See you in September

The summer break is over and the new season kicks off with one of Mdm Samm's blog hops. This one involved making three items and one had to include Riley Blake Design gingham. Mdm Samm does love her gingham and so do I and the RBD gingham is rather special. Our cheerleader for the hop is Shari from Living with Purpose

My first project is a quilt. Hannah who is a Young Leader with our Guide unit is leaving to go to university. She joined Rainbows when she was 5 and has gone through Brownies and Guides as well. She loved our unit project to make prem baby quilts so it seemed appropriate to make her a quilt as her leaving present. 

The next problem was what pattern to use. Hannah's name at Guides is Sparkie because she is such a lively, happy young woman. When I saw that Amy from Sew Incredibly Crazy was looking for pattern testers for a couple of her designs I jumped at the chance. The patchwork star was the perfect pattern and I was able to make the star from scraps of fabric left over from the baby quilts.

I'm sorry that the photos are a little dark but I had to take them in doors as it was raining and went very dark. The blue backing fabric is actually much brighter.  I chose fabric with musical instruments for the backing. Hannah loves her music. I pieced the backing using a strip of the blue from the front on either side.

I love the patchwork star.

The star and the border are quilted with a large meander and the rest of the quilting echos the star shape.

Amy's pattern was very well written and easy to follow so the quilt just flew together. I am so pleased with the result and I think Hannah will love it. Thanks Amy for letting me test your pattern, I love it

My second project was a cushion cover and this is where I used the RBD gingham. I love gingham as it always looks so fresh. In addition it always reminds me of my childhood as my school uniform summer dresses where always gingham. I used a pattern by Sarah Soward which appeared in British Patchwork and Quilting in August 2013. I chose the medium red gingham for the flowers.

Again I'm very happy with the result. I had a FQ of the gingham and have enough to make a second cushion cover. This will be made over the next few days. My son suggested I make two more but with the gingham as the background and use white for the flowers. I machine appliqued the flowers and found it a little tricky going round all those curves.

My final project was a summer dress. I've had this fabric for a while but hadn't got round to making it up. I chose a simple shift dress style by McCall. Their patterns are easy to follow and go together well. I didn't need to alter the pattern to get a good fit. My only problem was that no one was around to take a photo of me wearing it. I'll see what I can do over the next few days.

So there are the projects I've been working on over the holiday. I have also managed to finish another dress that I started last year and put away for some reason and I'm currently making a pinafore dress. As the weather here in London turned wet and cooler in August I picked up my knitting again and I've been busy trying to finish John's jumper. It's nice to have a break from work and be able to catch up with some projects.

Now you need to visit the rest of the hop. Here's the list of today's participants.

Thursday, September 4Jane's Quilting
Life in the Scrapatch
Sew Many Yarns - you are here
Gracie Oliver Arts
Everyone Deserves a Quilt

I hope you've enjoyed visiting today, it was lovely to see you. I hope you'll come and visit again soon.

Lyndsey

What can you make with wool?

Today I am taking part in the 'Crazy about wool' blog hop organised by Denise from Pieced Brain I love wool  and so I thought it would be fun to take part. I asked Moses if he wished to appear and before I could say baaaa he was posing for his photo.

Moses is a cute soft cuddly sheep made from fleece fabric and sheep's wool. As you can tell he has been very well loved. His fleece is meant to look like the corkscrew fleece of the Wensleydale sheep.

The fleece of most modern sheep is white which makes it easier to dye it any colour that is wanted either for knitting yarn or to be woven into fabric.

Who can resist the adorable wooly lambs in spring. Of course wool doesn't just come from sheep. The definition of wool is; 

'the fine, soft curly or wavy hair forming the coat of a sheep, goat, or similar animal, especially when shorn and prepared for use in making cloth or yarn'

So we get mohair from the hair of the Angora goat and also use the hair from Llamas. Llama fibre is usually mixed with sheep wool to make it easier to handle.

So what have I been making with wool for this hop. Although I love quilting , I also enjoy knitting and dressmaking. I decided I wanted to make a skirt for this hop. In my stash of fabric I have quite a few pieces of wool fabric. I choose a soft fine wool fabric with a check on it for my skirt. When planning the cutting I had to ensure that the checks matched up. Here is a view of the front seam. I am very pleased with how well I matched this seam.

I love the blue, gold and red of the check. I usually hate having my photo taken but I can't make a skirt and not show you what it looks like on. 

The skirt is extremely comfortable sitting just below the waist. I have plans to make a jacket out of this pinky red fabric, again another light weight wool. The colour perfectly matches the red in the check of the skirt (even though it doesn't look like it in the photo.)

This is my goal for next weekend.

As well as sewing I also knit. Not all yarns for knitting are made of wool but I prefer to knit with 100% wool or a blend of wool and other fibres. Recent knitting projects have included  several baby blankets for Project Linus

Although I use different patterns for these blankets I like the basket weave pattern as it is easy to knit and so leaves me free to talk to family and friends or to watch television.

A little cuddle toy for a baby,

A special baby blanket for a friend's baby and Lucy my daughter knitted her boy friend a cuddly elephant.

One of my favourite wooly knitting projects and one I still use is my Christmas cardigan. I knitted this years ago when my children were young and my youngest daughter is now 22. Scamp insisted on trying to get into the corner of the photo. If I've been sewing he always seems to have bits of thread on his paws.

Last week on the Pin it blog hop I made a felt pin cushion mouse. Felt is a great wool fabric to use in projects as it doesn't fray.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my various wool projects. Now you need to go and visit the rest of today's participants.

Tuesday, September 24

Marla's Crafts

Bird in the Hand Primitives

Secretly Stitching

Marjorie's Busy Corner

Sew Many Yarns

Val Spiers Sews

Quilted Crow Girls Design

I hope you'll come back and visit soon. I'm going to get my machine out and finish my latest quilt top once I've taken Picasso to the vet for his yearly check up and immunisation. 

I have a give away of charm squares I cut from the left over wool fabric I used to make my skirt. It is open until 27th October 2013. If you would like a chance to win click here

Lyndsey

Very busy Saturday

Yesterday was a brilliant sewing day. I spent the whole day at my sewing machine. I did get my exercise as I had to keep going out to the kitchen where I had set up the ironing board. I know everyone says set it up near your sewing area but I like to make myself get up and move around. It also reminds me to make cups of tea.


First thing in the morning I sewed in all the ends on my latest knitted baby blanket. This one is going in the pile to go to Linus later in the year.

I then cut out the skirt pattern I had bought whilst out shopping with my daughter. It was the material that attracted me first, a Nel Whatmore design called Sleeping Beauty in enchanted brown. It is a 2011 design and was half price in the sale which made it even more attractive. I wanted to make a half circle skirt and although these are fairly easy to draw out for yourself I wanted to save time so bought a pattern.

I am really pleased with the finished skirt and it fits really well. It would have been lovely to hang this outside to take the photo but London was very wet yesterday.

Unfortunately the photo doesn't do the colours justice. The fabric is 100% cotton and I have some good sized offcuts to go in my quilting stash.


Having finished that I hunted through my stash to find a border for the toddler quilt in progress.

I choose a light border which appears blue in the photo but is in fact lilac. I will use the same colour for the back and bind it with royal purple used in the 4 block. I would have liked to have got this quilted today but I haven't got any batting and my local quilting suppliers isn't open until Monday. I will quilt this on Tuesday as I am working tomorrow.


I also finished off a couple of the small premature baby quilts that the guides had been making. A couple of the girls moved away and their quilts just needed the fleece backing added. These will go to the hospital local to where we meet. There are twelve to go there and a job for today is to sew the Linus label onto them.


In the evening I sat and worked on my cross stitch whilst watching TV so there is quite a bit of progress on that this week.


I am pleased to have had such a good day at the end of a busy week. The elderly gentleman friend that I visit broke his hip last Sunday in a fall so he is in hospital having had surgery. Our older daughter arrived back home after a year in Paris. It was lovely to see her on Thursday and I look forward to our visits to galleries and exhibitions restarting once she is settled. The younger daughter is making a quilt and knitting an elephant toy for her boyfriend's 21st birthday which is the 24th July. Both are progressing well but she is now in Spain for a week. Lucky girl as it is set to be very wet in London over the next week. I said I would knit the elephants body whilst she is away.


So I am now heading back to my sewing machine for a couple of hours. I can't take the whole day as I have marking that must be done for tomorrow. Never mind I don't work during the holidays so there will soon be lots of time to spend sewing.