I Lost a friend Have you seen her???

Well I have not actually lost a friend but I've sort of mislaid her. Around 3 hours ago one of my followers Elizabeth left a lovely comment on my post 'Sewing Days', now I thought I had published it but as yet it has not appeared on my blog post, soo being the technophobe that I can sometimes be I seem to have sent it out there into the ether. I have replied to her, as I would hate to be branded a No reply blogger and can only hope she receives that email, or that the comment turns up OR she accepts this post as a means of an apology. Today when I logged on for this post I discovered  a new follower, so welcome Nancy L from 'Buttons and Stitching'
 I really do appreciate All my followers and love to get comments on my posts so keep em coming girls (and or Boys) and I will be reeealy happy!!:-)))) 
See you all later when I post my newest finish for this week (YEP! that will be 3 in less than 2 weeks. ROTFL
L

Sewing Days

Thursday was the 1/2 term Y.Q. workshop, which was very busy, The older girls made decorated pencil cases designed to give them a chance at machine embroidery/couching etc. The younger ones and anyone that preferred to, made hand puppets from felt. This time I have permission to use the pictures of the children working on the chosen projects. It was a busy day but very enjoyable, I get such a buzz when I see the young ones enjoying their stitching and creating things. Here is what they were up to.

2 older girls who wanted to make puppets

another puppet under construction

Mum lending a hand, this little chap made a Tiger puppet then a 'fishy' wall-hanging for his bedroom!

Sewing badges to a fleecy blanket for a scout award - in 2 1/2  hours she managed 15 badges (a marathon of stitching!)

H concentrating on a tricky bit

and with her completed pencil case.

Today was the WPQ sewing day to start preparations for the exhibition in 2013. We had a great day with about 12 of us there throughout the day. The plans were to make bunting  to decorate the hall and aprons for those helping with refreshments. All told I think we must have made about 100 feet bunting and 5 aprons before we moved on to making things for sale, a bag tombola, little incubator quilts for the local special care baby unit or items for ourselves which could go in the exhibition. We all took along scraps/unwanted fabrics for everyone to use, I found some very pretty strips which I thought I could do 'something' with and decided a baby quilt would be good as there was fabric with teddies on, these quilts do not have any wadding in as they have to be laundered at the hospital, but the parents of the babies get to keep the little quilts when their child goes home. The picture below is the one I made (and finished this evening) Its about 20" square.

Here is a close up of one of the 9 patches which gives a clearer idea, I used a wavy stitch for the quilting.

I have'nt reported on what I'm reading for some time, this is due to the fact that I have not been reading books of late but, have been going through about 10 years worth of Patchwork magazines, the reason behind this is in order to downsize my magazine stash. That is now complete and I will be getting rid of the magazines as soon as possible. I am now reading this which I bought 2nd hand last week from a friend who is downsizing before moving house. Its very interesting to take a peek into the lives of these ladies and girls living through the Civil War and some of the entries are quite sad. I am thinking I may try to make a few of the blocks although there are no sizes or directions for them the colour prints are quite clear and I should be able to work out the dimensions.

DH has just arrived home from watching the Cricket so I had better show my face downstairs, I'll see you all again soon.
Lorraine

Another week Flies By!!

 Tonight I thought I would fill you in on some overlooked pictures from my post waaay back on the 16th May when I told you about SVQ's trip to Threads & Patches in Fenny Stratford. (Here) I was babysitting and was using DSIL's lap top, and did not have the photos with me, but I had every intention of posting the pictures 'next time'. But I forgot! Best laid plans and all that! So I thought I would post them tonight.

kits for mini bags

Pretty cord to use with the Kumihimo loom I bought. More on that later!

Everyone got a free kit to make up at home

some 1/2 metres of fabrics

Some of the girls at lunch in the upstairs workroom

The downstairs workroom

 This week I've been working on some fabric weaving, using some self coloured selvages (I did warn you I throw nothing away!) Here's what I did, using a pin board or ironing board (I used a piece of polystyrene with a folded towel on top)

cut and pin down a square of lightweight iron on Vilene adhesive side up. (I used a 4"sq.)

 Pin some vertical selvedge strips side by side along the top edge covering the Vilene. 

Next lift alternate strips across the width,

lay a horizontal strip of a contrasting colour across, keeping close to the row of pins, secure each end with a pin

 replace the vertical strips, and lift the alternate set and pin the next strip in place.

Continue adding horizontal strips in this way till you reach the bottom, do not pin across the bottom of the work, iron (gently at first) to secure the strips, then remove the pins and give the whole thing a good press, before satin stitching all the joins in both directions. To complete it, I trimmed the uneven edges to 4", added a piece of backing (but no wadding) and bound the edges in the usual way.

I do have an idea in mind to use this but I'm still working on the final design elements so you will have to wait and see!

Tomorrow I'm going to a sewing day for WPQ where I will be helping to make some bits and pieces in preparation for the Exhibition next Spring, so now I need to pack a few things and make some lunch to take with me, then I'm off to bed.

A finish!

Hi All, 

First up 'Happy Jubilee Weekend' to those of us in The UK, hope you all have a great time however you celebrate!
Next I have to boast! I have finished the bag started at the workshop at CTQ last week, this surely must be a record for yours truly - a project started and finished in one week, whooo hooo!! The bag is the Kona Squishy Bag from a book by by Julia Davis & Anne Muxworthy of Step by Step Patchwork at South Molton, Devon, more of these bags can be seen in their Gallery (here). I used the blue charm squares, bought at Quilts UK Malvern

These were cut into 1/2 square triangles and pieced together so that no two squares are the same (in theory!!) unfortunately some of the squares in my pack were duplicated so that went outta the window, as you could see in the picture in my last post. Anyway this weeks progress has been fairly productive and I took some pictures to show you what I did.

Ties made and stitched in place

Handles added

The next step was to insert the lining, add the binding and stitch in place, this was the first time I have used a double binding for a bag and I must agree with Heather it does give a nice firm edge to the top of the bag.

Once the binding was sewn down inside the bag, I needed to make some fabric beads for the ends of the ties, now I must admit I had thought to skip this bit as it seemed quite fiddly and time consuming, but today I thought 'lets give it a try', I'll make one and see how it goes! It went very well and it looked very cute so I made the other three in less than 2 hours and took some pics to show you the process.

2" x 3" piece of fabric

cut pieces of fabric 2" x 3" and fold them in half along the short side, R/S together and stitch, I chain pieced them on the machine to save time and make them a bit stronger.

next you need to run a gather stitch through one end and slide this tube up over the raw end of the ties so that about 1/4" of the tie protrudes.

pull up the stitches tightly and fasten off securely but do not cut your thread as you will need it again.

Pull the little tube down over itself covering the end of the tie and showing the R/S of the fabric.

 Next turn in about 1/2" round the raw edge and using the thread from the other end sew a small gather stitch along the edge, then stuff the 'bead' firmly, I find using the end of my scissors helped with this!

gather up the stitches, fasten off securely and you have a fabric bead

Voila! 4 fabric beads to decorate your bag ties

and a completed bag!

If I say so myself I am rather proud of this!! What do you think?
Last but by no means least we all know that I do not NEED any more fabric but on Thursday I went along to have a sewing machine serviced by Mark (he of the Huskqvarna shop) who was doing basic services for a small fee and of course being the business man he is he brought some fabric with him, now this was so that while he was working on your machine you would have something to look at and would not get bored waiting! LOL so I looked... and then I saw... this fabric which spoke to me, so in the end it actually cost me twice as much to have the service done because I bought this....8 FQ's and 2 half metres,

haven't got a clue what I will do with them but Hey!!! its sooo pretty! and it was tied with a sweet bit of ribbon which will surely come in useful for something .. wont it?

Now I am off to have another 'play' with my new machine so hopefully, I will have something else to show you next time.

Bye for now

Lorraine.