At last, a sewing day.

I'd planned a sewing day for Saturday but as often happens, life got in the way. As I work 4 days I tend to use Friday's as my catch up on chores around the house. Friday was my visit to the Knit and Stitch exhibition so no chores were done, well apart from cooking. Roll round to Saturday and I had planned a sewing day but there were quite a few chores to catch up on. I won't bore you with the details as we all know the jobs that have to be done to keep life ticking over. Also Saturday wasn't as bad as I'm making out as fairly late in the day I did make a start on my sewing. It was also a good day for catching up on chores as I was home alone. No one to interrupt the work flow so I decided to go through the kitchen shelves, wipe everything down and check dates. That also gave me the chance to identify items that I needed to order, especially the additional items needed in the run up to Christmas, ready to make the Christmas cake and pudding.

Late on Saturday afternoon I made a start on the blouse as all the pieces were cut out. The fabric has a soft feel to it and it is very fine. I decided I needed to use french seams to sew it together. I took my time as I didn't want to make any mistakes and I kept returning to the pattern instructions to ensure I had fully understood them. I didn't get very far on Saturday but it gave me a good starting point for Sunday. Over the day I put the blouse together. It's not completely finished yet as I have to hem the sleeves, hem the blouse and make buttonholes and sew on the buttons. I may be able to finish the blouse over a couple of evenings so long as I'm not too tired. In my experience I make mistakes when I'm tired. It's currently on my mannakin waiting for me to finish it.

I'm very pleased with how neatly the placket went together. The pattern instructions were very clear and well written.

Today I started to add the binding to the quilted jacket. The binding has been attached to the sleeves and I will hand stitch it to the inside. The rest of the binding will take longer to do but it should be finished by the weekend.

I find the clips for quilt binding so useful. Recently, whatever I've been sewing I seem to use the binding clips.

I've found a sock pattern that makes sense to me and I'll make a start on that later this week. The skein has been rolled into a ball and looks very pretty. I found the double ended knitting needles I need. I'll probably start the socks on Thursday evening. John is out that evening so I will be able to concentrate fully until I get the hang of the pattern. Trying things you've not done before is fun but a little stressful - sometimes very stressful.

I pulled out the Red manor house quilt. The next round requires appliques so over the week I'll  cut out the fabrics and shapes I need, ready to sew at the weekend. We have an open day at work next Saturday, but I will take Monday as my day in lieu and that will be my sewing day.

The last week has been a little stressful. Both my son and daughter, who live with us, have been having a major sort out of their beongings. what they want to keep and what they want to get rid of. They have packaged up items for sale and taken items to the charity shops. It has been quite chaotic but today all is calm. The major sort out is over and all belonging are clean, tidy and where they want them. 

We have finally had some serious rain in our part of London and the garden is looking much happier.  Unfortunately it does mean the weeds will also have a growing phase but that can't be helped. I'm also noticing the morning is darker when I need to get up and by 6:30 it is dark in the evening. I'm not looking forward to driving to and from work in the dark.  At least it hasn't gone cold yet.

Take care

Lyndsey

 

Knit and stitch show

Yesterday John and I visited the Knit and Stitch show at Alexandra Palace in London. We travelled by underground and train, and then a walk up the hill to the venue. The walk isn't that long but the hill is steep and I had to make a short stop half way up to get my breath. The wind was also blowing head on which slowed progress a little. Fortunately it didn't start to rain. Once at the venue we needed coffee before we started looking at the various stands. I didn't have a shopping list for the event but I had allocated funds in case I saw any fabric or yarn I liked, and needed to take home. I had an urge to buy some yarn to knit a pair of socks. Ive never knitted any before but they would be perfect for use on winter walks.  

Having rehydrated we were both ready to look round the show. We have a system we use so we don't miss out any areas. We always walk all the way round before we buy anything so we identify the stands we want to revisit later to make purchases. This reduces the need to carry bags around with us. We met several people we knew and of course we stopped to chat. It's always fun to catch up with folks you don't see very often. The show has both fabric and yarn and a good range of embroidery patterns and floss.  Having looked round all the stands and identified the ones we wanted to go back to we headed to the restaurant for a late lunch. They always serve fish and chips on the Friday as one of the lunch options and it was well cooked and very tasty. 

After lunch we needed to make our way back to the items we wanted to buy. We stopped at a stand selling sheffield steel scissors. I wanted some new embroidery scissors as my stork scissors have been used by various members of the family for things other than embroidery. They have been dropped many times and the points have been damaged. I was very happy with this purchase and look forward to using them.

Next we visited one of the wool stands. I seen their pretty sock yarn as we walked round that morning. I wanted to buy some of her sock yarn aas it was so pretty.

I opened the skein to roll it into a ball and this photo shows off the colours better.

My final purchase was some indian block printed fabric.

I was very restrained as there were a lot of fabrics I would have liked to take home with me. However I'm currently wanting to finish the cardigan I'm knitting, to make a couple of blouses that are cut out and waiting and to finish my quilted jacket. I also have a good stock of fabrics and yarn so I can start a new project when I'm ready without needing to buy more.

Today I'm working on one of the blouses and later today I hope to get on with the quilted jacket. I have a problem in that I can't remember where I put the bias tape I bought for finishing around the edges. Hopefully by the time I'm ready to start stitching that on I'll remember where I put it.

I also want to do some work on the Red Manor House quilt. Having re-sorted my sewing cupboard I wasn't sure where it was and it took time to locate it.  The only time I can't find things in my cupboard is after I've done a good tidy up. How is it that I know where to find things when it's a mess?

Right I'm off to enjoy my sewing day,

Take care 

Lyndsey   

A slow week and a visit.

The last week was a disaster area as far as working on any of my projects. Even my carry in my handbag cross stitch project didn't get touched. It's still as it was two weeks ago.

 
Having enjoyed a quiet campus over the summer, once again it is vibrant and busy. It's more fun with all the students around but until it settles into the term time rountine it is tiring.

This month is the final month of the Chockshed challenge for 2026. I hope it's going to happen in 2027 as it really does help focus my mind to work on a project each month. My final project this year is the red manor house quilt. I haven't worked on this quilt since the early part of the year. This is an older photo showing the centre of the quilt.

This is the last round I added to the quilt. 

I also made 4 butterfly blocks for the next round but I think these blocks need to be altered as I don't think there is enough definition between the colours. There are some more appliqued blocks to make and the fabric for these has already been pulled from my stash. All I need to do is get sewing.

Tomorrow is a working day and on Friday I'm going to the Knit and Stitch exhibition at Alexandra Palace so there will be no sewing on this project until Saturday.  The Knit and Stitch exhibition is somehing I go to most years. I must check what I need by way of supplies but I don't think I need very much of anything.

Last Friday, John and I visited Blickling Hall in Norfolk to see the last part of the textile exhibition. This part of the exhibition is titled 'Journeys' and has global textiles from Karun Thakar's extensive textile collection. The textiles were in different parts of the house. As we walked up the path to the house we met Shaun the sheep. This is for their Christmas children's activity.

 

In the hallway of the house there were several lengths of fabric hanging from the ceiling. Unfortunately the hallway was quite dark to protect the fabrics and it was difficult to get a good photo.

The different rooms played host to fabric from different areas of the world. I liked this piece. There was a neat booklet telling you about the different fabrics but I can't remember where I put it so unfortunately I can't give you any more information.

I really liked these embroidered pieces, they must have taken hours and hours to complete.

The box held a piece of yellow silk that had been embroidered

Beautifully embroidered flowers and birds.

There were items of clothing in the different rooms. I loved this piece

This second dress had some information next to it.

In this room there were also some pieces of jewellry with information about it.

There were several kimonos 

It was fun seeing the fabrics and I particularly liked the embroidery. Unfortunately many of the textiles were difficult to get a good picture especially as there was low light level inside the house.

Having visited the exhibition we enjoyed a cup of tea and a cake in the cafe and I looked in the gift shop and found a book that will be perfect for my older grandson. We were going to stay with John's brother and his wife so we turned on the sat nav as we weren't sure of the best route. We enjoyed our visit with them and caught up on a lot of family chat. On Saturday afternoon we headed home to London.

I'm sad I don't have any sewing or stitching to share but I'm hoping to get back to my various projects as the new academic year settles down. Over the last week my daughter Lucy, who lives with us, has done a major sort out of all her belongings and is getting ready to redecorate her room before starting her new job. We are also redecorating and renovating some areas of the house so I shall be using my projects as a calming mechanism. Now I need to find the instructions for the red manor house quilt and make sure I know exactly where I've got to with this quilt. The sewing starts on Saturday.

Take care

Lyndsey