FNSI and my Chookshed Challenge

 Good to join up again with Wendy and friends for FNSI. For those of you down under and in the middle of winter, we are experiencing what passes for a heatwave here. It was 30 here yesterday so perfect for finding a cool spot and getting on with some sewing.

Having completed the stitching together of my Japanese folded squares on Thursday evening, my first job was to add the hanging loop.

Here you can see my finished piece, front and bag before the addition of the loop.

These are what I started with, made in 2012

and I had to make another 15 squares to bring it up to the size I wanted. All the fabrics were procion dyed, the original fabrics cotton lawn, the later fabrics all recycled.

And here it is hanging in my kitchen where I can enjoy it every day.

Here is the progress I have made on my stitch journal this week.

Friday nights additions were the little flowers and the V shape stitches.

I then moved on to a new project which I plan to finish by the end of the month - but more about that next time.

Meanwhile wishing everyone a great weekend from and hot and sticky Taunton!

Saturday Catchup

Is it just me or is anyone else feeling overwhelmed by all the online stuff out there at the moment? There I was thinking that this lockdown was going to be a nice quiet time to get on with ufo's and catch up with things around the house and what I find is that I could be spending all day on the computer!

However, I have managed some sewing - I finished my Basket Case wall hanging with some ditch quilting and it is now hanging in my 'studio'.

I do love it and am really pleased with how it has turned out. It hangs next to a selection of spring/summer flower postcards.

Not the best picture but it is narrow there and tricky to get the camera at the right angle.

Also this week I finished off last weeks stitch challenge which was to fill four shapes with different types of couching.

I enjoyed working on this and it has given me a few ideas of how I can use couching in the future.

I have several flimsys sitting in a pile waiting to be quilted and I thought it about time that I got at least one of them finished off. So out came my Super Scrappy quilt. I put it together in 2018 and you can read about it here -you will need to scroll down a bit.

So first I had to layer it up. Batting was not a problem as I always keep plenty on hand but backing fabric? What did I have. Then I remembered an old yellow cotton sheet that I had found after my Nana died and we were clearing out some of her stash! Nana was very good at stash. There were two sheets and two pillow cases still in their cellophane wrapping and were 'Made in England' which will give you some idea of their age. Anyway they have been well used and are now nice and soft. One of them I used to back my hexagon table cloth and the remains will be used on the back of some secret stitching that I am working on. The other one was sitting in the cupboard and looking at me so out it came!

The flimsy is full of memories - samples of embroidery and quilting from years back, long forgotten fabrics and recycled patchwork, gifted scraps and of course plenty of my own scraps. So nice to have a memory of Nana on the back.

At the moment I am ditch quilting around each block but I may also diagonally quilt it as well.

I will leave you with some pictures of a few of the wild orchids that we have in the garden at the moment.

Early Spider

Green Winged

Lady

Burnt

Pyramidal

Man

Fly

Have a lovely week.