Some new cushions

 Evenings I have been busy sewing together hexagons for my Wings border, and they are going together very nicely.

We decided this week that we needed a couple of extra cushions so I dug out these pieces of bargello canvas work.

They have been sitting in a suitcase for at least 30 years along with a length of brown velvet all ready to be made up. So yesterday afternoon out came the sewing machine and I made them up.

The smaller one was actually a curved piece that had been made for a rocking chair seat so I had to square it up as best I could. We already have four of these cushions which I made many many years ago and which show no sign of wear and tear so I thought a photo of all of them was in order.

Good to finally make those up and I wonder now why it took so long!

Friday Night Sew In

 Good to be sewing with friends again on Friday - thank you Wendy for getting us together.

I started by finishing appliqueing these little purplish Dresdens to my RSC quilt

only two more of these to do then I can move on to the corner Dresdens.

Then I was able to start sewing together the hexagons for the final border of Wings

Good to get these underway and they go together pretty quickly.

I am off to see who else took part now, have a lovely weekend, its going to be a hot one here!

Wings and Pretty Things update

 Well, I couldnt wait to share this with you now that I have all the applique blocks in place!

Brilliant sunshine here today so I photographed this in a darkened room! As usual the pretty colours are not showing up so well but I can tell you that in real life it is looking gorgeous! And it all machined together like a dream, my extra careful cutting paid off.

Now I am working on lots more of those coffin hexies for the final border - could be a while!

Have a great weekend.

A Taunton Garden

 Two posts from me in one day - how lucky are you!

However, no sewing here, just a record of our new garden and it is picture heavy!

When we moved to our new home in Taunton back in January, the garden was looking sad. The house had been empty for a couple of years and although the grass had been cut no other work had happened. Surprisingly quite a few shrubs survived the neglect and we also had a showing of spring bulbs to brighten things up. Here are a couple of pictures I took back at the end of January before Philip started to work his magic.

One of the first things we did was to remove the horrible brown railings which bordered the path - those uprights went soon after this picture was taken - and paint white the one outside the conservatory which we left for safety reasons.

Philip then set to work and dug a new bed in that corner and moved a shrub from the bottom of the garden by the greenhouse into the new space.

The space at the side of the greenhouse was widened and eventually dug over to become a small veg area.

The next job was to say goodbye to this sad specimen

and create a small pond to attract some wildlife.

Denzil the decoy seems quite at home there and the pond is already attracting dragonflies and other insects.

Meanwhile lots of planting was going on around the garden and seed sewing and growing in the greenhouse.

Some early flowers

A couple of views from May.

And some May flowers.

In June the garden was starting to fill out nicely.

And the fences got a coat of green paint!

And a few pictures from today.

The small veg plot is doing well and I have been picking mange tout peas and courgettes. We dug our first potatoes last week.

I have been picking a handful of tomatoes most day for several weeks now.

My 'herb garden'.

So I hope you enjoyed my tour of the garden and thank you if you made it this far! I shall try and update garden photos as we go along in future!

FNWF's July

 

Thank you Cheryll for organising our Friday sewing fest again, I have already seen some of the lovely work accomplished last night and am off soon to look for more. You can see who took part here.

Earlier this week I finished the last of my Wings and Pretty Things applique blocks

and so I have been working on the four Dresdens that make up the corner blocks of this border.

Friday afternoon saw me cutting the blocks that these will be appliqued to and also the final border fabrics - one plain and one background for the coffin hexagons which are next on my list to complete.

This was definitely a case of 'measure 4 times cut once' as the green script fabric is now all but gone, so no room for error! Fingers crossed.

As we were out for the evening that was the end of my sewing for the day but it was fun joining in with everyone else.

Friday Night Sew In and dashing along

 FNSI has come round again! Many thanks to Wendy for organising us and you can see who took part here .

I have joined in with Chooky's Churn Dash SAL which I am calling a Churndashalong! I had no intention of joining in as I do not want to start another quilt, but when I realised I could make anything using Churn Dash blocks then the idea of a wall hanging was born. I have plenty of the pretty fabrics that I am using for my Wings and Pretty Things so I thought that I would use those . I am also hand pieceing as there is no room in this house for my machine to be out permanently. Besides, I do love hand pieceing. It was how I learnt to make patchwork blocks all those years ago before rulers and cutting boards had made it to the UK and I resisted joining in with the fast machine piecing for many years.

Anyway, back to my Churn Dash blocks which I pieced for FNSI on a hot (for UK) afternoon and evening.

They are 4.5" finished. I will need 4 for my wall hanging, one of these and three more in different fabric combinations. The other one I will use as the centre of a larger Churn Dash block, then probably a third to make a small table centre/cloth. I enjoyed putting these together and am looking forward to next month when I shall make another block.

I also found time to cut out the applique pieces for my last Wings and Pretty Things applique block - here are two that I finished this week.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Friday Night With Friends

 Many thanks Cheryll for another lovely evening stitching away with friends. You can see who else took part here

I spent my afternoon and evening watching cricket and working on appliqueing these RSC blue Dresdens to my top.

Then I moved on to my next Wings and Pretty Things block and got the stems sewn down and some prep done on the rest of the applique.

I have two completed Wings blocks to show you

Just three more to do.

Another finish this week was my hat.

I am very pleased with this finish - it is made from a lovely silk and merino mix from Perran Yarns. Lovely to work with and it is going to be very snuggly on windy days next winter.

I will be back soon.