June FNSI

Many thanks Wendy for hosting our Friday night get together - you can see who took part on Wendy's blog here

I started off after lunch with some drawing - back to pomegranates but this time in colour.

The yellow in the background is a little more golden than shows on my picture and I worked with coloured pencils. Today I started on another pomegranate on the oposite page using water soluble pencils. Still needs more work yet before I let loose with the water!

Anyway, after my play with colours we went off to meet a friend who had transported some things for me from UK earlier in the year. This was the first time we had been able to meet up since then. They were things that came from my parents house after they died last summer, the main thing being this sewing box that my Dad made for Mum about 30/40 years ago - maybe more.

Inside there are three removeable trays - perfectly sized for storing reels of Sylko sewing cotton - and a nice deep storage space underneath.

There were plenty of reels of thread left in the box - I do love reading the names of the colours on those old reels.

Having completed my two flower pots for the week, I allowed myself on Thursday a new project and I had put together some fabrics for a square of crazy quilting - yes, I couldnt resist making a start on a crazy biscornu!

It was good to have my completed pitncushion to hand when I worked out where to concentrate my stitching. The four corners of the top come down to form the sides and therefore wont have any pins in. So they will be focal points. The top four points of the finished pincushion are the centre points of each side - so that is where I shall put my beaded tassels. The four corners of the base will be very visible so I made sure that the fabric I chose works really well with the colours of the top. Whew - hope you got all that lol!
Anyway, yesterday evening I made a start on two of the corners.

I was really pleased with how these roses turned out.

Not a huge ammount done over the evening - the trouble is I pick up my crazy quilting book for a quick flick to pick up ideas and end up spending ages looking at all the gorgeous pictures!

Hope every one else had a good evening. See you soon - I have to try out the dreaded new blogger!!

FNSI September

I see that my last post was FNSI for August! Since then I have had a couple of trips to UK to be with Mum and Dad who are both in hospital at the moment - rehab ward so hopefully not for long.

Many thanks to Wendy for hosting our get together.

We had a wet day yesterday - the first for a while - so I made an early start in the afternoon working on some crazy patchwork. Only a sneaky peek as it is for a competition!

Then in the evening I added the last few stitches to this Lilipopo Attitude Fairy

She is now ready to be made up into a bookmark for my gift box.

Then for some straightforward, not too much concentration sewing I pulled out my hexie tablecloth and added some more yellow hexagons.

 

After a misty start the sun is back with us and it is a beautiful afternoon. Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

More crazy happening here

When I decided to get on with some new crazy projects last weekend I thought it would be good to use up some of my hand dyed fabrics. So I hauled two carriers bags of fabric from the wardrobe and tipped them onto the dining table planning to pull out some fabrics to use. Well, what a mess! Some fabrics were rolled in bundles of colour, some were just screwed up and shoved in, some were in smaller poly bags. At this point I decided to make some order out of my fabrics.
Now, I didn't take a picture of the mess I started out with but this is what I ended up with.

Not ironed but at least all in their colours and vaguely flattened out. I plan to get some more plastic shoe boxes to store these in.

I also ended up with this pile of scraps which is destined to become improv log cabins

and a box of bits that really were not worth keeping and which I have binned.

So now it was easy to pick out some fabrics for a few new projects. Two pinky purple ones -

this one is ready to be made up into a lavender door hangar -

and this will be a frame purse.

I also have two green versions ready to start embellishing.

Have a great weekend everyone and hopefully time to sew.

FNSI for July

FNSI has come around again - and so quickly! even though it is a week late! Many thanks to Wendy for inviting us round again and thank you so much for your lovely 'Share the Love' design. Unfortunately as I write, there is more horror going on in the world, this time in Germany. Will it ever end.

I have spent this afternoon working on another 2016 UFO. This time it is some of the blocks I made last year for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project. I have eleven blocks that I made last year (somehow I missed December!). Four of my blocks work together because they are all black and another colour. Here they are trimmed and ready to go.

I felt that they needed framing with black and so rummaging through my recycling box I found a black velvet skirt that was perfect. I cut it apart and gave it a wash this morning.

So this afternoon was spent putting the blocks together and this is the result.

I have to say that I have not done so much reverse stitching in a long time! Even using my trusty Bernina walking foot I found this velvet very difficult to work with. I am not totally pleased with the result, just hope that quilting and extra stitching will even everything out. Any imperfections do not show up in this picture so please do not be fooled!

Hope everyone had a great FNSI and I look forward to seeing what everyone did here. Looks like there were 34 of us!
Have a great weekend.

A Crazy Finish

The Four Seasons crazy blocks that I made in 2014 are now altogether in a finished quilt! And here it is.

The blocks were 9" square and the finished quilt is 27" square.

The sashing is hand dyed velvet and I have linked the four blocks by adding stitch over the sashing which varies according to which season it is nearest. A few close ups (of course!)

The backing fabric is a beautiful Liberty lawn donated by a friend (thank you) and which turned out to be perfect to bring to the front to make the binding.

My thanks to Carli for setting me off the on the Four Seasons trail and to Jennifer Clouston whose book Foolproof Crazy Quilting inspired much of the stitchery in my blocks. Also to all my readers who have made such lovely comments about my work along the way.

A picture of three 2016 finishes altogether.

CQJP block for March

Here is my turquoise block which is my Crazy Quilt Journal Project block for March!

And a few details

We are now in UK for Easter. The crossing on Tuesday afternoon was not very pleasant - we had very strong winds the night before and the sea was still quite rough. However, arrived at Plymouth safe, sound and on time so all was well.
So far the weather has been grey and damp but we are staying in a warm and cosy thatched house and hoping for a dry day tomorrow!

Friday Night with Friends....

.....was last night, it being the first Friday of the month. Many thanks to Cheryll for organising us.

I spent my time - afternoon and evening sorting out my next CQJP block and the beads, threads, ribbons etc that I am going to use with it.

Here is my basic block.

These are some of the threads and embellishments that I have sorted out.

Of course I did not have enough of the right colour silk ribbon so I have had to order some! Luckily Hearty Craft are very quick to send out orders so the ribbon will be here in a few days.
I also thought that I would dye some ribbon myself to  add to my range and added some lace as well and some pieces of silk and velvet to add to my stash.

Here are the ribbons and laces that I dyed - I did a bag of marine violet at the same time in anticipation of Aprils block.
I added a dash of emerald to my turquoise dye and on the laces it has given me the colour I wanted but the ribbons have come out far too green. Well they will find a use I know but I don't think that they will be right for this project.

And so by the end of the evening I had started stitching and here is my progress so far - just one seam treatment and a piece of braid pinned in place.

Today, Saturday, has been another warm sunny day spent in the garden. Late this afternoon we had several skeins of cranes fly over - always a welcome sight as it means that spring is on it's way.

Hope you all had a great evenings sewing - those of you who were not eating pizza in Brisbane!

Until next time.