I've been sewing again!!!

...with a little knitting thrown in of course! Yes folks I've had a great time since I last talked to you all, first up the  proper yarn arrived for the BIG knitting project which you may be relieved to hear is going much better and actually looks like it will fit DH when it's done, Whooo Hoo!! I'm now on week 7 of the Rowan Mystery Knit Along (see previous posts) About three weeks ago I decided to randomly pull out a project from the WIP's pile, this turned out to be my Row Robin, set as a group challenge at Severn Valley Quilters in 2005 (Yes really! that long ago) The Row Robin project was a group of 7 quilters of mixed ability, we decided to set some guidelines so that we all worked to a common theme, and the rows were passed around anonymously, I'm sure you all know how these things work so won't bore you with all the details. I had originally thought that I would hand quilt the easy bits and machine quilt the rest, so not being able to remember how far I had got and leaning towards a bit of hand quilting I decided that it would suit the purpose. The weather was still warm so I took it to the conservatory to establish what needed doing. Well! It turned out that there were only 2 more rows to  left to quilt and as I had already hand quilted most of it I decided to continue and complete the whole thing by hand. After a couple of hours I had made some good progress, but the old fingers were aching so I put it away, then later that week I did a bit more. I was due to visit the American Museum to attend one of their sewing bees with some of the girls from SVQ, and thought it would be a great opportunity to get a bit more done while talking to the visitors. At the September meeting of SVQ I met a young woman who with her husband and children recently moved to the village from California, she was looking for a quilt group and came along as a visitor, unfortunately our group is at capacity so she was unable to join, but we had a chat and she's really missing her quilting friends from the U.S. I later emailed her to suggest we might meet for coffee and to invite her to a small local quilt show. We had a great day, the show did not take us long as it was very small and so having gone to the pub to get lunch we ended up staying there chatting all afternoon. Then she invited me to her house for a sewing day last week, again we had a good time and I managed to get more done on the quilting, so now my quilt is almost all done and looks like this...I'm currently working on the final bit of quilting on the row at the top.

Row Robin ably displayed by DH 

During the process I decided I would keep a diary as I worked and looking back it makes interesting reading as I can now see what I was thinking as I worked on each row of the various quilts and how I solved some of the things that cropped up.
Last week on a very wet Monday DD, DGD and I set out for a day at the West Midland Safari Park, we had a great day despite the weather and as there was hardly any other visitors there we were able to get a good view of all the 'residents' including this litttle cutie.

Isn't he just the cutest thing on 4 legs?

Some of the other animals were not enjoying the weather at all as you can see here, all the Lemurs were snuggled up to one another and looked totally fed up!

On Saturday I'm off to Malvern for the Autumn Show with 3 friends, I'm hoping to do some of the workshops, (I did some last year and they were great fun!!) as well as see the quilt displays, I am not 'planning' any shopping as I am trying not to put any more fabrics etc in the workroom, that way there will be less to pack up and move when we get the new workroom built which at this rate is going to be sometime next year! Now I know that seems a long way off but all things considered I probably have just enough supplies to keep me going till then and there are quite a few WIP's waiting in the pile to work on, so I'll try to concentrate on that for the time being and hopefully the workshops will keep me occupied from looking at tooo many traders. Well folks it's well after midnight here so I'll say Night Night.
Lx

'Just how many knitting projects are too many?'

On Monday evening at Knitter Knatter the above question was posed and the answer seems to have been agreed at 8 if you have 7 you have one for everyday of the week, any more and you don't have a day to work on them! Phew that was a relief as I currently have several on the go but not that many - Well not quite anyway! I know things are getting serious when I start knitting in bed (which I am doing again!!) The problem is I have a bit of a hiatus on the large sweater problem for DH (see previous posts) which despite having 4 (YES FOUR) goes at getting it right, is still coming out too big. So I have given up on the cheapo yarn bought at a cut price store and resorted to ordering the correct yarn for the pattern from the lovely Tina at The Wool Stop. Then there are 'the hats' 7 at the last count, they are basic beanie hats for the homeless made from left over bits and pieces, I make them as 'fillers' for when things are quiet on the knitty front but once I start they just keep appearing, especially since I started knitting them in the round... Sooo much quicker!!!Then this week I started some pretty cabled wrist warmers, plus I'm still knitting squares for the Rowan Knit Along, and then today my Knitting magazine arrived and it has the cutest little reindeer kit to knit for Christmas which is just calling out to be made!!!.
So what else has been happening around here since my  last post.. first the most exciting news is the Architect came back with the completed plans for my new workroom ans after a few 'tweaks' they have been sent off too the planning office for approval so we now have an eight week wait to see if we can start building. At the end of August DD & Co bought a tent, they came over and practised putting it up in the garden and as you can see it is very roomy, so roomy in fact we had to put it up in the neighbour's garden as it didn't quite fit on the lawn between the rockery and the path in ours.

They managed a few days on The Gower Peninsular (here) earlier this month and managed to get the last of the good weather, Little GD had a great time running in and out of the sea and rock pooling with daddy.
I've done a bit of fabric weaving and made this cover for a little needlebook

My sister in law popped in to leave me this delightful bundle of premmie knits to sent to the local hospital.

Like me she knits all the time and is always making baby things to send to expectant Mums who are work colleagues of her daughters, all of the above were made from her leftover yarns and include bootees, mitts and hats as well as the cute cardi.

A while ago a friend asked me if I could make up a soft toy knitted by her grandmother before she died, I said I would have a look but that I am not good at finishing knitted toys, the bag she gave me contained all the knitted parts' for a clown doll made from a Jean Greenhowe book, and recently I was telling a friend about it at knitting group when one of the ladies there offered to do it for her, it was returned last week and what a splendid fellow he is...

 DH went to out pick and I quote 'a few blackberries' and came back with over 7lbs so a Jam making session ensued

Autumn Fruits

Setting point

equals 10lbs of lovely Jam

There have been babysitting duties with little H including a 2 night stay here for her while DD and DSIL had their belated honeymoon, they went 'glamping' which is a sort of luxury camping holiday, staying in a Shepherds Hut that had all the 'mod cons' of a comfortably appointed cottage.(See Here) H and I had a great time, on the Friday we went shopping on the bus. Then on Saturday we did some baking and took along a few cakes to share with the lovely ladies at Clock Tower before setting off for a picnic lunch at the local Animal Park and Adventure playground at Old Down Country Park (here) which she just loved and spent around 3 1/2 hours bouncing,

 and running around, getting muddy and very tired, she slept 12 hours straight Saturday night then on Sunday she had her favorite 'Roasty chicken lunch' followed by Blackberry & apple crumble with custard before going home with Mum & Dad.
In between all this I have been working on a project for a challenge and have used these

 to make these...

 

all will become clear when I reveal the final project which I am making for a challenge. I'll also be using some of these fabrics and these nifty notions.

 

 

 

Well that's about it for tonight, the film I've been watching while writing this is over and it's waaaay past my bedtime so goodnight all. Lxx