Preparing hand stitching.

Today was a tiring day at work as I had 6 hours of teaching with a new group. The traffic was quite light on the drive home and so was quicker than normal Once home having greeted Scamp and Picasso and spoken to Richard I decided to get on with preparing the three blocks I am behind on the splendid sampler. The first is from a week ago and when I first saw it I hated it. In looking through the photos of the  block as made by other people I still wasn't sure I wanted to be bothered with it. Still I'm not a person who makes rash decisions and so I had another look at it and decided I would see what I could do. I found some floral fabrics and fussy cut out the shapes and this is what I have so far.

Everything is fused down but it all needs top stitching and I need to embroider the stems of the flowers. It's growing on me slowly so I'll see how it goes as I top stitch. I love the effect of the flowers jumping out from the fabric. I'm hoping that will stay as I topstitch.

Block 7 is an embroidery block so I drew this one out. My following the lines wasn't very good as I usually use fabric solvy to transfer my embroidery patterns but it will be OK. I'm currently deciding on the threads I want to use.

Again I'm having a period of indecision. Do I just outline the quilt or should I add some quilt block patterns to it. I'll think I'll complete the little one and her two snuggly friends before I make a final decision.

I should have had time to complete the stitching on one of these blocks but my younger brother phoned. He's recently had spinal surgery and needed to talk. Still the blocks are all ready to start on tomorrow. I've also chosen the fabric to make block 6 which is pieced and that should go together quickly tomorrow evening.

I was going to cut the fish template and individual fishes for the baby quilt but I forgot to print out the template so I'll do that tomorrow . I have almost enough plain fabric for the fish but I do need to purchase a couple of colours.I can probably do that on the way home tomorrow. I feel I deserve a browse in a quilt shop. 

Today was very tiring or it could just be me getting old so I've decided to go to bed and curl up with my book and Scamp. He loves to cuddle before I settle down to sleep. Richard gave him a bath yesterday so he smells all lovely and fresh and clean. His fur is very soft like hair and it is so relaxing to stroke him. I'm also going to have a chocolate rice crispy cake. I had some rice crispies left over from camp and I bought some chocolate. Melt the chocolate and add the rice crispies and you get super easy chocolate cakes that don't need cooking. Ummm yummy.



I'm going to take the flower block to work with me to stitch during lunch time. The good news here in London is that after tomorrow the weather is supposed to turn milder. It would be lovely if the temperature would go up as I'd feel much more like exercising.

Lyndsey

Hand stitching

Last week was rather frantic at work and as a result I was down on my number of daily steps. I aim to walk 10 to 11 thousand steps a day but I can only achieve that if I go out for a walk. A day at work can give me 3000 steps if I'm in meetings or about 6 to 7000 if I'm teaching. I walk more if I'm teaching because I walk up and down the stairs while meetings usually take place on the same floor as the office. Because of the lack of exercise during the week it's important to get out and about at the weekend and so bring the step average for the week up to a reasonable number. Yesterday was very wet so we didn't take Scamp out but today was dry and clear and perfect for a walk. I took my camera with me as I wanted to get some photos of Scamp but unfortunately he wouldn't co-operate but I did see a great tree I want to draw so I took some photos of it instead.

I just love the texture on the trunk. Following our walk I spent a few hours marking before I needed to cook dinner. Whilst dinner was cooking I got on with some hand stitching. I worked on the two blocks I made from the splendid sampler that needed some embroidery. I stitched around the heart using blanket stitch.

Since my eyes were tired from marking I was very pleased that my stitches were reasonably even. I then added the antennae to the butterflies.

I couldn't make up my mind whether to have all the antenna on the same side or not but in the end decided to make one facing the opposite way. I altered this block slightly from the original pattern as I only wanted to use the three colours. After all patterns are made to be altered....right?

After dinner I pulled out the millennium sampler as I wanted to finish the foot on my horseman. It's such a small addition I didn't take a picture. I'll show you again when I've finished a little bit more of it.  So only a little stitching done today but at least I did some. Block 7 of the splendid sampler was released today so tomorrow after work I'm going to make three blocks. Block 5 is applique, block 6 pieced and block 7 is embroidery. I don't expect to get them finished but I'll certainly make a start. I also want to make the fish template for the baby quilt and maybe start cutting the fish out.

As it's Sunday I'm linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching. I can't wait to see what everyone has been up to this week.

I hope you've had a good Sunday with time for some stitching.

Lyndsey

Catchup Saturday

Oh for more stitching time. This week, as many of the weeks so far this year, stitching has been off the agenda. I have a mountain of work I bought home with me that I need to get finished by Monday but I was adamant that I needed to chill out with a little sewing. The problem was what to do to feel I had achieved something. The answer was easy, this month's blocks for the rainbow scrap challenge. The colour this month is purple and I have a good selection of purple scraps. I cut my 2 1/2 squares and settled happily at my machine. I soon had my five blocks made.

I always find colour fascinating as within the colour there is such a wide spectrum of shades. My purples covered a wide range with some having a lot of blue in them whilst others were towards the red spectrum. It certainly makes the game of mixing and matching the fabrics fun.

It's time to work out my goal for the month and decide on my 'Let's book it' project. So far this year I've been rubbish at completing my goals. Anyway third time lucky, so here goes with this month's goal. My goal is to make a baby quilt for a colleague. I showed the pattern to her and she loved it.  I've had this pattern for a little while and so it is also perfect for this month's 'Let's book it' challenge.

The pattern was written by Connie Kresin Campbell in 2014. Connie blogs at Freemotion by the River. I went on the internet to find some fish fabric and I quickly found this lovely piece. The fish just look so happy.

Now I just need to get the rest of the fabric and I can get started on the sewing.

As well as this goal I will also carry on with the quilting on the 9 patch quilt for Lucy 

and try to finish the blocks for the other baby quilt I'm making.

9 patch again but they look different set on point.

I'm linking this post with Red Letter Quilts for the one monthly goal setting link up.

I'm hoping to get some hand stitching done tonight and  I'll try to make time to post tomorrow. I'm nearly at the end of my frantically busy work period and maybe soon I'll get time to work on my many projects. I hope you've enjoyed some sewing time recently.

Lyndsey

Adding another block

This evening I decided I would have time to make block 3 of the splendid sampler and having looked at block 4 getting that one set up also seemed doable. Block 2 had quite a few small pieces which always slows the cutting out. This block is called wings. Here's my version.

I need to embroider the butterflys antennae. I altered the block slightly as I wanted to use a minimum of background colours so the butterflys would really stand out. I had a moment of quilt guilt as the block has been specifically designed for the sampler. Then I realised I always change patterns to suit what I want. We all do it right?  

So what about block 4. Well this one is an applique. I cut the background fabric and the template for the vase.

This is as far as I got because I couldn't decide which fabric I wanted to use . The block also has circles for the flowers and the stems are embroidered. Somewhere I have some really pretty button flowers so I may use these instead....but there again I may stick with fabric. Hmm just too many decisions for this time of night.

This is as far as I got with sewing. I decided to retire to bed with my book. I'll see if I can finish these blocks tomorrow evening.

Lyndsey

Manic Wednesday

Wednesdays are always rather manic. To start with I run Rainbows, Brownies and Guides on Wednesdays. We start at 5pm and finish Guides at 9 but often it takes another half an hour to get completely tidied up. Generally I don't work on Wednesday as I need to get the activities for the girls organised but when I have a lot of marking to get done I try to do some of it in the morning. This morning was no exception and I spent some time marking. By 11am I decided I needed a little time to myself so I set the machine up and pulled up The Splendid Sampler on my computer. This is a sew along that started earlier this month. The blocks will finish at 6 inches and there are 100 blocks with a block being released on a Thursday and one on a Sunday. Three blocks plus a bonus block have already been released. 

I meant to start these blocks on the day they were released but........ well you know what its like. Anyway I decided I would try and make the first three today, after all they're only 6 inch blocks so how long would that take? Block 1  is Hearts a flutter by Pat Sloan. This is a nice straightforward block that looks very effective. It went together very quickly and I'm very pleased with the result.

I still need to stitch the heart down. I was going to machine stitch it but I have decided to do it by hand. I also need to trim the block.

Whilst on the heart theme I decided to make block 3. This block is called Lots of love and is designed by Melissa Corry from Happy Quilting  I realised this block would take a little longer to make but I thought it would be reasonably quick. For some reason I seemed to find it impossible to stitch this block correctly. I had to unpick several seams and some of them several times. It took a long time to get it right but I'm now happy with it and it is a lovely block. The instructions are well written and the pictures are really helpful, it was just one of those days. Anyway I finally managed to sort it.

With hindsight I wished I'd made the three lower hearts  a stronger colour so there was greater contrast. By the time I had finished this block I didn't have time to make block 2 so that will be a little job for tomorrow or Friday.

Having struggled to get that block right I had time to finalise the activities for the meeting. Rainbows and Guides was all planned but for Brownies, one of the activities was making Danish Hearts They make a little basket and next week we will be making biscuits to give as a present in the basket. Several of the girls said they'd made them before at school and rushed to get them done but were disappointed when the couldn't open them as a basket. By the end of the evening they had all managed to make their basket and they are excited to be making biscuits next week. I forgot to take a photo of the hearts so here is one from Google.

Tomorrow I'm at work again and teaching all day but I'm looking forward to relaxing with some stitching.

Lyndsey

Sewing and trimming.

Today I was only due to work during the afternoon so I had hoped to get some sewing done this morning but just as I was ready to set up my machine Kathryn arrived and we needed to have tea and a chat. After that we had to take a walk into town as I had some items to drop into the charity shop. Kathryn and Lucy are finally sorting through their belongings that they have left at home . Having not had the use of things for a couple of years they tend to find that they no longer need them. Once they have cleared all their 'stuff' from their old bedroom I will have a sewing area so I'm actively encouraging them in this activity. There are things they want to keep so whilst out Kathryn and I bought some plastic boxes which once full can go up in the attic.There are also some bits they want to sell on ebay or gumtree so I have to take some photos at the weekend. When we got back I found this pattern had arrived in the post.

The quilt is the perfect size for a baby quilt but I don't have any plans for it at present. I just loved the pattern. Richard always loved frogs and his old stuffed toy frog from childhood still sits on the top of his wardrobe. I have some other stitching I'm working on at the moment so this won't be started for a while which is good as I need to consider the fabric I want to use.

After work this afternoon I decided I would do half an hours sewing before I got back to my marking. My aim was to add the setting triangles to all the nine patch blocks I'd made. There were quite a number of blocks and the thread on my machine kept on breaking so the job took longer than planned. I'm not sure why the thread kept breaking. I checked the needle size which was OK and it was a new needle. I thought it was a problem with the tension but that was fine so in the end I put it down to the thread itself. Anyway having finished the sewing and pressed the blocks I decided to mark tomorrow and set about trimming the blocks.

I cut the triangles bigger than I needed to be on the safe side so there was quite a bit to trim off. Having done that I laid the blocks on my design floor to take a photo.

The blocks on the left have already been stitched together. The blocks finish at 4 inches so  at the moment the top will be about 24 x 36 inches. This is for a baby quilt and I want it to be bigger so I need to make some more nine patch. That will have to wait until Thursday evening as I have Guides tomorrow. I love how this quilt is coming and it has used up a lot of my 1 and a half inch scrap squares. 

I had hoped to make the first of the blocks for the Splendid sampler sew along but I ran out of time. I need to go to bed once I've finished this post. Never mind there's always tomorrow.

Lyndsey

A chilly weekend

Last weekend Lucy and I took 17 of our guides to Freezer Camp. If you want to see what it was all about Click here to visit the facebook page and play the video. It was cold with the temperatures sitting around -1 to +1 degree C and we slept in tents! We all survived the weekend but I ended up with a rerun of my cold and cough so although I've been to work this week I haven't felt like doing much when I get home, not even my stitching. I must finish sewing that badge onto the unit camp blanket. One of the guides started the job but having taken the photo I can see it's not fully stitched on.

Having said I didn't do much I have done a little as well as keeping up with the blogs I follow. First I made some more of the little nine patch for the baby quilt I'm making. It's a good job the baby isn't due for a while!

I have a lot of the nine patches made waiting for the setting triangles to be added. I just need to cut some more white and these blocks all need trimming. Here's what I've already put together in case you missed it. There are still more blocks ready to be stitched together.

Having sorted those blocks I decided I need to get the rainbow scrap challenge blocks made. The colour this month was brown (with a hint of pink) Well brown isn't a colour I have a lot of scraps pieces and all of the fabric I have is quite bright and patterned. 

When I pulled my brown scraps I was a little worried whether the blocks would look OK once made. I thought about buying a fat quarter but I'm trying not to buy fabric at the moment as I have a storage space shortage. Also it is a challenge to make good looking blocks out of scraps and I love a challenge. The orange leaf fabric is much browner in person. If you remember I'm making five granny squares from each months colour. Here's what I made.

First two the same. I used the outer fabric to make the hedgehogs on a mug rug.  I love the way they look. I have this mug rug on my desk at work.

I'm not completely sure about the  block on the left but it works well enough when viewed in person.

Earlier last week a package arrived from the US. I had won the draw that Sharon runs each month on her blog for her Let's book it challenge. Sharon's challenge is to make something from those books and patterns we have stashed away but forget to use. I won the January 2016 draw and my prize was this lovely charm pin and the 2016 quilt charm.

I just love the cute little charm pin. I was sent the other charm ages ago when I took part in a mini quilt swap. It's been attached to my embroider scissors but looks much better on the charm pin I'm sure the charms must be available in the UK but I've never come across them.

Finally I've been doing a little slow stitching. Some of it has been running repairs, sewing on buttons and catching down a hem that had been caught but I've also finished the second side of the outer border of my millennium sampler. I've also added some single stitches in across the quilt. I need to finish the 1066 block but the helmet is made of fractional stitches and my cold made my eyes rather blurry. Here's how I left it last week.

and here's where I am now. I going to carry on with the border and finish off the 1066 block this week.

I'm linking this post with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching. Now I'm off to cook dinner so I can enjoy some slow stitching whilst watching Vera this evening. The scenery in the series is fabulous.

Lyndsey

Nuts About Blog Hop.

Welcome to my day on the 'Nuts about' blog hop. Many thanks to Marian from Seams to be sew for organising the hop. It's been fun visiting everyone and seeing what they're nuts about and what they made.

I'm nuts about a whole bunch of things , sewing, quilting,  knitting, trying to paint, walking bird watching and a whole heap more. I tend to go through phases so for example I'll spend weeks being nuts about knitting and then I won't touch it for ages. The one thing that is a constant is that I love sewing. It doesn't matter what type of sewing, whether it's dress making, sewing curtains, quilting or embroidery I just find it very relaxing.

Now I love fabric and I do sometimes find it difficult to cut into a pretty length of fabric but I love what I can create with it. I also love trying to use up every last scrap of the fabric so there is no waste as it always seems such a shame to throw away the scraps because they look so pretty. In addition fabric here in the UK is expensive especially the good quality cottons so using it all up is essential.  So I have to admit I am nuts about making scrappy quilts and other items from my scraps. It's fun to see just what you can make with what's left over

For example this quilt which is my header photo was made mostly from pieces of fabric left after other projects or some fabric that I was given. My Rainbow group designed the pattern and learnt how to use the sewing machine by sewing the squares together. I finished up the quilt that was then donated to the Linus project.

The Tetris quilt made when Melissa from Happy Quilting ran her quilt along was all made from scraps.

 

 These little mini totes not only use up scraps but make great gift bags.

The little schnibble quilts designed by Carrie Nelson are perfect for using up scraps

Which bring me to my project. My starting point was my box of 1 1/2inch squares.

I decided I would use these to make some 9 patch blocks that I would then set on point with a solid background. The idea was to make a set of 6 mug rugs.

So I made enough 9 patch blocks but I decided to use white as the background as it made the blocks look so pretty. Now white isn't a good colour for mug rugs so I decided to tuen this into a table topper.

I was sitting looking at what I had completed on Saturday morning prior to getting back to the machine and adding another row of blocks when I changed my mind again. I have a colleague who pregnant. It's still early on and she hasn't told everyone but I started to see a baby quilt. So instead of adding another row I started making more blocks. I also decided that when I got to the border stage (if I add one)  I would use my strip scraps to make it. This box is just one of 4 of strips

By mid afternoon I had blocks in various stages of development. Some were just a bundle of squares waiting to be stitched into rows. Some were at row stage and waiting to become 9 patches and some had already had some of the setting triangles added, with some needing the seams pressing and others ready for the second set of triangles. It was at this point I remembered that this project was being made for this blog hop. Opps I'd got completely carried away and forgotten what I had set out to do.  So I need to apologise to you all as I don't have a completed project. Saturday was my last chance to get the main stitching done as we had visitors on Sunday and I'm working this week. By the time I get home from work I'm just too tired to get the machine out. At this point I thought about just making the table topper as I had all the blocks ready made and it would be quick and easy to quilt and finish it. By now I had set my heart on making a quilt so I decided against it.

This project needs quite a bit of work on it. The blocks finish at 4 inches when sewn together. That means I need lots of blocks. It a good job I'm also nuts about making blocks.

You need to visit the other folks taking part today, who are:

MeadowBrook
Sew Many Yarns
From This To That
Seams To Be Sew

There is also a giveaway but I am having serious problem getting the linky bit for it to work. Please go to Seams to be Sew to take part. I'll try and sort it in my lunch break.

Enjoy the rest of the hop and good luck in the give away. 

Lyndsey

February Goals.

This year I'm taking part in One Monthly Goal over at Red Letter Quilts.

My goal for January was to quilt my 9 patch quilt. That didn't happen, in fact I did very little quilting on it at all but I did finish the baby quilt I was making. So here we are at the start of February and a new goal. Well an old goal revisited. I want to complete the quilting on the 9 patch quilt. Here's the finished top.

I have quilted some of the blocks and it is looking good. I'm using the monofilament thread again as this is a scrappy quilt and I couldn't decide on the perfect colour of thread for the different blocks. 

I'm keeping the quilting nice and simple.  I've just increased my work hours so I don't have time for anything complicated.

This month I'm also working on my millennium sampler for my  'Let's book it' project. This has taken an age to complete and the pattern is obviously old and needs finishing. I've done quite a lot of work on the borders already this month. Knowing I'm working on it for a purpose has made me pick it up more often so far this month. Here's how far I'd got when I last took a photo. Come back tomorrow to see my progress

I have also set myself a goal to lose weight this year. I would love to lose 2 stone as this would help my hips and knees and would bring me back into the right weight for my height rather than at the top of the overweight band for my height. I could have started a diet on January 1st but past experience has taught me that this is not a great day to start anything, particularly if you stayed up and celebrated the new year the night before. On Tuesday 2nd February I started my diet. The aim is to increase my exercise and stick to 1200 calories a day. My goal is to lose 6lbs this month. I know there will be days where the diet will go out the window but that doesn't matter so long as the weight is going in the right direction. Here's a photo from our holiday last year which shows my size. Mmm it was raining then and it's raining now. Why is it always raining?

I've walked Scamp this morning. We had fun being blown along by the wind and Scamp was chasing leaves and anything else that was blowing past him. My plan for the rest of the afternoon is to sew. I hope you've got some time for sewing this weekend.

Lyndsey

A little progress.

This week has been a busy work week with no time to get on with the quilting but I have managed a little work on my cross stitch every night. Today was supposed to be a long day with the machine so I could complete the quilting on the baby quilt and maybe even add the binding. That was my plan when I went to sleep last night but this morning I woke up with a screaming migraine which took ages to tame so it was quite late on this afternoon before any sewing was done.

I'm now about 3/4 of the way through the quilting and provided there are no more unexpected happenings I should finish that tomorrow. I was going to prepare the binding this evening but I decided it could wait another day. The quilting is looking good and I'm pleased I tried a different pattern. It is a lot slower than an all over meander but it looks a lot prettier.

I also spent some time making my blocks for the rainbow scrap challenge. This month's colour is blue and I had decided to make granny square blocks. I made 5 in all.

Making these blocks didn't make even a small dent in my blue scraps. I really hadn't realised I'd used so much blue fabric but thinking about it I've made several quilts for boys over the last couple of years. Whatever colour is picked for next month will involve cutting the scraps I have into 2 1/2inch squares as most of what I cut last weekend was blue. Maybe there'll be some time for that tomorrow. I also need to trim these blocks. 

Earlier in the week Kathryn and Olly came over. They were both very tired and Kathryn was feeling unwell so they had a little nap before dinner. Scamp is always willing to join in with a nap.

 

Scamp was in a very cute and sleepy mood all day and he sure looks tiny in that picture. I think he'd decided that since the weather had gone cold he might as well sleep.

I'm linking this post with Scraphappy Saturday Since I've got so many blue scraps I might make some other blocks as well.

Hope you've had some time for sewing tody.

Lyndsey