Where does the time go?

Hi Everyone,
Well! its February already and I realised I haven't blogged for ages. Ive had another nasty flu thing which kept me in bed on Friday last, leaving me with a heavy cold in d'nose. but now I am better!!! Yay!

 I have had no luck at all with the Trapunto wool for the Rennie Mac' project (previous blog) I phoned Coats Crafts to discover they have stopped producing it. A friend suggested writing to Sylvia Critcher but at the moment I am trying out some very soft hand knit DK which has been lying around the workroom for ages, so far its not looking too bad so I may just continue with that. Here's a picture of how it looks, the centre and bottom left corner are done!

The WI talk I was booked for went really well, they were a lovely group, very friendly and asked lots of questions over the tea & cakes! It was a filthy night, throwing it down with rain and really cold but a lot of ladies turned out to hear me speak. I may even have got a future student out of it. (I know!, I know! I'm supposed to be retiring!!)

Last Wednesday evening was the AGM at Severn Valley Quilters, luckily that was just before the dreaded virus! As Group Secretary it was quite a busy night with taking the minutes, then after the formal meeting was over,  I took a mini badge making workshop. 

Badges- 1 pieced over papers, 1 Bonded & 2 Crazy

 We (the committee) decided  that as we are a fairly big group now (35+ members & growing) it would be good if everyone had a a name badge to wear. I gave them a choice of designs and they all seemed to be getting on OK with them. Most people will finish them off at home, then they will be kept at group so no-one forgets to bring/wear them.

Clock Tower meetings started again on 22nd Jan. It was sooo great to see everyone and there was great excitement when one of our number announced she is going to be a Mum again in August (will this be the youngest quilter on record I wonder?) I also had some great news, (BIG fanfare!!!!)  I'm finally going on a quilt tour to the States :-))), something I have hoped for ever since I started quilting (AND BIGGER FANFARE) we are going to be Grandparents again in July :-)))))), something I never thought would happen. So with 2 babies on the way my knitting fingers are going to have to fly this year. My daughter is not really a big fan of quilts tho she has generously said I can make one if I like, but she has picked out a few knitting patterns she likes and I do have a mountain of yarn that is nearly as high as the fabric mountain. I have already made a small blanket that was designed by a friend of mine several years ago, it was really fun to do and all I needed was the excuse. I will post a picture when I can get one in daylight as being cream in colour it will not fare well for photography with these dull days.

I thought I would share the Show & tell from CTQ with you so here is Sheila with her Chicken, this is the workshop I missed at Westbury park Quilters when I went to give the WI talk on 10th Jan.

Sheila with her Log Cabin Chicken
and a close up




                                                                                                   
Sue with her Church banner and her Storm at Sea
cushion (16") which was pieced over papers
approx 1" - 1 1/2" in size.

Harriet was delighted when she saw her projects in print in January's Fabrications magazine and ran round showing it off to all the family, so I am pleased I sent them in. I am hoping to take her along to Severn Valley this year though Kevin and her Mum say it will all be 'behaviour dependant' I think she will get a lot out of it. She has asked me if she can make a 'big quilt' so It could be a busy summer, I have promised to take her to Malvern show in May so we could get the fabrics there. I usually go with a group of ladies so I may have to go twice :-)))

Monday night I was lucky enough to go to Bristol Hippodrome to see 'Calendar Girls' with Linda Bellingham, in the lead, what a hoot. Its coming to the end of its run now so I'm glad I've seen it live.

Well best be off till next time

Byeeee

Happy New Year

 Happy new year to all, We finally got snow in time for Christmas which was nice if a little inconvenient as our road was a bit like a skating rink.
I 'tweeked' the tree as I was not happy with it and then felt the house looked quite festive. My new Santa (remember him?) looked a bit too big for the mantle-shelf so he spent Christmas sitting on the top of the stereo speaker where he seemed much more comfortable and I hung a up little 'Origami tree which I made last year in the porch, these are really easy to make and only take a few hours I made this one while watching T.V.  It seemed a of a long holiday this year with all those bank holidays eh?
Still! today I went to a sewing day with some of the girls from Severn Valley Quilters, we hold them 3/4 times a year and it has really broken the 'quilting drought' for me, it is so good to spend time with like minded people, I was beginning to feel like I was really outta tune somewhere! I have come to the workroom several times this week to sew and ended up not doing anything sensible. 
So today I finished hand sewing the 'tramlines'on a Trapunto project I need to find some trapunto wool, does anyone know where I can find some? I have trawled the 'net' but to no avail and am beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea. I am using some pale pink silk (that I bought in 2008 at the Oakshott Fabrics sale) with a Charles Rennie Macintosh Rose design from a patchwork magazine.

Its been really nice to just hand sew for a while I was a bit machine stitched out with all those cushions I made for the children. They did not receive them till about a week after Christmas as I went down with a flu like virus on Boxing night and did not want to pass anything on to the family. When they came over, having been given their presents they were thrilled, the twins just carried theirs around for the duration of their visit and the older ones sat cuddled up in front of the TV with theirs. Eli (7months) just grabbed his toy elephant and proceeded to explore it all over with hands and mouth, so I think that was a success also.


I thought I would share some items that Harriet (my granddaughter) has made with you, I sent off some pictures to Fabrications Magazine and they were published in the December issue, Which she has not seen yet! She had been quite busy quilting wise during the last year completing a cushion, a bag and some Halloween projects.
These are the picture I sent to the magazine.

Bag front     

Bag Back

This is her bag made from some Charity shop jeans, it has a long shoulder strap made from the cut off legs and she had great fun planning all the embellishments.

And this is her cushion.
All her own design and her first attempt at raw edge applique by machine,
These projects were made over the summer on her visits to stay with us. She is fast becoming a 'fabriholic' (just like me!).





 She was here again in October and this time wanted to make a 'Goodie bag' to take Trick or treating with her friends. She did some rough drawings and chose some fabrics and we set to, a spider seemed to be a 'must' plus some lettering, and she had some purple starry fabric in her stash so with some stitching and gluing she made this bag, she also covered a head band with red fabric and made some sparkly red fabric 'horns' which with a little help she stitched on, if you look close you can see her wearing them in the picture, apparently she and her friends had a great time on the night and Harriet had to call in at home part way round to empty her bag of goodies!

Monday night will see me off to give a talk to a local WI group, unfortunately it means I will miss the meeting at Westbury Park Quilters which is a shame as I really wanted to do the workshop to make a Log cabin Chicken door stop, but a friend will pick up some instructions for me and I will to make one at home.
Well that's about it for this time so I will sign off till next time.
Happy stitchin'
Lorraine