Something smells fishy

 

Welcome to day 2 of the 'something smells fishy' blog hop. Thanks to Carol from Just let me quilt for organising the hop. It's really fun taking part. I love the button for this hop. We were asked to create something new on a fishy theme or creatures from the ocean in fabrics, appliques, quilts, stuffies, or bags. 

When I started planning this project I decided i wanted to make something using applique. I spent some time sketching out fishes but then I decided making a fish block would also work. I still hadn't made a final decision when I got asked if I would make a small wall hanging to go in the room of a fish obsessed young boy. Well, how could I refuse. The wall hanging could be up to 16 inches wide by 28 inches long to fit in the space available. This really was a small wall hanging but perfect for the hop. I decided to make a pieced fish block with the finished piece being 15 by 24inches. 

The fish blocks were approved by the young fish lover and he particularly liked the fabric I used for the border. Unfortunately I only had a small piece of the border fabric so I had to join the top and bottom borders. It would have been great to use the same fabric for the binding as well but there wasn't enough. I had other fabrics with fish on them but they weren't right for the piece. Instead of adding a binding I am going to add a facing probably in white or light blue. This will be completely turned to the back of the little quilt and will not show on the front. Young fish lover was very happy with this solution when I spoke to him and his mom on Sunday evening. I do love children who know what they want when you are making something for them. The completed wall hanging is due to go to its new home on Friday so I have a few days to add the facing.

Here is the schedule for the rest of the hop. Do visit to see what everyone has made.

                                                      JULY 22

Just Let Me Quilt

Karrin’s Crazy World

Scrapdash

Quilted Delights

 

JULY 23

Patchouli Moon Studio

Words & Stitches

Quilted Snail

Quilting Between The Rails

Sew Many Yarns

Hazel’s Daughter

 

JULY 24

A Quiltery

Beaquilter

Quilting Gail

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

That Fabric Feeling

 

JULY 25

MooseStashQuilting

Ms P Designs USA

Quilt and Color

                                                            Selina Quilts

Thank you for visiting .

Take care 

Lyndsey

Weekly catch up

 Although I haven't posted this week I have been working on my various projects. By the time I remember I need to write a post it's late and I'm ready for bed. I need to think of a way to fit it into my week. Anyway catch up time, what have I been up to? 

First up I've done a lot of knitting and yesterday I finished the back of the jumper I'm working on. This is long line jumper rather than just to below the waist. I'm quite slow with knitting as I have wrist problems and so I can only knit for a limited period each day. It was a joy when I started the shaping as the rows got shorter and I could get more done. I love the green of this yarn.

I have also been working on the grandmother's garden quilt. This is an English paper piecing project and is all sewn by hand so it is taking a while. It would be finished more quickly if I hadn't decided to make it using 1 inch hexagons. I'm working on a round of red and have enjoyed pulling all my red or pink fabrics with flowers on them. It is slowly growing and I think i am now about half way round this row. The quilt is almost at the size my daughter wants and from the next round I will be starting to make it into a rectangle or square (depending on my daughter's decision). I love the colours in this round.

Both of these projects are hand stitching and are great in the evening if we are watching something on the TV or just sitting and chatting as a family.

Over the week I also worked on the dinosaur quilt. I am currently making the triceratops dinosaurs. Earlier in the week I completed cutting out the dinosaur fabrics and the background fabrics in preparation for starting the sewing. On Friday I managed to complete three of the dinosaurs.

They need a good press and to be trimmed but I'm happy with how they went together. I will try to finish the other three over this week. That would leave the remaining set of 6 T Rex dinosaurs to make before I can put the whole quilt together. The only fabric bought for this quilt has been the grey background fabric. All the rest were from my fat quarter or scrap collection.

Yesterday I spent a little time planning for later this year into next year. I have been asked to make the Cats in Pyjamas quilt and I want to make a quilt for a colleague who loves shoes and bags. In order to fit them in I need to finish the dinosaur quilt and the Red manor house quilt.

This coming week is the Something smells fishy blog hop organised by carol from Just Let Me Quilt. Here is the schedule for the week.

JULY 22

Just Let Me Quilt

Karrin’s Crazy World

Scrapdash

Quilted Delights

JULY 23

Patchouli Moon Studio

Words & Stitches

Quilted Snail

Quilting Between The Rails

Sew Many Yarns

Hazel’s Daughter

 

JULY 24

A Quiltery

Beaquilter

Quilting Gail

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

That Fabric Feeling

 

JULY 25

MooseStashQuilting

Ms P Designs USA

Quilt and Color

Selina Quilts

I can't wait to see what everyone has made. I'm linking this post with Kathy from Kathy's Quilts for her Slow Sunday Stitching 

Take care

Lyndsey

Cutting fabrics and 'Warrior'

Where has this week gone? It seems to have flown by and I was just thinking back over what I have achieved so far. It felt like I'd spent very little time doing any hand crafts but when I put a little effort in I realised I have moved projects along slowly. On Wednesday I got home from work earlier than usual and I pulled out the fabric for the next set of dinosaurs.

I love the bright fabrics that I'm using. By the time I needed to make a start on dinner I had prepped 3 dinosaurs. Everything is labelled so I get the right size pieces for the right places and hopefully they will get sewn together this weekend. These will make into triceratops. I have 3 more lots of cutting to do.

On my knitting project I am just short of the armholes on the back. It's rather slow going as an old repetitive strain injury in my wrists has raised its head again. As a result I am limiting the length of time I knit. The jumper should still get finished by the autumn when it will be needed.

I also made some more pompoms and bunting plus I've added flowers to the Grandmother's garden quilt. This all means that over the week I have managed to fit some stitching in everyday, and I've also read a book towards my 2024 reading challenge. So far I've read 14 books so I'm a bit behind if I'm to read the 30 total I set myself. This is a personal challenge so I'm not worried if I don't read that many books.

A while back I told you I had lost some of my photos from our visit to the historic dockyard at Portsmouth. I spent some time searching in my photo collections and I managed to find some of them. I'm still 'missing' a lot of pictures. Anyway here are some of the pictures of our first visit when we went round HMS Warrior.

HMS Warrior was built for the Royal Navy 1858 - 1861 and was the first armour plated iron hulled warship and was built in response to France launching the first ocean going ironclad warship Gloire which had a wooden hull. HMS Warrior never saw active service as a warship and is now moored at Portsmouth.

Although it never saw active service as a warship it was built for that role and so the interior is made to accommodate the 40 guns that she had on board. She is a frigate class ship and is steam powered. 

There are steep steps to get between decks and the ceilings are low in places. I managed to bump my head several times,

For the crew the accommodation was basic however the captain had a nice comfortable apartment. I liked the stove with its pretty tiles and he had  pictures on the walls.

At one end of the room there was a table for meetings and for dining and I would love a desk like this one.

The sleeping area was behind me as I took this photo but it gives you a view of the space, which including the sleeping area was the full width of the stern of the ship. 

This was the captains sleeping area.

This room was one of the other officers sleeping area, with reduced space due to the gun!

Somewhere in the system there other photos but one drive has managed to muddle them up. I will eventually get them back in the right place.

Today I need to do some marking, which is seriously impinging on my sewing time. If I get a move on I should be able to sew this afternoon. I also have a cake to bake.

Take care

Lyndsey

Fast and slow stitching.

Today I wanted to get on with sewing some of the bunting. I'd started by trawling through my stash where I quickly found quite a lot of batik. My daughter asked for bright and cheerful bunting and batik fits the bill perfectly. I'm using double thickness fabric so that there are two right sides. Double thickness will give it a bit of body and it will look prettier. I may decide to trim the edges with my pinking shears. I have a long roll of tape to attach the bunting to but that will wait until I know the range of colours and patterns of fabrics used. I cut a cardboard template for the triangles which worked well. Sewing them on the machine was quick and easy. I still need a lot more but this was the first day of making bunting.

I love the range of colours so far. The downside is that I've created still more scraps, so I think I see a scrappy quilt in my future. Talking of scraps I need to do some scrap management to get them sorted. I like to cut the scraps into useful sizes as it saves time when I feel the urge to make a quilt.

Last week I spent time prepping some 'flowers' for the grandmother's garden quilt. This is something I can do at lunchtime at work or even when in an online meeting when we don't need the camera on. No point in wasting valuable stitching time! Yesterday evening I spent time adding the flowers to the quilt. This takes a little time as you have to keep moving the fabric to make the edges line up. In total this round will require 42 flowers. I'm not sure how many I've made so far, or the mix of the fabrics I've used. I need to check as it makes it easier when planning the order to sew them onto the quilt. Here are the flowers I've already made, some I have to stitch together and the fabric I may use for other flowers.

This evening I will be knitting instead of stitching . I tend to alternate the two activities so that my wrists and arms don't start aching with the repetitive actions. I will alternate these two activities for the rest of the week, apart from Tuesday when I will make the fruit cake for Katy's wedding. The ingredients I am short of will come in my grocery order tomorrow evening.

I'm linking this post with Kathy from Kathy's quilts for her Slow Sunday Stitching. I love seeing the projects people are working on.

It's a work day tomorrow and I want to clear some of my work projects since I am not teaching. Having worked on Saturday I have a day to take back in lieu in the near future. If I can fit it on a Monday or Thursday it gives me a four day weekend which would be very nice. Next weekend I have two sewing days booked which will be fun.

Take care

Lyndsey

Tennis, election and some sewing.

Here in London the Wimbledon Lawn tennis championships started on last Monday (1st July). I drive very close to it on my way to and from work. I like playing and watching tennis but I haven't been to Wimbledon championships for over 40 years. I found that I ended up with a sore neck as a result of turning my head to follow the ball from one side of the court to the other (it does depend on where you're sitting). I am very happy to watch the games on the TV especially if there are some strawberries to enjoy as well. The shops and restaurants in Wimbledon village are decorated to celebrate the tennis, with lots of flowers and tennis balls and rackets. 

On Thursday night John and I stayed up to watch the election result come in. I have been doing this since I was in my teens but the evening was so unusual as the results were a massive landslide. Our MP was re-elected which I am very happy about as she is a great constituency MP. Whilst watching the results I alternated my knitting and EPP project. That meant I got quite a lot of progress on both projects.  As results came in a lot of the ministers, all well known figures, from the previous government lost their seats. We went to bed for a couple of hours at 5:30 in the morning.

Yesterday I took a photo of my grandmother's garden quilt as the one I posted last week wasn't up to date. I had completed the white round and at the top of the picture you can see the beginnings of the next round which is red.

This project is English paper pieced. To do this you use paper templates which are then covered with fabric. Normally I would print my templates from the internet but I received some in my subscription quilting magazine which has saved me a lot of time. I am using 1 inch templates. The fabric is cut larger than the template and the fabric is tacked to it.

When stitching the hexagons together I use whip stitch and try to just pick up the fabric, not going through the template. That way the template can be reused in a future project. The papers stay in the project until the top is completed and ready to be made into a quilt sandwich.

It is very easy to remove the papers by cutting the tacking thread and using your nail to pop the template out. The templates at the middle of the top do become very worn as a result of folding the top to put it away when not working on it. The templates round the outside fair better and can be reused. Different patterns can be produced by how you sew the hexagons together and by using other shapes that tessellate together. I like EPP and added bonus, it is something you can do whilst watching TV.

Today (Saturday) I was in work as we had an open day. It's been rather a quiet day as I think many potential students are preparing for the England versus Switzerland football match later today or watching Wimbledon or just staying out of the rain! I don't usually mind covering the open days but it is annoying to lose a sewing day when there aren't many people attending. When I got home I made a couple of pom poms. I have yarn in a big tub in the loft but when I was in Hobbycraft getting a large pompom maker I bought these bright balls of yarn. I have four sizes of pompom makers and so will make some of each size in each colour as a start. I then start using the yarns from my stash.

I also started pulling fabrics from my stash that I can use to make bunting. I needed to find some red fabric suitable for my grandmothers garden quilt so I started with my fat quarters and my scraps. I could end up clearing a lot of fabric. In particular I want to use up the larger scrap pieces I have as they are taking up a little too much room.

I have done my grocery shopping order this evening and I took the opportunity to add the cake ingredients that I'm short of. The delivery is for Monday evening and I will have time to make the cake on Tuesday evening. this wedding is already starting to play havoc with my plans for my sewing projects. It's not a problem as I can replan my sewing and it is so exciting for the wedding to finally be going ahead after it was cancelled during covid.

Tomorrow I plan to cut the pieces for the next set of six dinosaurs. I may not have time to start any sewing but I should be able to fit that in next weekend. The grandmother's garden quilt is all hand stitching and so much easier to work on in the evening.

Finally I'm really enjoying the flowers I had delivered earlier this week. The smell from the roses is delightful. 

 Take care

Lyndsey.

July Plans.

The first day of a new month and so much potential for working on my sewing projects. At the start of each month I spend some time planning my sewing time. First I consider any visits or family events during the month. These tend to happen on the weekend and so reduce available sewing time. I'm busy on two Saturdays this month but no other commitments. If I use my time wisely I should be able to move several projects forward.

I'm going to work on my Grandmother's garden quilt this month. This is an English paper piecing project and is my oldest UFO. Unfortunately I never seem to make time to work on it. It is time to finish this quilt but there is still a lot of work to do. I think this is the last photo I've taken of it. The white round is complete and I've started on a red round. I'm interested to see how much progress I can make.

The Chookshed stitchers challenge pulled number 1 for this month and this quilt was my number 1. I love the cute buttons for this challenge.

I also set a goal for the One Monthly Challenge run by Stories from the sewing room.

My goal for this challenge will be to complete at least 6 of the remaining dinosaurs for the dinosaur quilt.  I'd love to finish both the triceratops and the T rex but I don't think I have the time. I would like to have this quilt completed before the end of the year so I can gift it to the new owner. 

This is going to be such a bright and cheerful quilt.

In addition to these two challenges i want to finish knitting the back of my green jumper. This is going quite well but it is slow. I need to carry on with the hand stitching of the mystery quilt and I really want to start a new project. In addition to sewing I also want to complete the roofing on my dolls house. 

Finally this month I have some MUST Complete projects. Older daughter is getting married on August 17th and she has asked me to make her wedding cake of three layers, fruit cake, sponge cake and chocolate cake. I need to get the fruit cake made this coming weekend. She would also like some bunting in floral and bright fabrics and pompoms. I will also need to make time to shop for my dress for the event. I'm not a great lover of clothes shopping so this could take a little while.

I'm linking this post with Dreamworthy Quilts for the July Chookshed Challenge. and Stories from the sewing room for the One Monthly Goal.

Take care

Lyndsey

June roundup

June has been a rather slow month where sewing projects are concerned. However I am very happy to report that i completed both my challenges for June.

My June Chookshed challenge was to stitch the sashiko pattern I had been given a while back. I stitched the last bit, this morning. I enjoyed the embroidery and found it relaxing.

I haven't decided how I will use this piece but I know I want to incorporate it into a quilt at some point. The reason I wanted to work on the sashiko is that I have a Japanese panel that I want to make into a quilt and I plan to stitch some sashiko patterns in the sashing.

This project is still at the very early planning stage as I haven't made any decisions about final size, borders etc. I do like the planning stage.

My challenge for the One Monthly Goal this month was to add the Irish chain border to the Red manor house quilt top. I completed this even though I sewed one of the blocks the wrong way round. I have also added the next narrow border. The next round for this quilt is an applique round. I need to check I have enough backing fabric for the blocks.

I started making a Christmas angel but this project is in the early stages.

We went away to Somerset for the weekend and stayed at the Holcombe Inn. The food was fabulous.

This is in fact three trees not one. I was fascinated by the way the branches moved in the wind. 

Lots of lavender giving a beautiful aroma and really attracted the bees..

The flowers in the garden were lovely .

I love this old fashioned rose.

Whilst there we had a great visit to Stourhead house and gardens.

Back at home my son celebrated his 40th birthday on the 26 June and had a party yesterday evening. The weather was perfect, the BBQ was delicious and the company really enjoyable. It rounded off the month perfectly. I wonder what July will bring?

I'm linking this post with Dreamworthy Quilts for the Chookshed June Challenge round up and with Stories from the sewing room for  June OMG link up.

Take care 

Lyndsey

A walk in Stourhead gardens

n my last post I shared our visit to Stourhead House and today I'll share our walk around the gardens. The garden was designed by Henry Hoare II who was known as Henry the Magnificent. He had a large estate around the house and he wanted to create a personal landscape, taking inspiration from his travels around Europe.

During the 18th century many new plant species found their way to England and the garden was the perfect way to showcase plants and architecture he had seen on his tours. The garden was planted by a team of 50 gardeners and had many different species of trees In 1783 Sir Richard Colt Hoare inherited the estate and made many changes. These included planting about 90,000 trees and introduced rhododendrons. As we walked around the garden we got different views of the trees and structures. The walk was very calming and tranquil. On the walk up to the house we had gone through the stable yard where we found this beautiful horse made of willow.

We started our walk from the house and I wanted to see what it looked like from the back. As we walked around the side we saw the arched window from the library.

As we walked a little further you can see that the library is the height of the house and is on the one side of the house. I got distracted at this point by a robotic lawnmower happily cutting the grass by itself so we never walked completely round the house. I've come across a lot of robot vacuum cleaners but not a lawn mower. It was fun to watch for a few minutes.

We followed the path for the lakeside walk passing this lovely gnarly tree on the way.

As we followed the path that led downhill we got glimpses of the gardens attractions including the Temple of Apollo.

The colours of the rhododendrons were beautiful.

.

We reached the lake and enjoyed the views. There were a few ducks to see but not many.

We walked under this rock arch and headed towards the Grotto

The grotto was nice and cool, just what I needed having got quite warm walking in the sun.

In the centre of the grotto was this opening that framed the lake rather well.

and past that was another statue and cool water.

We had to ascend some very wet slippery steps to climb out of the grotto. From here we walked to the Gothic cottage also known as the watch cottage.

Here is the information about the cottage. Remember you can make it bigger by clicking on it.

A view that gives you a better idea of the size of the cottage.

Walking further round the lake we came to the Pantheon. Built in 1753-54 it was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. Pantheon means a temple sacred to all the gods and the temple is filled with statues of deities.

I particularly liked the glass in the ceiling of the dome.

 From here we could see the Temple of Flora across the lake. This is dedicated to the Roman goddess of flowers and spring. This was the first building built in the garden by Henry Hoare II between 1744 and 1746. We didn't visit the Temple of Flora but we will do at some point in the future. There was still a lot left to see at Stourhead even though we spent the day there.

Walking across a bridge I stopped to take a photo of the waterlilies. Some were already in bloom but it was a still a little early for them.

Off on the side of the hill we could see a pretty waterfall.

Across the bridge I was able to get a photo of the Pantheon. I love the reflection.

We walked under these beautiful flowers. I can't remember what type of trees these were.

Although we had seen the temple of Apollo from the other side of the lake we weren't able to visit it as there was a wedding about to take place. Up to this point we hadn't been caught in any rain but just as the bride was arriving at the venue heavy rain fell for about a minute and a half leaving the guests sheltering under their umbrellas. We continued our walk into the village area past the Bristol Cross. It was originally erected in Bristol but was bought to Stourhead by Henry Hoare II in 1765 The cross depicts old English kings and queens in the stonework.

We decided to look round the church.

The altar was very plain and simple.

There was this pretty stained glass window.

and there were a lot of embroidered kneelers, all with a different design.

By this time it was almost closing time so we returned to our car for the drive back to our hotel. We really enjoyed our visit to the house and gardens. A great day out.

Take care

Lyndsey