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