SSCS

Another successful swap this year. Apologies in advance for the awful photos. My camera has vanished so am having to make do with my phone.
My partner was Illene (www.retdairyqueen.blogspot.com) and here is the beautiful runner she made me. Beautiful fabrics and gorgeous Australian animals. This will be finding a home in my new sewing room when it gets completed. Thanks so much Illene - it is gorgeous. I also had a great Australian calendar and a little choccy bar as well as the cute ornaments I've already shown.
Great swap - such good fun.
Would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2014. I'm actually going to sew - way behind on Bonnies Mystery so hope I can catch up a little x

SSCS

Here are my little decorations I received in Chookyblues Christmas Swap - very cute and beautifully made - thankyou partner. I am holding out on opening the main gift until Christmas Day. Looking forward to it. Over the years I have had some lovely things and I'm sure this year will be no different x

Mystery Quilt colours

Here are what I'm using for Bonnie Hunters latest mystery quilt.
I have a lot of cream, beige and light tan neutrals to add to these. I am aiming for an Autumn theme.
Have most of the pieces cut and a few sewn together.
I am enjoying sewing again. My poor machine had dust on it - clue 2 is out tomorrow. I probably won't keep up as I am decorating 2 bedrooms as well. But thats ok - I'll go at my own pace x

Off the radar

It seems I have lost my quilting mojo as well as my blogging mojo although I have been crocheting up a storm as these pictures show. Having a few health issues-  waiting for a date for surgery. Also been busy with decorating - fingers crossed I will be planning a sewing.room soon.
To get me back into my quilting - I have talked myself into starting Bonnie Hunters new Mystery Quilt. I had decided not to do it but had an about turn and hopefully will make a start at the weekend.
My SSCS has arrived and I look forward to opening it on Christmas day. I will open the little ornament on Dec 1st when I officially start thinking about Christmas.
Take care x

Happy Birthday

Not mine - but my amazing daughter Jess. I can hardly believe I have a 23 year old.
I have been working hard to complete this crocheted blanket for her and just about got it done. She knew I was making it and had seen it in various stages. But she had not seen it for a while as I was only working on it when she wasn't here. She loves it and I am very relieved to have it finished - it's a big heavy thing. Will hopefully get a proper photo of it soon.
I am so much into crochet at the moment although I have been doing a little on some UFO quilting projects.
And should have more time for proper blogging soon - life has been a bit overwhelming lately but times they-are-a-changing and for the better.
Thanks for sticking with me - so behind on emails too. Will I ever catch up ?
Take care x

Stress relieving sewing !

Many, many stressful things going on in my life at the moment so the best way I know to cope is to sew.
My lovely nephew is going through some health issues - and he also had a birthday - his 21st to be precise. Combining the 2events led naturally to the making of a quilt.

I have made him a couple before and he has trailed them around everywhere with him - nice to know. I wanted to make him something more grown-up ( his first one was a really colourful football quilt )

This is what I came up with. Rectangular plus blocks in navy blue, dark aqua and orange. The backgrounds are many shades of cream and grey. I am thrilled with it and thankfully so was he. Quite difficult to make a quilt for a young man I think.

The day after the picture was taken - his birthday - he was off to hospital for radio-surgery on an abnormal mass of blood cells in his brain. This has been causing him to have seizures and puts him at risk of stroke. A lot to go through at this young age. He is doing well and is hopefully out of hospital today - just waiting on the phone call to collect him.

I hope he loves and uses this quilt as much as his other 2 - love him to bits.

I am also working on a UFO that is very time consuming but I know will be fab when done.

Everyone have a great weekend x

A crochet detour.

A while back I started crocheting some granny squares with some lovely cotton yarn I bought at a good price. But they just weren't doing it for me and so got put in a bag and left.
Until this week when I dug them out and started unpicking and re-making. Much happier with them now and glad I decided to go this way.
My crochet hook is on fire -lol x

Last minute as usual.

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Another little project

I'm pretty sure I never posted about this even though it was done a few months ago.
I followed a tutorial on checkoutgirlcrafts blog and really enjoyed it.
A couple of firsts here - I had never made a hoop and had never worked with wool felt.
My daughter will soon be leaving home and moving into her own place -sharing with a friend. Not sure when but should be before the end of the year. Her large bedroom will be snapped up by my lad but I will get his room to be my sewing room - yippee.
So this little hoop will go on the wall in there along with quite a few mini quilts I've aquired over the years - going to be great.
I will be spending the weekend sorting fabrics - they are not as organised as usual and I need to get them so I'm not wasting precious sewing time looking for that elusive piece of fabric !!
Have fun x

Little rabbits

Now I know this is working I'll try and catch up on what I've been doing.
I have been doing a lot of crochet but will do a separate post on that. I also got very excited when Julie from littlecottonrabbits.typepad.com released a couple of her patterns. I have long admired her gorgeous creations. So after a few (ie - many) hours work this is the result. Came out ok for a first attempt although I must admit I did say a few bad words when unpicking the ears for about the fifth time - could not get them right. This has gone to one of my oldest friends who is having a major health issue. I've told her it can be her lucky mascot when she's attending her many hospital appointments. She is a knitter herself and loves it.
I've made another one since and started number 3.
Since I have no idea where these photos will be in this post I'll just say that mine has the blue shoes and pink dress and my friends has the fair isle dress.
They are so cute and the pattern is excellent. One of the best I've followed.
Back soon x

Still here !

This is a quick test post -I have installed an app for my phone that hopefully will work. If so it will be much easier to update my blog when time is limited . Fingers crossed xx

Opinions ??

I love English Paper Piecing and have several ( cough ) quilts in progress. I actually finished one a few months ago but haven't got round to showing that yet. Anyway this year is all about my UFO's and I have been working away on a hexie quilt. This got started maybe 3 years ago and so it was about time it received some attention. I remember cutting one hexagon from each of my fabrics and the plan originally was a grandmothers flower garden with white paths. I made lots of flowers - each flower had seven fabrics from one colour. Can't remember how many I did before I changed my mind - and unpicked the lot. Then I put them into triangles - 10 in each grouping... nope - unpicked again.

Until finally I came up with this.

Yes I'm happy with this so far. You will notice the white hexies currently being sewn around the edges. Heres where I would like your input. I have tons of hexies left and was debating whether to border it with the leftovers. Like so ?

Close-up.

The borders are not sewn on yet as I really can't make up my mind whether to do it or not. The other semi-idea I have is to finish sewing on the white hexies and applique the whole thing onto a single fabric - maybe a blue. And then sew several straight borders on each edge - something like 2 inch strips in different colours. I'm not explaining this very well - I'll see if I can find a picture of what I mean.

This is something similar I did on a quilt a while back. I'm thinking of maybe 4 or 5 borders.

Please let me know which way you would go. If I don't use the leftover hexies I will maybe use them on the back or something - or a new quilt for one of my cats - lol !

Take care xx

A little quilting therapy.

Well here I am - thanks for all your well wishes -I am so very behind on emails and comments - don't think I'll ever catch up so may not even try.  Life is settling down a little now and although normal is a long way off we are slowly getting there.  My lovely sister - aged 50 - had a massive stroke the week before Christmas - completely out of the blue.  She is still in hospital nearly 8 weeks later and is facing a long recovery. She is making progress and is gradually starting to walk etc although as yet has no movement at all in her left hand or arm.  We have spent a lot of time at the hospital. As you can imagine it has been awful although there is light at the end of the tunnel. She was not quite lucid for a few weeks but that has thankfully settled down and she is doing great. She is surprisingly cheerful and is showing sheer determination to recover as well as she can. She is awaiting a wheelchair and is having lots of intensive physio. We are taking a day at a time. Anyway as she is such a kind person she has decided she wants to give a small gift to one of the nurses who is pregnant. She asked if I had anything suitable and it just so happens I had an I-Spy baby quilt on standby. I will take this in tomorrow for her to give to the nurse.

I am also trying to catch up with some UFO's.  So far I have resisted starting anything new.  Not sure how long I can hold out though.... My Easy Street is coming along - will hopefully have pictures to show of that soon. But here are a couple of small quilts that I've been working on.

This has been hanging around for a good couple of years. It is a schnibbles pattern called X-Rated.

It was made from a charm pack I received in a swap several years ago. The sender was a lovely woman called Marlene who has sadly since passed away.  I wanted to make borders on this but had no charms left and nothing seemed to match. Anyway last week an idea popped into my head and here we are.

Close-up of spotty fabrics.

Would like to hand quilt this but will have to wait it's turn as I have another small quilt in progress. Which is this.

This is a bit of a washed out picture - the colours are much richer. This was going to be a big quilt but appliquing four blocks was enough - tried the back basting method and it worked great but just didn't want to do any more. A few hundred( or so it seemed ) paper pieced flying geese and this little quilt was born. Like I say I am hand quilting it and am pleased with how it's looking.

I have a ton of other stuff to show and will do my best to get round to it - time is against me at the moment though - need a few more hours in the day - lol.

Hope to be back sooner rather than later xx
 

SSCS

I am surely one of the last to post about this years swap but have good reasons. Some of you know what my family is going through at the moment and just now I don't feel ready to talk about it properly.  Thanks for your understanding and feel free to send any prayers this way :-)

I loved my SSCS gift and thanked my partner privately although this post is very late. This is what arrived at my home made by Cheryl - sorry can't get the links working - my brain is tired...

It is far lovelier in real life and such a lot of work - beautiful embroidery !! I will look after this and it will grace my bed every Christmas for years to come... Thankyou so much Cheryl...

And heres what I sent to Jenny.

And because in spite of all that is going on at the moment I really, really needed to sew and this afternoon I cleared a bit of time and had a few blissful hours to myself. I have decided to join the soscrappy Saturday challenge. This months colour is pink and I have lots of pink scraps and had picked my block so got my first one done.  Here it is

Heres is the link . . Think  I've got this one to work..

I also put together 1 block for Bonnie Hunters mystery quilt - I am way behind on this but really want to get it done within the next couple of months.  However it might not bode well as this block has already got to be unpicked - yikes.

Take care xx