Sewing continues.

Completed pin cushion in use.

The past few days have seen my workroom busy with different sewing projects. The first to be completed was this pin cushion which I showed in my last post. This now houses my fine glass headed pins. So useful for my current project - the shirt which I shall show you later. 

Alternative layout 1

There have been a few developments with the quilt. I have been thinking again about the layout since I wasn't happy with the first one. So I played around with the pieces, shown below.

The collection of pieces

Until I tried turning the elements "on point". I think I prefer the second option, but will live with the idea for a few days before starting to cut up the black. I did toy with using the blue shown here as the background, but it all looked rather too bright. Definitely an assault on the eyes.

Alternative layout 2

So this is currently the preferred option. Will I change my mind yet again? Probably.

The completed pinafore dress

There was another completed project. I finished my pinafore dress, adding pockets into the side seams. Rather a comfy, warm dress. I shall try the design again as a long sleeved top using the 

dress shown to the right of the pattern. It should work well as a top. I rather fancy a warm brushed fabric.

The pinafore dress pattern.

I have already mentioned the project I am currently working on. This is the almost completed shirt I had cut out last week. The hem is pinned and ready to be sewn. Then the buttonholes. The fabric is a liberty-style cotton.

The red shirt

On Friday I went to visit some friends. We had been working on a Round Robin during the past few months and we finally got our own pieces back. This is mine. The background is a felted woollen woven fabric. The challenge now is to get our pieces completed for our next meeting in February.

Round Robin

I rather fancy turning this into a vase-like holder for some of my collection of large brushes. I haven't made anything like thatbefore, so it should prove rather interesting.

Three weeks later........ sewing and dyeing, feltmaking too.

Blue pine from Brenda's garden - we were here to have some fun dyeing.

Apologies for the long lapse in blogging. It has been extremely busy lately. The wedding has been and gone. Great fun it was too! So lovely to meet family. We really don't get to meet as often as we would like. My dress and jacket were liked, but I still haven't got a photo to show of me wearing the dress with the jacket. I must remedy that as soon as I can.

The following weekend was Festival of Quilts. This was an exhausting time meeting a lot of people and getting to see some really wonderful quilts. I was lucky enough to have my own quilt exhibited along with the rest of the entrants to "Horizons". You can see the whole exhibition here. Just click on the link to the photos of the exhibition.

The three lovely bookwraps I won .

I also took part in the Tombola and managed to win not one, but three bookwraps by the same maker - Sally Hutson. They are lovely. I really don't know how I won three of her rather special bookwraps since I bought tickets on three separate days and won one each time. Such luck, and no I didn't cheat. The bookwraps website can be seen here. It has some lovely photos of the fun we had on the stand. I was able to help out on one of the days. If you look at the list of names to the side, you will find Sally Hutson and can see some of the other bookwraps she made for the Tombola.




Since then it has all been rather a blur. I had to get four book pages completed before Friday, ready for a meeting of one of the Textile groups I belong to. We had a lovely time getting together, dyeing fabric and chatting. Such a lot of fun. The day started off rather wet and we were wondering whether we would be able to work outside, but then the sun came out and it turned into a glorious day!





The first two pages are "Dance" for Marion.











The next two are on the theme of "Circus" for Judy.











Whilst there we were able to look at the round robins we had completed a few months ago. These have now all been completed. It is interesting to see how each piece came out.

I made the moon on this one.














For this one I added the hedge and gate across the centre.

For Judy, I added two crows.












For Karen's bag, I added the sun.












My own cushion design started with the pile of books in the centre and the background fabric printed with words to do with literature. My theme was "Books". When everyone had added their piece, I added the applique letters which state "books".

My round robin - my pieces are the pile of books, the kindle,
the calligraphy showing words to do with literacy and the word "books!"

When I got home I managed to get some felt-making done before the light went. I wanted to make some pieces of pre-felt so that I can experiment with some making some nuno felt later this week. This was all because of a really interesting book I picked up at Festival.

Felt using some wool slub. Not sure what I shall do with this piece.
It was great fun to make.

Pre-felt ready to start experimenting with nuno felt.

The book bought at Festival which will be
of great help when I start experimenting.

Today has been spent washing out the fabric I dyed on Friday. It all looks rather nice. At the time of writing this I am waiting to give it a final rinse out and put it on the washing line to dry. Unfortunately, the rain clouds are gathering again. Photos will have to wait until another time since I haev delayed long enough in getting this post out.

Oh yes, I also played around with my soldering iron and some nylon fabrics. There is some black acrylic felt under these fabrics. I really don't know what I'm doing yet, just messing around and seeing what happens. I was able to watch a demonstration of this type of work at Festival which is why I am keen to give it a go.

Messing around with fabrics and soldering irons.

Another photo of Brenda's beautiful Blue Pine - this is
a section of the bark. I love the circle design it makes.

A photograph of one of those UFOs I mentioned last time. This unfinished object is the Round Robin I started with Cranford Quilters. Its now got the stage of having all the bits sewn together. All I need to do now is the quilting. I only hope that I can get it all finished in time for the group's exhibition in early November.



This second photo shows my original block. The centre was the first piece to be done, being sent off to be added to during the run of the Round Robin. The cats faces were taken from photographs taken by my younger daughter of our own two cats.
For this Round Robin, the strips were not sewn together as the work progressed. Instead the pieces were all returned to the original block-maker to be pieced and quilted. I have added the two blocks either side since the pieces were returned to me at the end of July. I have also added sashing with written statements between each of the blocks.
The writing beneath the block reads "Now who's the cats paw?" A cats paw being someone who acts at the bidding of another. I feel myself, like many cat owners, to be the cats paw in this household.
I felt really privileged taking part in this Round Robin since the other members have made such a wonderful job of each of the strips.

Welcome to my blog. This will be a rambling, occasional series about my adventures with textiles.
At present I am working on a series of projects. I never can seem to concentrate fully on one thing at a time.
Projects ongoing at present:
Round Robin - this quilting project has just finished and I now have the enjoyable task of putting all seven of the components together to make a hanging. This will need to be completed by October for the groups Exhibition.
This group (Cranford) has also laid down another challenge which I couldn't resist, again to be completed before the Exhibition. This is to make a Crazy Quilted hanging using at least two of a given set of fabrics. I must be mad.
Two-stitch challenge - this was set up by Stitching Post, the online group. Just using two colours and two stitches this is hand-stitched- chain stitch and blanket stitch.
An ongoing block a month challenge with Knots and Needles, another of the groups I am associated with. I decided to do this in black, white and red. Rather dramatic colours, but I have never worked with such colours before. I like challenging myself.
There is also Face - a mixture of machine embroidery and hand embroidery. An experimental piece.
Then there are the UFOs lurking around the place - a blue quilt which needs me to sit down and complete the machine quilting. This was a very enjoyable make, since I got to cut up a load of my husbands work shirts instead of ironing them; a lilac jacket I started and still sits upon the shoulders of Aggie, my tailors dummy; a blanket quilt - a rather nice, but damaged chenille throw which I am tacking to a fleece blanket. The idea was to be able to reuse the chenille throw, when it was strengthened by the fleece. I was planning to decorate it too, but got bored....
There may well be others, but they can sit there for the time being. I shall enjoy getting back to them later.
Well, next time I shall try to organise some pictures, when I can get my digital camera to talk to this computer again.
Mandy.