some new quilters. There also a grand draw to enter.

I'm linking this post with Kathy for her Slow Sunday Stitching  Why not visit to see what everyone's been working on.

Lyndsey