A completed bag, and flowers.

Our kitchen has been graced by these gorgeous flowers for the past week. The scent is really heady being almost overpowering.

They were brought into the house by my husband. Sadly, the plant they belonged to had been flattened by the recent rain and wind.

You will remember my finished quilt for Rosie from my last post. Since completing that I have been busily making a quilted bag to contain it. Here you can see the completed bag holding the folded quilt.

This is the quilting from one side of the bag, with the handles tucked out of the way.

Now the handles and the second side. The quilted bag makes quite a good pillow when filled with the quilt. It is surprisingly light, carrying a single-bed-sized quilt in a bag. I must admit, having found the quilt rather heavy to handle as I was finishing it off, I had expected it to be rather a weight when inside the bag. I was rather startled to find that it wasn't.......... It is certainly easier to carry a quilt inside a bag, not needing to keep it tightly folded.

Just recently, I have been having a go with beading. This is my first attempt - a necklace. The pattern is called Potawatomi weave. A friend lent me the pattern which came from Bead and Button - seed bead chains.

It was quite an enjoyable little project and I feel sure I shall do others, though I have a feeling that beading will just be an additional skill rather than a compulsion with me.

Well, tonight it is Quilt Group. Needing something to work on, I dragged this out of the pile of UFOs. I started this some time ago. It is about time I got on with completing it

Another project waiting to be started is a replacement for my much loved, much worn jacket. This was in a collection of clothes being thrown out some years ago by my elder daughter. I claimed it and have worn it ever since. Now it really is beginning to show its age and should be replaced.

Well, I had a couple of pieces of luck recently. Firstly, this piece which I found in a jumble pile for just 30p.

I am going to quilt this to give the fabric a little more strength and stability. I have bought some Thermore ready to start.

Its a fascinating piece of fabric, obvously intended as a fabric toy and book. It should make a really fun jacket.

My other piece of luck was this:

This fabric was being sold off at just £1.99 a metre! I couldn't resist. I bought four metres and will use this to trial a suitable jacket pattern for the fun fabric above.

Some months ago, you may remember I bought some more fabric from the same collection. This still waits in my stash until I can sort out the right pattern for it. This coffee cup fabric seen above will be so useful in trialling the pattern I intend to use for my fun fabric. I have decided to take a pattern from my favourite jacket rather than buy one. My own elderly jacket is great in that it only has a single seam down the back. It will be rather useful to have three jackets in the wardrobe rather than just one, especially for the autumn.

UFOs and stitching fun.

This is one of my many UFOs. A rather floppy cotton shopping bag. The shape is a useful one, but I hate the way this one falls down. Hence the need for a lining.

This is the lining that I put together for the shopping bag. It in turn has been lined with some heavy duty interfacing.



This is a photo of some of the pockets I have added to the inside of the lining. The flower tag was a lucky find in Hobbycraft some months back. It is designed to replace the tag on a zip. I have merely added it to the end of the tag rather than removing it. This makes it a little longer and more useful to me.

There are two pockets here. The larger one is the same width as the bag itself. There is a small pocket which can just be seen to the left of the large pocket.

The two flaps will soon have poppers to fasten them against the pocket edge to keep this large pocket into the side of the bag. The two buttons are to decorate the flaps.

The last photo shows the lining pinned into the bag.

Some time ago I prepared some new lino blocks for fabric printing. I posted about that here:

http://thestoryofthetravelingpages.blogspot.com/2010/01/flowers.html

The resulting prints are below:

The top one is my favourite. The print was made by doing it all wrong, pressing the fabric into the block inside on pressing the block down on the fabric. I rather like the resulting haziness of the printing.

The next UFO is a small box. All hand-stitched, it is made using Japanese folded patchwork squares. I shall be finishing off the lid with a beaded tag. The hinge has been made using bugle beads.

And last of all, the needle case. It is now full of needles and that tin has been emptied of all except my longest upholstery needles. These are threaded through a scrap piece of aida, so they cannot fall far when the tin drops on the floor once more. Knowing my own clumsiness this will happen again.



The first page of my own set, "The Sea" has been completed by Trillion. You can see a teaser here:

http://thestoryofthetravelingpages.blogspot.com/2010/01/sea.html

I shall post the page here on my Blog once it arrives. I am really looking forward to seeing what it looks like.

Annual Fabric Sale! ....and a nice surprise.

Last Sunday afternoon, I went to the annual Nantwich Fabric Sale. This happens every January and is a good opportunity to stock up with fabric, books and general bits and pieces. There is usually a small exhibition of quilts too, with some stalls giving information about local courses.

I went along with my friend Hilary, a fellow quilter.

I bought quite a nice collection of fabrics - some to fill in the browns and yellows of my fabric stash.

Also, some reds and a couple of patterned fat quarters. The first of these is a Japanese print, which will go nicely with the Japanese themed quilt I have languishing in my WISP collection. The second, I really could not resist. It is a black and white Art Nouveau Alphabet. I have no idea when I shall use this, but it really pleads to be put into something.

Then there was the book stall. This was wonderful. I bought four books.

All of these were amongst the many second-hand books there. The Samplers book has such a wonderful cover with some really inspirational Blackwork designs. The second book will go into my small collection of old DMC books. It also has some wonderful designs there which I can see myself adapting.

Then I found these two books. I love the idea of making boxes, but have not made many so far. The first book, by Jackie Woolsey is one of those wonderful books which records the techniques ready to be used in whichever way you choose. Perfect. The second may seem a strange choice, but look at the following page from inside.

I just love the swirling design of paisley, having played about with this in the past. These drawings - it is a book of drawings of different paisley designs, just tempting me to start exploring possibilities again. The book is by Gregory Mirow and is one of the Dover Design Library publications.

This week I have been busily knitting Liz's jumper. I gave her the yarn for Christmas with the promise of completing it sometime. Luckily, I didn't make any promises about exactly when it would be complete and she understands my workload..............

This is the design on the front. Plain up until the chest area, it has this design up to the armholes. Then I intend to continue in the darker shade of blue, joining in the sleeves. So far I have got to the halfway stage with the first of the sleeves. Its definitely coming on now. I had been getting so very bored with the plain blue.

This weekend has been very pleasant. We had a visitor staying with us - a friend of my younger daughter. She and I had a lovely chat about various crafts - she is a knitter, sewer and felter! Imagine my surprise when she and Rosie came into my workroom as I started writing this to give me this delightful little present.

As the fabric label states "A very handy little tape measure". I just love the tab with the fish on it! It sits proudly on my shelves, just within reach whenever I need it. How very thoughtful.

Band-Robin.

For some months I have been working on a piece of embroidery for the Stitching Sisters group.

It is part of the Band-Robin we have been working on for some time. This particular sampler belongs to Jenny. She did the wonderful Hardanger work you can see. This is now just waiting until I know who will be the next person to work on it.

For further details, please see my post on the Stitching Sisters Blog.
http://www.sistersstitching.blogspot.com/

I have started Liz's new pullover, the second to be knitted to the Elizabeth Zimmermann "Open-collar design"

Apart from this, I have completed a Christmas Challenge. This was set by the Knots and Needles Group. A stitchers group, we were challenged at the Christmas meeting to decorate a bag each. These were supplied by the committee. The bags were basic shopping bags from Hobby craft. This is how mine looks now it is completed.

This is the side I think of as the front. The applique cats picture is also a pocket. This design was originally used for my cat quilt - sadly still languishing in my WISPs pile. It only needs quilting, but I still can't think how to quilt it.......... I must finish it this year.

This is the back. Ooops! I've just remembered that I forgot to blog about the bits and pieces I did over Christmas. The paw prints above were an experiment in printing. More in my next post.

I don't think I shall use it as a shopping bag, but it will come in handy as an additional project bag.

Today, I am working to finish a bag lining. The bag belongs to a friend of mine. She rather liked the lining I had added to my own bags, so I offered to add a lining to her bag. As you can see, the original lining is beginning to fail. There is also another bag here, which started off in a rather worse state.

I was rather lucky in that I went into the local Help the Aged charity shop. They had this gorgeous pair of curtains.

These will make a superb lining, just the right weight of fabric. I do have some other furnishing weight fabric in my stash, but could not find any of it when I first got hold of Sheila's bag. Its in there somewhere.........

Whilst in town, I also picked up the latest copy of Sew Hip.

Inside, it suggests getting fabric from charity shops! There is also a rather good "Vintage Cloth Holdall" which I shall definitely be making. There is a very nice "Joli Cube Bag" pattern too. Then theres Henrietta the Hippo. Now who can resist ! I know I can't She will look wonderful in the curtain fabric. Yes, I know I do not have any young children at home........... She will be a friendly addition to the menagerie in my workroom. I already have a pottery cat, a miniature teddy bear I made some years ago, and my daughter's toy bat.

I was also lucky to find these.

Aren't they fun! They are supposed to be the weights to hold down table cloths when used outside. One of my friends, Hilary, was clever in using this type of weight to hold down the bottom edge of a long hanging she made recently. It looks fantastic. I just couldn't resist these when I saw them.

Well, I am as old as I feel, and that's not as old as my age might lead anyone to suspect! I refuse to grow old gracefully........................ Life is for having fun and making things in any spare moments.

Keeping on keeping on.

Its been an interesting week. I managed to complete my Nutkin socks and quilt the sashing of my Black, Red and White quilt. Its ages since I last worked on this.

This is the top, below, you can see the reverse side of the same quilt.

My next task is to attach the binding.

I also started a cowl to go with a fleece jacket I made some years ago. I already have a matching scarf, but the playground at school gets rather too windy for a scarf to stay around my neck. Hence the idea of making this cowl. This is Mary Burr's Aibhlinn design from Knitty.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. Cold, but sunny. Perfect for some pruning and general tidying up around the gardens. Our little close here gets together to share the work once in a while. Four men complete with ladders, secateurs, cutters, saws and various other implements set to work. My husband was one of these. My job, and that of another wife, was to ply everyone with tea. There was such a lot of laughing going on it was amazing that such a lot got done! Our neighbours make it such fun to live here.

The last photo is of T.C. after his inspection of my garden shed. He was supervising the work going on in the various gardens. His owner was one of the team actually doing the work.