An exhibition, cooking and sewing

This week has been a bit of a pain with lots to do at work, a heap of things I'd have liked to do at home and feeling less than 100%. No I haven't been ill but I hadn't got a lot of energy and everything I did seemed to drain more energy. I didn't even write a post about our visit to an exhibition. Fortunately yesterday was a me day and slowly over the day I did some cooking, some sewing and watched a film. Doing things at home always makes me happy and I sleep better. Over the week I've been slowly preparing hexies for the grandmother's garden quilt. These don't take any brain power so are perfect at the end of a long day whilst chatting or watching TV. 

Winding back to last Sunday, John and I went to the Jenny Saville exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. We had tickets for 4p.m. but arrived early so we had a walk around Trafalgar square since the weather was so nice. That's when I noticed the buildings on the road opposite. When you live somewhere you don't always see thing around you. I've visited Trafalgar Square numerous times over the years but I've never fully noticed the architecture of the building opposite. I love the different styles and sizes.

The Jenny Saville exhibition was amazing with 50 works on display. Here are some photos of my favourites.

Most of the paintings on display were huge so it was good that there was room to stand back and study them. After the exhibition we visited the cafe for tea and cake. The cake was delicious.

Once home I'd promised I'd make some chocolate brownies. I've never made them before but have loved eating them. Like many things they are quick and easy to make and totally moreish. I forgot to take a picture when I left them to cool but when I came back some time later I found only 7 of the 16 brownies left. I quickly took a photo and then took a piece to make sure I got some.

Fast forward to yesterday and I needed to make some bread. 

Whilst the bread was cooking I made a lemon drizzle cake, my favourite. I had also planned to make some Moroccan style lamb balls. When I roasted the cumin and coriander seeds the smell was delightful. The roasted seeds were crushed and added to the lamb along with an egg, mint and salt and pepper. I can't wait for dinner.

Yesterday evening I decided to work on my embroidered table cloth. It was very relaxing to be concentrating on my stitching and I listened to an audio book whilst I worked. I don't get on with my embroidery very quickly if I watch TV so listening to a book or podcast is perfect. Here is how much I got done. I finished off the yellow flowers and all other flowers in the hoop except the blue flower on the left

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I've moved the hoop ready for the next time I stitch on this piece.

Tomorrow afternoon we are going to visit older daughter and family. I can't decide whether to take my knitting or this embroidery with me to work on while we chat.

Today has been a slow day, walking the dogs, catching up on housework and some time to baste some more hexies. We had planned to go for a long walk but the weather is very unsettled, one minute sunny and the next pouring with rain. Much better to stay home and get on with some jobs.

Take care

Lyndsey

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