Snow, binding and a give away

This morning wasn't so cold here in London UK but we did have snow, yipee!  I know that some of you get a lot of snow and are probably heartily sick of it by now but we get very little in London so it's a bit of a novelty. There wasn't very much of it but youngest daughter and her boyfriend had a snowball fight as they walked to work and I took Scamp for a quick walk in it before I went to my quilt class. Scamp liked it but complained it made his paws cold.

I decided to walk to the class. I didn't have chance for much exercise last week and it doesn't take that long so it was a good chance to catch up and add a round trip of five miles to my weeks walking total. Walking on my own is always good as it gives me chance to think. I have signed up to do a mini quilt swap hosted by Kate North at Kate's Quilting (and other arty stuff) so I needed to come up with a design.

I took part in this swap a while back when it was round 7 and for that I created a mini quilt from a drawing I had done several years earlier of a clematis. I originally used the drawing to create a block print that I used as greeting cards.

That drawing turned into this mini

All the applique was done with hand stitching and I had fun adding beads and textured embroidery stitches.

I also hand quilted but my stitches were not very even. However I liked it and almost decided not to take part in the swap.  I'm pleased I did.

The swap has to be ready for April so it was a good point to decide on my design. I have a rough idea in my head and once I've fully decided I will tell you more.

One of the ladies who had the flu was well enough to come to the class this week so I had two participants. We did some cutting and sewing and a lot of chatting and having fun. It certainly doesn't seem much like work.

When I got home I cut the binding for the baby quilt. I chose spotty fabric.

I stitched the binding to the front of the quilt but still have to stitch it down. I will do that later this evening. Unfortunately I am supposed to be doing some marking. Most of our marking is now done on-line and it is just too easy to get sidetracked into reading blogs or writing a post. I must finish up and get back to work.

Picasso and Scamp aren't enamoured of me working in an evening. Picasso gave up his favoured spot along the back of my chair to register his protest against work.

Much to Scamp's annoyance he chose to protest from Scamp's basket. Picasso's basket is upstairs so Scamp made himself as small as he could  and refused to move.

At least it means I can sit in comfort with my computer on my lap.

I mentioned a give away in my title. I have a fat quarter to give away for Valentine's day.

I saw this fabric this morning and knew it was purrfect to show some quilty kitty love. I will add two more FQ's to it. To enter just leave me a comment telling me how you will be celebrating Valentine's Day this year. This give away is open to everyone (I will post internationally). If you are a follower you can have a second chance just leave another comment. The give away will remain open until 12 midnight (GMT) on the 14th February. 

Hey Ho, Hey Ho it's back to work I go ...... but not for long as it's nearly bed time.

Lyndsey

May finishes and NewFO

It's that time of the month when I look back and see how I did with my goals and see if I achieved the NewFO challenge. 

I set myself quite a few goals for May and earlier in the month when I commented on one of Barbara's posts at Cat Patches I had a little moan about not getting anywhere with them. I loved Barbara's response which was that I should try not to achieve any of them and she reckoned that would be more difficult than actually managing to do some. Well she was right, by the time I received her reply I had already managed a couple of goals. So here's how I did.

The first goal was to finish the top of my swoon quilt. Here I made no progress at all. I did get the project bag out a couple of times but it got put away again. I can't give any specific reason for this just that I didn't want to work on it. Not bad for the main goal of the month.

Next up was to complete my schnibbles quilt 'Hat Trick'. At the end of last month I hadn't added the the borders. I set the goal of having this fully finished including binding. Success! I was asked if I could sew some flower motifs into the white spaces. I managed this and I'm quite pleased with the result. The quilt is currently in the wash and will be going off to its new home soon.

I wanted to make the quilt sandwich and maybe start the quilting on my 'Holiday' quilt. This I managed and I have started the quilting. I had a silly few minutes and decided I would like to quilt this by hand. I know I should have taken two aspirin and had a lay down in a darkened room until this urge went away but it seemed like a good idea. Anyway that is where I'm at I have quilted two of the 49 blocks. 

I also planned to spend more time on my embroidery projects. This again was a success. I started a kitty cross stitch. Here's the pattern

It is on 14 count Aida so will make up quite quickly. This was the result of one evenings work.

I also set the goals of completing my quilt for the 'for the birds' blog hop and a mini quilt for a swap.  These plus the Schnibbles quilt for this month are my NewFO's.

I used the block lotto bird block for my bird quilt. This is going to be kept in John's car and used when we go bird watching. Why is bird watching such a cold hobby. I got the  top finished for the hop and I'm really pleased  with the result. I will quilt this in June.

I found this lovely owl fabric for the backing.

The theme for the mini quilt swap was 'Dreaming of Spring. The finished quilt is 18 inches square.

I love the fabric I found for the border and backing.

Finally I made another schnibbles quilt. This time the pattern was 'Gentle Art' from Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. I used fabric from my scrap box for this quilt and I quilted it with an all over meander in variegated thread. I love the striped border. I now have only a small selection of scraps but we can soon solve that problem with next month's NewFO's

I am linking this post up with 2013 A lovely year of finishes at Sew Bittersweet Designs. I would like to say a very big thank you to Melissa and Shanna for my prize from the April finishes party. I won a Craftsy class. I chose a Freemotion quilting class with Leah Day. I haven't got very far into the class yet but there have already been some very useful hints and tips. I also signed up for some of their free classes. there is such an exciting range to choose from.

I am also linking up with Barbara's  NewFO party over at Cat Patches. As I've got some finishes in this post I'm linking with Connie at Freemotion by the River and Richard's Link a finish Friday.

Now I need to think about my goals for next month and it will have to include my swoon quilt as I need to get it done! I hope you've managed some of your goals.

Lyndsey

Say it with Flowers.

I love flowers, any size any colour is all right by me. So this hop is perfect for me.  Over the winter there is a sad lack of flowers  (except for expensive blooms in the flower shops).  So as Spring arrives I love to watch the flowers in the garden gradually come into full bloom. This spring has been very cold here in the UK with the weather folks telling us it's the coldest spring for 30 years. Because of this the flowers have been late and winter has seemed to go on for months. So have we got any spring flowers?

Yes we have but not as many as usual. First the miniature cyclamen, 

then the Camilla,

and of course primulas

and spring pansies.

Our two apple trees had lots of blossom but that is now over and the roses are in bud but not yet open and we also have quite a lot of bluebells. So lots of flowers to see outside.

There has also been flowers in my sewing area as I prepared for this blog hop organised by Madam Samm at Sew We Quilt and with Carol from Just Let Me Quilt as our cheerleader. Thank you both, you have done another great job.

I started by gathering all my floral fabric together, I really didn't realise I had that much! Most of it went back into the cupboard ready for another project. I then started thinking about my design. I wanted to make a pieced block as most of the flowers I have done in quilting have been appliquéd. I knew I was going to be making a mini quilt and that I wanted it to be 18 inches square when finished.  I also found that I needed to piece  my batting as what I had left wasn't quite wide enough. However this is easy using a zigzag stitch and isn't noticeable when you quilt .

This is what I came up with as my design. I must have seen the flower block somewhere before but I couldn't find it so sat down with some squared paper and worked out how to sew it. Now I definitely remember how much bigger I need to make the squares for half square triangles. I managed to get three of my floral fabrics into the quilt.

I used a variegated thread for the quilting and my backing fabric was the same as the outer border. The flower blocks are quilted in the ditch and the outer border has a random trail over it

This mini  was made to be swapped and has gone off to its new home in Canada. I hope she  likes it. Now you need to go and see what everyone else has been up to for this hop. Here's where to find them.

May 27th

Just Let Me Quilt

Sew Many Yarns (You are here)

Quilt Obsession

Nati’s Little Things

Stekje

Felt Free Pa Asly

Patchouli Moon Studio

Pig Tales and Quilts

Thimblemouse and Spouse

Kaydie

Linhas, Cores E Arte

Tutinella

It's been lovely to see you and I hope you'll come back to visit soon. Take care and I hope you have some 'me time' today.

Lyndsey

Swaps and Prizes

This spring Michele from Quilter's Gallery ran a mini quilt swap called Dreaming of Spring and I took part. I haven't posted about the quilt I made yet as it has flowers on it and I combined the swap with taking part in the 'Say it with flowers' hop that starts on Monday. My day is Monday so you can see what I made then. However this week I received my quilt from my mystery partner. 

This pretty mini is 20 inches square and is called April Showers, May flowers. It was pieced and quilted by Rebecca Klassen from Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada for me and I love it. The umbrella fabric is so cute and I love the flowers with the button middles. The colours are so fresh and springlike. 

This week I also received a prize. I am taking part in A lovely year of finishes with Shanna at Fiber of all sorts and Melissa of Sew Bittersweet Designs. I received an email to say I was a winner for February and had won any class at Craftsy. This was very exciting as only last week I had visited Craftsy and signed up for a couple of their free classes. I wanted to try them out before I purchased one. I had already decided I liked the way the classes are presented and I was trying to decide what I wanted to do. So now I can pick one and I don't have to pay. There is only one problem.. I can't make my mind up which class to do. It just has to be one of the free motion quilting classes but they are all so interesting.  Anyway a big thank you to Melissa and Shanna.

On the down side I'm not doing too well on my May goals. I haven't worked on my swoon quilt at all and I haven't started my NewFO for the month. However this weekend is a long weekend in the UK. I just love bank holidays. It is also half term for the schools and as a lot of my students have young children they have asked for a private study week which means I should have lots of sewing time. With that in mind I'm going to go and pick my fabrics for that NewFO as I feel in the mood to stroke a few pretty fabrics.

I hope your May goals are going well and that those of you experiencing the bad weather are staying safe and well. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Lyndsey

I'm in a 'swoon'

I had a lot of plans to do heaps of sewing this holiday which started yesterday - Monday. Well I made the decision to go into work yesterday to try and sort out a few things that I needed to get done. That didn't really work as I was asked it I could sort out a couple of problems and didn't get time to sort out my own things. Well I did manage to complete my travel expenses so that was good. So today was a good day to do some sewing except I had lots of errands to run. I did the grocery shopping Monday evening but I had to do some banking and get a new tyre for my car for starters. In the end my list of errands is only half complete and I still need to book a dental appointment and an eye test.

So this evening I sat down to try and get a few bits done. I managed to sew in the ends on a blanket I had finished, not a baby blanket to go to Linus but one to go to the Dogs home. The Guides are knitting blankets for the dogs and cats home as their community action project this year. It's going to be a great way to use up all my odds and ends of double knitting wool. (I have a huge bag full ). I also finished my bird cross stitch and I washed it. I'll post a photo when it is dry.

I remembered that I wanted to show you the mug rugs I received in the Quilting Gallery mug rug swap.  These were made for my by Anne Matthews in South Australia. Everyone involved in the swap received the patterns from The Patchsmith. Hop over and see the patterns that are available.

I was planning on getting the sewing machine out and stitching together my first block for the quilt I am making as an anniversary present for my friends who celebrate 25years of marriage in July. I had been seeing a lot of swoon blocks around the place and liked the quilts so decided to get the pattern. The pattern is from Thimble Blossoms and is clearly written and easy to follow. It makes up a quilt of 80" by 80" I'm not sure why I printed the pattern onto yellow paper.

On Sunday I cut out the pieces for one block. My friends favourite colours are red and purple so an interesting combination to work with. Each block has two colours as well as white.

The grey is silver grey and is a lot paler in person than on the photo. The pieces go together nicely and being such a large block there are no small fiddly pieces to deal with or lose. This was a relief after some of the blocks for the votes for women quilt. 

Tomorrow I am going to Bath to pick up Lucy for her Easter holiday. She has to finish writing her dissertation so she needs to bring quite a few books home, too many for her to carry on the train. So there will be very little or no sewing time tomorrow and then on Thursday we are heading out for a long walk provided the weather is suitable. The snow seems to have left but it is still very cold. Maybe the weekend will bring more free time as I need to finish the top of the Holiday quilt for my March finish in 'A lovely year of finishes'.

For now I need to check I've got the music I want to play in the car on my ipod. I feel in the mood for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, maybe some Traveling Wilburys not to mention Deep purple and Led Zepplin. I wonder if I'll get time to visit the quilt shop........

I'm linking this post with Connie's Tuesday Linky party at Freemotion by the River.

Have a good day.

Lyndsey

December NewFO, the last one of 2012

I love starting new projects they are always so exciting, the choice of the pattern and the fabrics even deciding on the size. Starting a new project also makes me work a little faster or longer on  a work in progress so that it doesn't fall too far behind. So all in all NewFO at Cat Patches gives me a win win situation.

So what have I started in December. I've managed to convince myself that I haven't done very much sewing but starting to write this post has made me realise this isn't entirely true.  To start with I finished off my 6 mini tote bags and used them as gift bags.

They were such a success that I might have to make more next year. 

I started a Christmas table runner. I didn't want the runner for use this Christmas which is a good job as it isn't finished yet. I decided to make a pinwheel design. By the time I had cut this out the only Christmas fabric I had was my Cherry Christmas jelly roll I had won earlier in the year.

There are 7 pinwheels in the piece as I wanted a long runner. It has now had the borders added and is ready for the quilting. I plan on finishing it by the end of this week so it can go in the Christmas box to be stored in the loft until next year.

At the end of November NewFO post I said I had started cutting the fabric for a Christmas quilt. I had in fact cut one strip of my jelly roll and that was on the 1st December so it is a December start. I had seen several granny square blocks and rather liked them so I decided this was what I would make my quilt with. I had also seen great granny squares - there is an extra row round the block - and I quite liked this as an idea. However as I started to play with the fabric I decided to stick at granny squares as it give greater flexibility with the use of the fabric.

I have sewn 14 blocks so far but as I want a large quilt I have a long way to go. I decided I would square the blocks up once I had sewn them all. I'm sorry the photos are so poor but the light here today is awful as yet again it's raining. I think I'm developing webbed feet and quack quack quack ......

I also managed to fit in sewing a tea cosy for each of my daughters. They'd both been complaining their tea gets cold very quickly.

Barbara asked us to share any finishes from the 2012 NewFO if we wanted to. I started linking in August and since then I have finished up all the projects I have shared except the table runner and quilt shown this month and the grandmother's choice Votes for women BOW quilt which doesn't finish until August 2013. That's because all the projects I've started since August have been small ones and therefore easy to complete in a short time. Next year I have some big projects planned so I probably wont be able to say that next December 31st. 

My favourite projects I have posted about as a NewFO were the two mini quilt swaps I took part in. 

I plan to take part in a couple of mini quilt swaps in 2013.

I've taken part in a couple of blog hops - the wicked hop and Holiday Lane. I have already signed up for a blog hop in 2013 as I found them such fun to take part in and I've made some good friends in blogland as a result.

I still have 4 work in progress pieces to finis. 3 of them I started about May and my millennium cross stitch sampler was started Christmas 1999 and is still not quite finished. The cross stitch should be finished by February. The grandmother's garden English patchwork quilt is completely sewn by hand and I plan to finish it by the end of the year excluding the quilting. The dresden plate wall hanging needs the final border sewing on and then is ready to be quilted which I'm going to do by hand. The other quilt I should have finished by now but I've been having too much fun doing other things.

So that is me about done for 2012. I'm excited about what I will be making in 2013 and need to be very careful not to waste time if I'm to finish the bigger projects. So it's goodbye to the 2012 NewFO button at the top of the page and welcome to the new 2013 button. Go and visit Cat Patches to see what everyone else has been up to in December.

All that remains is for me to wish all of you and your families a very happy New Year.

Quilting plans for 2013

Barbara at Cat Patches is continuing her NewFO challenge next year. This is where you start a new project in the month so you can get the thrill and joy of exploring, starting and creating something new. There are no quilt police so if you don't start something new there is no guilt but also you don't need to finish your project. Of course over time everything is finished - unless I decide I really dislike it in which case I find someone to offer the project a home and love it as it deserves. 

Barbara asked us to identify a wish to do list for 2013. This isn't a list we need to stick to but helps to get us planning a few new projects. So I have spent some time trying to decide what I would like to achieve and this is what I came up with.

In July it is our 30th wedding anniversary and I would like to make a quilt for our bed to celebrate the occasion. When I visited the festival of quilts in August at the NEC, Birmingham UK  I fell in love with the double wedding ring pattern.

I would love to start making this pattern this year. I know it will take a long time to make, but it would be amazing when complete.

A little while ago I showed my friend one of Barbara's posts about her cat folk art quilt. My friend recognising the devoted cat lover in me and bought me the pattern for my birthday.

This quilt was designed by John Simpkins for the stitching post as a BOM and is now available as a kit or just the pattern. My friend loves me lots but couldn't afford to buy me the kit. I am thrilled she bought me the pattern and this is definitely on my wish to do list.

As well as our 30th wedding anniversary, our friends are celebrating their 25th. They actually got married on the same date as us and I would love to make them a quilt. I am going to talk to their daughter to find out what would suit their bedroom. This would need to be finished in time so a simpler pattern is a must - I'm still working on that little problem.

Barbara on her wish to do post showed some fabric with circuit boards on it. I showed it to my son and he said it was perfect for his quilt. I hit the internet to see if I could source the fabric and found that Spoonflower have a fabric section called Geek. Here I found an amazing array of fabric including circuit board, and star trek schematics. I am now in design mode to work how I want to make the quilt and how much fabric I need.

Last year my Guide unit made prem baby quilts for Project Linus. My Brownie unit wants to make quilts this year and so I want to try and make 3 lap quilts and knit some baby blankets to go with their efforts. These were some of the items the Guides gave to project Linus

This year I took part in two mini quilt swaps and I really enjoyed it. I particularly enjoyed the second swap which had to be 12 inches square and include the 3 layer quilt sandwich. My effort was based on a painting I did of a Clematis growing in our back garden. 

The quilt now lives in Australia and I have this beautiful swap from Scarlett in Chile which has pride of place on my coffee table.

I would love to take part in the next quilt swap which will take place in the early part of 2013 and is organised by Kate

Of course there will also be blog hops that I want to take part in and these will involve smaller quilty items. 

I've just looked back at what I have written and it seems a huge list but it seems manageable as only one of the big quilts must be finished in a set time. So my short version of my wish to do list is;

1. Wedding anniversary quilt for me and John
2. Wedding anniversary quilt Dave and Wendy for July 2013
3. Quilt for Richard
4. 3 lap quilts for Project Linus and knitted baby blankets
5. One mini quilt swap
6. Folk art cat quilt.

I expect that by January1st I will be adding something new to the list. I haven't said which month I plan to start which project in but if I can make a decision about the pattern and colours I think I will start on Wendy and Dave's quilt in January. I also have ongoing projects such as the Votes for women BOW quilt from Grandmothers Choice. This finishes in August and would then need quilting and binding.

Phew I'm worn out thinking about the projects so I'm going to make a nice cup of tea and sit and read for a while. I'm linking this post up with Barbara at Cat Patches and Connie's linky party at Freemotion by the river. If you haven't entered my give away for Quilting Gallery's birthday blog hop you need to go here, it closes at midnight GMT on the 20th December.