Friday Night with Friends

Many thanks to Cheryll for inviting us round again even though she could not be there herself. I am sure everyone enjoyed her hospitality - click here to see what everyone was working on.

I have been following the DMTV Summer Stitchalong for the last few weeks making a book cover. The first couple of weeks involved choosing a book - I am making a cover for my sewing journal - a colour scheme and then some fabrics. We were encouraged to choose a photograph and then pick five colours from that photograph to work with. Here is my selection.

Next we had to pick a shape - triangles, squares, hexagons for instance and make a shape to add to the background of our book cover. Here is mine before I sewed them together and stitched them down. Of course I chose hexies!

So that was the stage I was at by yesterday afternoon. The next stage was to add some single shapes which I did adding in some half inch hexies too.

The final stage was to add some printed hexagons and I did this with a piece of compressed sponge which I cut to a 3/4" hexagon and used with some gold acrylic paint.

As you can see it is now layered up and ready for the next stage which is stitch/quilting. And there I left it.

My next project for the evening was to layer up a couple of mug rugs which I have been working on and add some quilting.

So these are now ready to be trimmed and have their edges turned over - a little job for this evening I think.

All together a very satisfying FNwF - I hope everyone else enjoyed it too.

Christmas in July!

This is the first time I have done a 'Christmas in July' swap so it was exciting to open my parcel this morning. I swapped with Sue in Australia and we had arranged to open our parcels at the same time so at 7.30 this morning for me and 3.30 in the afternoon for Sue we linked up on Messenger.

Here are the lovely gifts I received from Sue. First of all they were all packed in this neat little bag.

Sue and I belong to the same hexie swap group so she knows that I like hexies.

Something French! and some cute charms.

Some crazy.

And this embroidered panel which will make a great wall hanging.

So here is what I sent to Sue. Sue very kindly sent me the photograph as I totally forgot to take any before I wrapped the parcel!

The stitchery is a Lynette Anderson Design. In the bottom right corner you can just see a stack of mini charm squares - I cut one from each of the Christmas fabrics in my stash. They are big enough to make hexies with or any scrappy project.

Well, Happy Christmas in July everyone!

Friday Night Sew In - and I nearly missed out!

After spending a little while yesterday afternoon finishing off the embellishing of this piece

I spent some time in the garden. When I came back indoors I thought I would catch up with a few blogs while I had some coffee and that is when I realised that it was the third Friday - FNSI! And to think I had nearly missed out. So I raced over to Wendy's place here to see if I was in time to sign up - which I was. I see now that I was not the only one late on parade as two people signed up after me. Anyway, you can use that link to go and catch up with what everyone was working on last night. Many thanks Wendy for hosting us again.

So it was lovely to spend the evening with friends working on my next crazy project and this is how far I got.

I sewed the lace down first of all and then realised that it made quite a strong diagonal line so decided to add the curved line using chain feather stitch to soften it up a bit and lead the eye round the block. There was just time to add the spiders web and that was my evening over.

So that was my FNSI - hope everyone had a good one and I shall be catching up with a few blogs soon. Have a great weekend.

Christmas Through The Year Linkup

Many thanks to Anthea for setting up the Linky especially as she is unwell at the moment. You need to look here to see what gifts people are working on.

Nothing very exciting for you to look at from me though I am afraid! It's all secret stitching. However, just a glimpse is allowed.

Looking at his eyes in this picture I can see that they may need modifying! Looks a bit scary - like something from Dr Who.

We had a day out to the coast yesterday - sorry no pics! but we did stop in the small town of Cozes for a drink as we made our way to friends inland and found this beautiful covered market place.

Some of those upright posts date from the 15th century although most of what you see now is from the 18th century. It is still in use for the Wednesday market.

Hope you are having a good week.

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.

It's 'Piece Yourself Together' time again

Many thanks to Anthea for organising the link - do go and see what everyone is making and link up yourself if you are working on some EPP. The link up is here

First up are my swap hexies for the month which are all winging their way to Australia this month.

And just look what arrived in the post for me yesterday!

Not only my swap hexies for this month but the most darling little key fob made from 1/4" hexies! Real live ones, in the flesh! They are so tiny, I just can't imagine how anyone can make them that small.

No actual EPP going on here other than that but I have received more supplies of grey fabric for my Hexathon quilt. So I have now pinned the pieced panel on to it ready to stitch down, and  I have cut away the excess fabric from the back. This means that I have freed up some fabric to use in the piecing of the borders. The papers are all cut from freezer paper so now I just need to get busy with the iron.

Lots more going on here but I shall leave that for another post.

I am also linking up with Heather's Needlework Tuesday here

Have a great week.

Looking for Aunt Martha's Quilt

Just had to pop in and tell you about this fascinating  documentary 'Looking for Aunt Martha's Quilt'.
Beautifully made by the BBC it tells the story of a quilt made for Queen Victoria.
Weirdly, there is an out of date news broadcast in the middle but such are the idiosyncrasies of the BBC World Service!
Great listening for an hour while you sew and when you have listened to it click on the 'clip' below the main documentary for the pictures of Aunt Martha.