A Saturday sewing day.

Last week at work was super busy and so very little sewing got done. I have made several flowers for the Grandmother's Garden quilt and I also sewed on three flowers. I'm planning on working on this quilt tomorrow but there won't be a lot of time as we're going to an art exhibition with Katy, our older daughter. I've been carrying a small bag with templates, fabric needle, cotton and scissors with me so I could work on basting a few hexies while I had lunch, or waiting to pick up Lucy, younger daughter, from work. This is my Chookshed challenge for this month and I want to get as much done as possible.  

I changed the quilt I was starting for my August Chookshed challenge, from the garden quilt to a Christmas quilt. Everything was cut out but I had some half square triangles to make before I could start sewing it together. I'm not sure what was going on in my brain today but I kept on sewing pieces together incorrectly. In fact one part got sewn on the wrong way three times. The pattern is for 6 blocks but I wanted a larger quilt so I'm making 9 blocks. The quilt is being made using up fabric I already have. I had quite a bit of Christmas fabric but not enough to have all the blocks the same. The pattern is called Scrappy Friends and my quilt is certainly scrappy. I spent some time dividing the fabrics up between the 9 blocks. This way I knew there was a good spread of the fabrics across all blocks. I put the fabric for each block into a separate bag.

The quilt is going to be very bright and Christmassy. In spite of all my errors I got one block completed before I packed up to move on to some embroidery. Here's the first block

When I've made all 9 blocks there is white sashing and a star as each corner stone. I'm making this quilt as a gift. Having made one block I decided to quit while I was ahead. I was annoyed that I'd kept making the same mistake so this quilt was packed away for my next sewing day.

I decided to mark up the last of the sashiko stitcheries on the Japanese quilt. I'll show you a photo when I've got the last pattern done. I'll stitch it this evening and then I need to think about the next round on this quilt.

Finally, I'm slowly sewing all the ends in on the crocheted blanket. There are so many ends! I really should have sewn them in as I went along.

Take care

Lyndsey

How many Hexies?

Today was a long and tiring day, so this evening I needed something soothing to do. I knew just the thing and so picked up the Grandmother's Garden quilt I've been making forever.... well almost forever and I checked just how far I'd got with the orange round. Back a couple of months ago I made some flowers and started to add them to the quilt. I got three flowers added.

I also had  four more flowers made and groups of 6 hexies made ready to sew into flowers.

I'd already pulled quite a lot of orange fabric from my stash but I did another trawl through incase I'd missed some. I also needed some suitable fabric to make the middle hexie of the flowers. It turns out that I have quite a lot of orange fabric. Some of the fabrics appear rather red but I assure you they are orange.

My task over the evening was to baste more hexies ready for sewing into flowers. I realised that if I prep them in an evening I can take them to work to sew together in my lunch break. In total I  need 48 flowers. There are 3 attached to the quilt and four more ready to attach, seven in all, That leaves 41 flowers to make over the month. Tomorrow is the 4th September and there are 30 days in the month so I have 27 days to make them. That's slightly less than one and a half flowers a days, which should be doable. I doubt I will get them all made but I'm going to try. This paragraph reads a little like a maths lesson, so I had to work out how many hexies I needed to make. I have 7 sets of hexies to make into flowers which means 42 hexies. Add these 7 sets to the 3 on the quilt and 4 waiting to be sewn on leaves 28 more flowers needed. 28 x 6 = 168. I know I have enough templates and I certainly have enough orange fabric. The big question is 'do I have the stamina to get them all basted and how many can I attach to the quilt. Watch this space. Since this is the penultimate chookshed challenge of the year I really want to try and get them made and added to the quilt.

I also finished listening to an audible book whilst prepping hexies. I enjoyed Marble Hill Murder by Anthony Horowitz and I didn't guess who had  done it until the end but I did guess the perpetrator of one of the sub plots.

This is just a quick post to identify the starting point of this months challenge. It will give me a realistic timeframe for completing the quilt. Now I need to sleep as I have a long and very busy day tomorrow at work. This week, I will be very pleased when we get to the weekend.

Take care

Lyndsey

Welcome to September

Happy September to you all. According to the meteorological system, today is the first day of Autumn here in the UK. I have to admit the nights are drawing in as the daylight hours get shorter but we are still getting approximately 14 hours of daylight. I'm often awake at 5 or 5:30 and it is fully light then and nice and quiet to take the dogs for a walk. The leaves of some trees are starting to change colour but currently it doesn't feel very autumnal. That could be because of the temperature. Even on my early morning dog walks I find it's too warm to wear a cardigan or fleece. I think I'll stick with the Autumn equinox which is September 22nd. The equinox is the moment the sun is directly above the Earth's equator which gives roughly equal amounts of daylight and night across the globe.

August was a good sewing month and I had two finishes. The first was the dinosaur quilt. This was a large quilt and the quilting took quite a while because of the weight of the quilt. It was heavy to manoeuvre to move between the individual dinosaurs. I enjoyed making this quilt as it is so bright and cheerful, plus the dinosaurs are such cute characters. This quilt has gone to its new home.

My second finish was the Good Hope Quilter's Guild mystery quilt from 2024. This was my first go at hand quilting and I really enjoyed the process. I think there may be some more hand quilting in my future.

I nearly had a third finish with this crocheted blanket. I just ran out of steam towards the end of the month. I need to finish sewing all the ends in and then crochet round the outside to finish the blanket off.

The Chookshed Challenge in August was number 7, the Garden Quilt. The person I was making it for chose this design but then changed their mind.

So I changed my challenge to Scrappy Friends quilt. I'm adding three extra blocks to the pattern and I'm making it as a Christmas quilt for a member of the family.

I got all the cutting done and made all the half square triangles that then turned into a star, well lots of stars to be precise. There are 34 stars in the quilt. I used two different fabrics for the stars.

This will be a scrappy quilt so I now need to sort the various fabric pieces into 9 blocks. I want a good spread of fabrics across the quilt. Having finished all the stars, the rest will go together easily. I should have a completed top at some point this month. I will make the garden quilt at some time in the future

This month there will be some secret sewing because I'm joining in with a blog hop taking place in October and the Virtual Christmas Cookie Exchange in December. I'm looking forward to these two hops.

There are now only two months left of the Chookshed challenge for 2025. The number chosen this month is number 3. My number 3 is my Grandmother's Garden quilt.

This is my oldest unfinished project. I'm not sure when I started it but I always knew it would be a long term project. When it was small it was a lovely portable project but now the only portable part is making the individual flowers. I am currently making orange flowers and once this next round is complete I will square up the quilt. This quilt is being made for my younger daughter and I would like this finished either for her birthday next April or for Christmas next year 2026. I have been making some flowers and some are already attached to the quilt. Others are still just individual hexies. I'm interested to see how far I can get with this project this month.
What else will I be working on in September. Apart from the Christmas quilt and my project for the October blog hop everything I'm working on this month is hand work. I still have the Happy Quilt to quilt and bind but that can be finished next year. I want to complete the sashiko for the Japanese quilt so I can move onto the next round in October. I have started knitting a cardigan as I always enjoy a knitting project in the cooler weather but more about that another day. I want to spend an evening a week working on the embroidered tablecloth, finish 1 frog block, do some more work on the Star Trek cross stitch and finish the crocheted blanket.  It will be interesting to see how far I get with everything.
I think I need a cup of tea to sort out my diary. We have a weekend away booked this month but I always take some embroidery or knitting with me for quiet moments. We also have two outings with older daughter and family so I need to plan carefully to make the best use of my available sewing time. September is International sewing month so maybe I can squeeze some extra sewing time in.  I'm just going to enjoy anything I do or achieve. Enjoy the sewing month.
Take CareLyndsey

A trip to St Albans

Last week John and I decided to visit St Albans, a cathedral city in Hertfordshire. If I have time I like to discover how a place got its name and the story is that its from Britain's first saint, Alban.  The story says that he lived sometime in the 3rd or 4th century in Verulamium. One day he met a Christian priest who was trying to get away from persecutors and he offered him shelter in his home. As a result of the meeting Alban converted to Christianity. Later his house was searched and Alban dressed in the priest clothes and gave himself up to the authorities. They punished him to try and get him to renounce Christianity but he refused and as a result he was executed.  Alban was canonised and became St Alban and gave his name to the area. Our plan for our outing was to visit the cathedral and Verulamium. Verulamium was a Roman city, the second largest in Roman Britain after Londinium, and was developed from a pre existing Iron Age settlement. I had visited St Albans several times as a child, as we had lived in a small village fairly near to it, however John had never been there.

We decided to start our visit at the cathedral as it was nearest to where we parked the car. This is the front of the cathedral. While we were visiting there was a wedding in the Lady Chapel.

Here is another view which shows the different eras of some of the cathedral. The day was perfect for a visit, and for a wedding.

We entered the cathedral by the west door and looked down the nave. The nave of St Albans is said to be the longest in Britain at 85 metres. When I took the photo I wasn't standing at the west end of the nave, so I'm sorry but you aren't getting the full effect of the length of the nave.

Looking back towards the main entrance I took a photo of the stained glass window. If you click on the image it will go full size. The detail in the window is beautiful.

Behind the altar on photo of the nave there was a screen with the saints in colour. Unfortunately I forgot to go back and take a picture. Behind that screen there was a storage area and we were able to enter the choir and the High Altar. This is the screen at the High Altar.

Turning to face the other way I was looking at the choir. 

To the left side of the choir as I was facing it, there was the bishop's chair It's called a cathedra from the Latin word for chair and it is the presence of the bishop's cathedra in a church that makes it a cathedral.

Standing in between the area to the High Altar and the choir I was at the transept of the nave.  Looking up towards the High Altar this is what I saw.

 Turning to my right from the choir I was looking at the north transept rose window.

Turning to face the other way the south transept led to the cafe but it also housed the old main doors of the cathedral. I took a photo of one and also the information board.

The Dean's cope was on display. This ceremonial cope was designed by Jacquie Binns in 1989 for the Dean of St Albans. This is an important piece of church vestment, made from beautiful fabric and heavily embroidered, depicting the story of St Alban. 

A close up of part of the embroidery.

We left the south transept and walked to the east end of the cathedral. We went to see the shrine of St Alban. The shrine is to Britain's first saint and is the oldest site of continuous Christian worship in Britain

Beyond the shrine at the east end of the cathedral is the Lady Chapel. This is where the wedding had been held.

This was the altar front in the Lady Chapel. I'm not sure I liked it but the embroidery was good.

This was one of the kneelers at the alter rail.

I liked the seat pads with the different flowers. There are 6 and all are different

One of the cathedral staff told me that during the building of the Lady Chapel women had been asked to bring their favourite flowers from their garden and these were used as a pattern for the carved masonry between the arches. I don't know if it's true but it's certainly a nice story.

I took photos of some of the kneelers in the lady chapel. I love that sewing accessories made it into some of the designs.

Other textile objects around the cathedral

I also like to consider the patterns on the floor as they often provide inspiration for quilts.

Along the wall of the north side aisle there was a beautiful collage to show the history of the cathedral and local school children were involved in the making of it. This was made in 1992 and 1998. There is an information board after this photo

We had planned to visit Verulamium once we had looked round the cathedra but instead we decided to take a walk around the city centre. We spotted this building and loved its quirkiness.

By the time we had walked round the city centre we were both beginning to flag and so we headed back to the car and made our way home. In the evening we had a reservation at our favourite restaurant near home to belatedly celebrate our 42 wedding anniversary which was back on July 2nd. Despite heavy traffic and being delayed by an accident on the motorway we made it home in time for a cup of tea and a short rest before we headed out for dinner. The evening was delightful and the food excellent as always. We both thoroughly enjoyed our day and we are now planning for some more day trips. Having finished writing this post I'm going to set up my machine and enjoy an afternoon of sewing.

Take care

Lyndsey