It's a Flimsy!

Yes, finally my Hexathon Quilt is a flimsy with all four borders now added. Whew! And it is big! Must admit I had not realised quite how big. Anyway, due to the prevailing weather conditions - ie very cold, grey and damp, I have had difficulty in getting a decent photograph. So my apologies for this poorly lit, squashed up picture - I will post a decent one as soon as I can get outside.

There is some pressing to do too!

What had escaped my notice was that the bottom left corner would be completely bare!  I shall have to put on my thinking cap to come up with something to fill that space.

I have two spare large hexagons but I think one of them would be too big. On the other hand I think that it needs more than just another small hexagon.

In other news, I have completed one set of swap hexagons for December - yes, the December list for one group came out early!

I also have my November RSC tumbling blocks complete. There was no specific colour for November just the suggestion that we used something dark. So I chose brown as my brown box is quite full.

I am linking up with Anthea at Hibiscus Stitches for Piece Yourself Together. Thank you Anthea.

FNSI for November

Many thanks to Wendy for hosting our virtual sew-in. You can see what everyone was working on here on Wendy's blog.

I started the afternoon with the intention of adding the borders to my Hexathon quilt.

I had not squared the top up since adding the large plain section and this took a little while! At this point I was winging it a bit so decided to add the plain borders first which I did - just a small pic as it was raining outside and space indoor was at a premium!

At this point I realised that I had miscalculated on the ammount of bias strip that I needed for the coloured flange - by half! So that will have to be a job for another day. I was however able to use the off cuts of border fabric to extend the pieced borders and I have those joined now ready for my next session. Lunch guests tomorrow means that my large work table - ie the dining room table has to be cleared.

So not as much achieved as I had hoped but at least the task has been started and I now know where I am going.

Friday evening called for some relaxing hand sewing so I made this Christmas flower for one of my swap groups.

Now I am looking forward to seeing what everyone got up to. Have a great weekend.

An Open Wide bag

With all my Christmas sewing out of the way I thought it was time that I made myself a present! I have had this gorgeous Chinese Oriental Flower fabric for a few months (thank you Sue) and have been wanting to make it into a bag.

One of these Open Wide bags seemed to be the perfect match.

I had not used this pattern before so, being a good girl, I read through the instructions before I started! There are a lot of them and it all sounded rather complicated but once you get started they are extremely well written and easy to follow.

I made the medium sized bag and used Soft and Stable as the wadding.

I was worried about adding the end pieces and sewing round the curve but they set in perfectly. Adding the binding was not quite so easy. I hand stitched the reverse of the binding - machining round seemed like a step too far and anyway, I prefer the finished look of hand stitching.

The zip went in like a dream although I could not bring myself to cut the zip as per the instructions! However, cutting it once it was sewn in place worked well and I left the end stop in place too as it is covered by the fabric tab. Again, adding the binding over the zip took patience and there was a little reverse stitching here but I got there in the end.

And so here is my lovely new bag.

I am very pleased with the finished bag - the Soft and Stable works really well and is very light although I think for the small version I will use something a little less bulky.

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for Bag It 2017

Christmas Throught The Year

Just popping in with a quick post for CTTY - many thanks to Anthea for hosting this linky.

These two mini quilt wall hangings are the last of my Christmas sewing for this year - whoopee!

Do pop over to Hibiscus Stitches to see the other linkups.

Have a great weekend

A lean EPP Tuesday!

It's EPP Tuesday and sadly I have very little to share! The only EPP I have produced over the last two weeks has been my swap hexies for November.

So do pop over to Hibiscus Stitches to see how Anthea's lovely Scrappy Hexie is coming along and to see what everyone else is working on. Thanks to Anthea for organising the linky.

Friday Finish

It's a grey damp day here in the Dordogne so my Friday Finish came in very handy this morning when we went to the market!

Last week I showed you this picture of my first attempt at Domino knitting.

 A week later and I have these.

My thanks to Barbara for letting me have the pattern. I enjoyed working on these and will definitely be making another pair. There are certain improvements that I can see I can make and I will use smaller needles next time as they could be a little snugger. But I am very happy with them as a first attempt.

These two crazy heart sachets have been gifted this week so I can share pictures of them.

These are quick little makes and are great for trying out stitches and using small scraps of fabric.

It looks like we are in for a wet weekend so I have plenty of sewing plans! Hope you have a happy stitchy weekend.

FNwF November get together

Many thanks to Cheryll for organising our get together again - visit Cheryll's blog here to see what everyone was working on.

I started the afternoon with these two stitcheries that have been awaiting attention for a while now.

By the end of the afternoon (with some garden work in between!) I had these two mini flimsies.

They have both now been layered up and are waiting to be quilted.

In the evening, by the fire, I finished off these two swap flowers

and then I started to play with some knitting. I have long wanted to try some Domino knitting and recently came across a small project that I thought would be great for experimenting. Barbara of The Flashing Scissors showed some lovely Domino mittens on her blog - do go and have a look - and very kindly sent me the pattern. I did not get very far but I think I now have the hang of it. Anyway, here is my progress so far.

Well that was my Friday - I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else was working on. Have a great weekend.