Stitching away

I am currently stitching my fingers away trying to finish a cross stitch picture so if I'm quiet for a while you'll know why. I have shown this before on my blog and the last time it looked like this.









I have done loads since and the end is in sight. I haven't done an awful lot of cross stitch - think I'm too impatient as it's very slow going - lol ! I would like to have this finished as soon as possible as I have lots of hand work lined up.







For a bit of fun I have entered a quilt into the weekly Quilting Gallery Competition Click the link to see all the quilts.













I have entered my olympic Challenge quilt which has appearred on here several times. It was hand-pieced during the Olympic Games in 2008 and contained a piece of every fabric in my stash at the time. I'm sure if I did the same again now it would make a far bigger quilt - lol ! Think my stash has grown somewhat since then :-)

I have never done this before and I am just hoping I will not be last in the voting - argghh - lol !!




With a bit of luck I will be able to show you my completed cross stitch next time. I have lots to show you too but am trying to limit my computer time to get this done. Fingers crossed

A well overdue catch-up post coming up.
I am feeling so much better due to a combination of decent painkillers and physiotherapy - can't wait to get proper back to normal. I have actually managed to get some quilting done but first want to re-cap over my other stuff that I have done whilst my back/leg was really bad.

First up a little knitting. Couple of baby cardigans and a hat for DD Jess's boyfriends new little brother due to be born tomorrow ( Easter Sunday )



This is a really pretty lilac cotton yarn ( not photographed terribly well ) This went to my friend Julies new grand-daughter ( Amber Lily - who I made the little wall quilt for )



A crochet UFO that had been hanging around for a while with about a half-hours work left on it. DD Jess is now the owner of this.



A new crochet project started - this was one I could do when I was flat out on my back. The instructions for this came from Attic24 blog. Not sure of the exact address as it's on my other pc but you will find it if you google it. She has some lovely tutorials on here and it is the only crochet blog ( amongst hundreds of quilting ones ) that I read.




Just using up some odds and ends of a cheapie acrylic yarn for this. I would love to do it again some time with some soft cotton. But haven't got too far with this yet. Think I have 35 hexies done. I will know how big this will finish when I run out of yarn - lol ! Haven't worked on this for a while but feel in the mood to do a few more since I pulled it out of the bag to take a photo.

What's next ???? Oh yes...

Bought a new metal tumbler template to try out and was very brave and decided to cut into my precious Japanese fabrics.

Only a small quilt this - doll size. Really enjoyed it as I had not done sewing on my machine for a while.

Pressed seams open for a change and they lay lovely and flat.

Trimmed and bordered..

This has been hand quilted now - I will show you soon.

A forgotten about cat block was dug out and had the stitching finished off. A couple of little borders added and this is ready for quilting. Might layer this up later and have it ready to take to my Quilt Group.

And lastly for now - you may know that applique is not my friend. I love the look of it but am not too good at it. This year I want to do more using different methods to see what I like the best. I don't mind machine applique but really want to do more hand work. So I made a few basket blocks using a freezer paper method. They came out ok but after 14 blocks I'd had enough. These will NOT become a big quilt - lol ! Maybe a bag or wall-hanging !

Well I've run out of time and I wanted to tell you about a little swap I've been involved in and a giveaway I've won but that will have to wait.

Hope you all have a great Easter - we have a busy couple of days ahead but I'm hoping to find a bit of stitchy-time here and there...

Take care xx

A finish !

I actually completed this a couple of weeks back but am just now getting round to showing you. It has appearred on my blog in various stages of completion but is now D.O.N.E - hurray.

First of all I quilted in the ditch with invisible thread but decided I wanted to add some hand-quilting. If you click these pictures you can see some detail. Please remember some of this quilting was done when I was flat on my back with this slipped disc so be gentle with me - lol !

I think I will put a hanging sleeve on this and find a spot for it somewhere - not sure where yet.

For anyone interested it is called Log Cabin Sampler by Bareroots. It measures 34 by 38inches.

I have quite a bit of stuff to show and will try to catch up over the next few days. I have been very unsettled and done lots of bits and pieces here and there - you will see what I mean soon :-)

I only have a few minutes here so will quickly show a little bag I made for Floss as a little giveaway thing from a while back.

And here is a lovely little surprise I received from Karol-Ann for guessing how many 4-patches she made before attending a workshop with Bonnie Hunter ( lucky girl ).

Now that's the sort of post I like to receive - great fun ! Of course the very delicious bar of chocolate is long gone . . .

One last thing - I received an email a while back from Pameladownunder who I would love to answer but unfortunately is no-reply. If you are reading this Pamela perhaps you could email me again with your email addy so I can answer you.

Next post will be a proper mish-mash I assure you - need to take some photos.

See you soon xx

A bit sad

I have been doing quite a lot of sewing lately ( I am now on Morphine tablets which although not ideal in the long term are bloody marvellous at taking some of the pain away until things improve ) but I am not showing you what I've been doing just yet as I want to tell you all of something very thought provoking that happened to me this week.

I attend a small quilt group every Tuesday night and although I hadn't been for a while - with these new pills I have been feeling so much better I managed to get there last week and the week before.

Anyway we had visitors on Tuesday night - a couple of ladies from a locallish quilt group selling fabric. You see one of their members sadly died just after Christmas and this fabric belonged to her. When she passed away her husband did not know what to do with all her stuff and was actually going to dump it all in the land fill site. Her friends came to the rescue and decided they would sell it for her and then her family would donate the proceeds to charity.

When they were due to come on Tuesday we knew these friends had already been to a few venues and had held a sale in a church hall so we were not expecting too much. Well when they arrived we were all absolutely staggered by the sheer quantity of fabric they brought in. I wished I'd had my camera - it was amazing. The ladies told us that this was only about a QUARTER of what they'd started with !!!!

The lady who'd died had also had 5 sewing machines, cutting mats galore and anything else you could think of to do with quilting but many of them. I think she was a compulsive buyer.

I obviously bought some fabric and I kept thinking how sad it was that she never got to use this fabric although of course it was good that at least it would be bought by quilters who would love it and use it to make beautiful quilts with. What a shame it would have been for it all to be dumped.

It certainly made me think about how much fabric we own. My stash is a good size but really I could see how it could so easily get out of control. Before this I was thinking I would try and use more from my stash this year and this has seconded it.

Here's what I got

To date her friends have sold over £8,000 worth of quilting stuff - I think that's about $13,000

Makes you think doesn't it ?

Simple is good.

No I haven't forgotten my blog- just I am still having nerve trouble with my wretched leg. It is getting sooo painful now nearly all day long. At the moment I can stand or lie down ( quite uncomfortable ) but am literally unable to sit- at all !! If it can be done standing or lying then great I'm fine but sitting is out of the equation. I am awaiting physiotherapy but my doctor has told me there is a 3 month wait for that. Last week I was sent for x-rays just to make sure it is nothing worse than a trapped nerve. My husband had to drive me to the hospital while I gritted my teeth and slumped in the passenger seat.

About 2 minutes from the hospital my mobile phone rang. It was my son Patricks school to say he had been involved in an accident at lunchtime. He was fine but was missing a couple of teeth !!!! Whaaaaattt ???? Apparently he had been drinking a can of Pepsi and another boy had killed a ball at him ( completely by accident ) the ball hit the can - the can hit Patricks mouth with some force and this is the result.

An emergency trip to the dentist for a lovely session of root canal work. Because the teeth snapped at gum line my dentist believes the roots will be strong but obviously he will have to have work to build up on what he's got. I'm completely gutted as of course they are his adult teeth and he hasn't had them long. I have always nagged both my kids to clean and look after their teeth - they will thank me in the long run. All those times they used to say they were too tired to do them at night and would give them an extra clean in the morning just didn't wash with me !! Anyway with a bit of luck Patrick will be happy with his false ones and it could have been a lot worse.

After all the drama - I cancelled the x-ray that day and went the next - I was really in the mood for some nice stress-free simple sewing. My friends little boy was having his second birthday the week after and I decided to make him a quilt for his new big-boy bed.

I started with a few I-spy squares that I had cut out a while ago.

There are 20 here but I managed to find another 4 for a 4 by 6 layout.

His bedroom has just been re-decorated in red and blue so I picked some nice bright ones from my stash to frame each block. I also used a bit of this for the inner border.

If you can't see the selvedge it is marked 2003. this pre-dates my quilting days as I think I started the following year. This is probably one of the first fabrics I bought then.

Here is a close-up of some of the fabrics

And here is the finished quilt.

It turned out good and even the quilting went well. Straight line quilting in the blocks and a swirly border. Isn't it nice when it all works out fine with no hiccups ( or hiccoughs - lol ). This quilt was very well received by young Ewan and his parents. I hope he has fun with it - spotting all the different things.

One last thing - whilst sorting out my photos I came across this picture that I don't think I've shown. It was an orphan block that I quilted and made into a cushion as a gift for an elderly couple that DH Jason has as his customers. He took it to them for Christmas and it has pride of place on their sofa I believe.

Well off to pop a few more pills - I am so trying not to moan about all this and I'm sure once I get moving on the physio I will see some improvement There are a lot of folk far worse off than me. I have also ordered a DVD from Amazon called Pilates for people with Back Pain. I'll give that a go too.

I also have something else to show you but have no photos yet so that will be for next time.

Bye for now xxx

Scraps and a gift

Before Christmas I decided I would do something with my big box of little scraps. These are quite small bits that had accumulated over time. I had used up my box of strings previously on my crap circle quilt shown below. I had a lovely couple of hours sitting on my bed sorting through these with the help of one of my furry babies. If you click for a better look you will see my cat, scraps and quilt - lol !

I then started sewing them together randomly and trimming after each seam. This is great fun and something I really enjoy. I have a 6 inch square ruler and once the piece got to a big enough size these scruffy pieces got turned from these

Into these . . . . . .


I have not been doing a lot of sewing - mainly due to the ongoing problem of sciatica - but now and again I have been doing a few more of these here and there. Yesterday I counted them up and discovered I have made 95 blocks already with still no end to the scraps - lol ! Not sure how I will set these but for the moment I am really enjoying them. Quite satisfying making something from nothing. When I started quilting - seven years ago - I used to throw my scraps in the bin. What a terrible thought !!!

I am still slowly working on the 600 flying geese needed for the quilt in my last post. However my sewing machine is playing up again so for now I am using my little back-up machine to make these scrap blocks.

Last week a new friend - Julie - from my quilting group became a grandma for the first time. She phoned to let me know her daughter had the baby - a little girl called Amber Lily. My first thought was to make her a little something. I was going to knit a little jacket but I knew Julie had done lots of knitting for her so I decided a small wall-hanging for the nursery would be nice.
Here is the start of it

And here it is appliqued, bordered, quilted and bound. Tada !!! There are little hanging tabs on the back so hopefully it will be up on the wall soon..

I gave it to Julie on Tuesday to pass onto the new parents and she was so touched she almost cried - literally. I did not expect that ! It was so nice to do something from start to finish.

Because I can't sit at the computer for long before my leg starts paining I am behind on answering comments and emails - please forgive me. I am keeping up with all your blogs and comment when I can. I am currently awaiting hospital appointments for physiotherapy and am sure once I start these my sciatica will improve. I can't wait to get back to my quilting properly.

Have a good week xxx

Good morning. I have a couple of questions for you today. The first one I'm pretty sure I know the answer too but I'm very curious about the second.

1. Do you have UFO's ? - see I think I'm almost positive most of you will say yes - lol. I think of my UFO's as something I have started and abandoned before it is done. I am not classing my long term projects in this - such as my English Paper Piecing quilts ( of which I have a few ) as I keep doing a bit here and there. When I get to the stage where my quilt becomes a UFO for whatever reason - deadline on something else, just got distracted etc - I stop working on it. This leads to my next question.

2. Are your UFO's carefully put away in a logical order - perhaps with notes - so you can see where you're up to ? Or are they literally bundled away out of sight, out of mind - lol.

You have probably guessed I'm going somewhere with this. Yes I am working on one of my numerous UFO's - not sure how many I've quite got but a few should cover it :-) After the Christmas rush I got to thinking which one of my quilts-in-progress would I like to see finished first. I decided on one I started only last year but which I really want completed. I will re-cap on this. It is one I saw in Quilters Newsletter and was love at first sight. It is made mainly in Reproduction fabrics and my wonderful friend Dawn very kindly bought me the poison green, chrome yellow fabrics I was struggling to get hold of. She had seen the quilt " in the flesh " and also sent some photos of it. We decided to both make this quilt.

Anyway I knew where it was - all piled up on a tray under my sewing table - like so

Some bits were done - some fabrics cut - little bits half done - no order whatsoever ! So I spent a bit of time working out exactly where I was with this.

There are 25 blocks in the quilt. I discovered 4 were complete.

Each block starts with a nine-patch in the centre and is then bordered. I found all nine-patches done and some ( about 5 more ) had their borders. I had no little borders cut so first job was to go through my fabric drawers and get the fabrics I had used so far - adding a few more to the mix - definitely a scrappy quilter at heart.

I now have all the borders on the nine-patches and am in the process of making lots of flying geese units ( there are 600 altogether )

To my delight I also found I'd made the 80 four-patches needed for the outer border. I can't even remember making these - lol !

I know this is a little long winded but I wanted to share how much fun I had sorting through all my bits and pieces and finding out what needed doing. I know it would have been far easier if everything had been tidy and labelled in little bags and the rest of my pieces cut out but I guess that's just not me.

I am up to 9 blocks complete now with lots more flying geese made and ready to sew. Might get some done later with a bit of luck although my leg is troubling me today. Could be worse.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by the Australian floods - so much devastation - the world truly has it's troubles. I hope to make a small donation tomorrow and wish it could be more.

Take care xxx