frayed at the edge

Home is where the heart is ........

........ is the theme for the April block for Lucie's  "A is for Applique" challenge.  In a previous post I showed you the fabric that I had chosen, and the little stitcheries that I hoped to use in some of the blocks.  I don't very often draw out a proper pattern - I just scribble a vague plan.  This was the first version ......

 

....... and this was the second version

 

I had decided to use the idea of hearts as flowers

 

as always I used a cereal packet to make my templates.  Here they are ready to mark out the pieces on freezer paper

 

I stitched the little stitchery to two pieces of fabric, the top piece is for another stitchery, and the larger piece is for the applique

 

after a great deal of thought, I came up with this wording for the stitchery

 

I'll show you the next stages tomorrow.  It has been very windy today, and when I opened the back door to go out to the studio, two of the Indonesian puppets under the hall table blew over!

 

this is how they should look

 

these bigger puppets are too heavy to blow over

 

to finish, some rather sad photos!  We had a pair of collared doves in the garden for several weeks, but now there is only one of them, who flits between the front and back gardens, calling for its mate.  For the past few days, it has taken to sitting on the wooden steps in front of the lounge window

The big night out

On Friday, we headed to north to Stuart and Alison's and after getting dressed up, Stuart ran us through to The Edinburgh School of Food and Wine, for an evening of eating French food, and drinking French Wine.  Stuart and Alison had given us a gift voucher for a food and wine evening for our birthdays last year, and we had decided to wait until the spring to book our places.  The evening was co-hosted by Great Grog, and we were greeted by a rather handsome young man from the wine merchants.  This is the menu and wine list

 

I don't have a photo of the canapes, as we had them when we were standing chatting with the other diners (there were fourteen of us) in the entrance hall, so first we have the scallop St Jacques

 

then the delicious coq au vin.  This was such a generous helping that I couldn't finish mine, and even Malcolm, who would normally have eaten my leftovers, couldn't find room for any more!

 

next was cheese, with oatcakes and pear chutney (I was slightly critical of the chutney, which was more like stewed pear)

 

then ....... the most amazing tarte au citron.  There was silence as we ate it, apart from occasional little sighs of pleasure!

 

before each course, young James the wine merchant described the wines, and we had to hold the glass up to the light to check the clarity, swirl the wine round the glass then sniff the bouquet ...... then finally we got to taste it!  At the end of the meal he quite happily agreed to have his photo taken, but then went all shy!

 

Stuart came back for us, and on Saturday morning we had recovered enough from eating all that food to enjoy the breakfast which he cooked for us.  On the way home, we decided to stop in South Queensferry, to have a stroll in the sunshine.  I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that this is the Forth Bridge

 

although the sun was shining, the views over the river were hazy.  This is Inchcolm Island, framed by the bridge

 

the tide was out!

 

I love the pirate flag (and the plastic seagull!)

 

blue sky and old chimneys - a great combination

 

when I saw the stretch limmo, I thought Malcolm had arranged a treat for me ..... sadly it drove on by!

 

I have lots more photos from South Queensferry, which I will keep for another day, as I also have photos from yesterday.  We weren't able to go for our Sunday morning walk, as it was raining, so instead we headed here for a cuppa.  The sconnage was of the highest quality ........

fruit, with jam and cream

 

cheese, with butter

 

out in the grounds of the visitor centre, a new children's play area has been built (we were very tempted to have a go!)

 

perhaps Malcolm could make me a wooden cart and horse?!

 

Brave!

This was my hair first thing this morning

 

then I spent the afternoon at the hairdresser.  This is stage one, having my colour done

 

then stage two, some highlights using foils

 

my hair on the floor after having it cut (hmmmm - that's an interesting colour)

 

my usual hairdresser, Melissa, has been off work, so the lovely Kerry has been looking after me.  Here she is showing me the back view

 

I had told Malcolm that I was going to have highlights done ...... he assumed that it would be my usual pink or purple.  So he was slightly surprised when I came home with bright turquoise!

 

I won't be here tomorrow, as we are having a very special night out here.  So you will have to wait until Monday to read all about it!  So, a day early, I will wish you all a good weekend, love Anne

Hoarse!

I have been croaking a bit today, after talking loudly yesterday evening!  I asked my friend Anne S to take photos for me, and she has captured some good action shots (and some less flattering ones that you are not going to see!)

showing off the (almost) finished project

 

some inspiration

 

lazy daisies

 

showing the samples

 

working my way round the room, giving advice

 

helping Caroline

 

why am I laughing?

 

because Katy was trying to distract me (while Maureen got on with her sewing)

 

a last look at the wallhanging, now called Abbey Flowers

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, and I hope the members did too.  When I got home, Malcolm poured me a very welcome glass of wine, then it was off to bed to dream about applique flowers!!

The big night!

After all the preparation, my big night teaching textured applique at Abbey Quilters has arrived.  So just a quick post before I have my dinner and head out for Kelso.  I didn't finish all the quilting, as I wanted to leave some ares free of stitching, to show the difference that quilting makes.  I also used several different stitches to show how that can change the look of the work as well

the almost finished piece (which still doesn't have a name!)

 

echo quilting

 

continuing a section of quilting out in the sashing

 

cross hatching

 

seed stitch - time-consuming, but effective

 

echoes of the tendrils

 

turkey tracks - another time-comsuming stitch

 

tiny leaves

 

the only lines that I marked were the ones for crosshatching (I didn't have a ruer in the house, so I just used the edge of a bookmark, which is why the spacing is a bit uneven!).  I don't generally use any fancy sort of marking pencil, unless I need a white pencil to show up on dark fabric.  I like mechanical pencils .... and shock, horror, yesterday I used up my last one!  But look what Malcolm got for me when he was out this morning

 

ps - the fabric the pencils are sitting on is the one I got to use as a background for the cottages.

Warning ...... very cute content!

Suddenly there are lambs everywhere, including in three of the fields across from the house, so of course I have been busy taking photos

 

it wasn't just the ewes and lambs who were enjoying the sunshine ....... the donkeys were out in the field too

 

we went for a walk along the river in Jedburgh yesterday morning.  This rider was trying to get her horse to go into the water ......

 

...... but the horse wouldn't co-operate.  Maybe it had heard that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink?!

 

this flowering currant is much further on than ours

 

I love the colours of this duck

 

I know you will find it very hard to believe, but I have never been in this shop!!

 

I wonder if anyone would notice if I appeared with a stepladder and acquired this sign?

 

we didn't have a two scone lunch, for the simple reason that the scones were enormous!  This cheese scone was very, very delicious

 

we had a stop on the way home for me to take photos of these black sheep

 

we weren't the only ones tucking into a tasty treat yesterday.  We gave Stuart and Alison a gift voucher for afternoon tea at their local garden centre, for one of their Christmas presents.  Stuart sent me this photo, with a simple caption "yummy"

Spectacular quilts .....

...... but they aren't mine!  Kay calls in to Borderland Fabric on the first Friday of the month with the quilts which she has longarm quilted.  First out of the bag was Kath's quilt, which is much brighter than it looks in the photo

 

next was Elizabeth's stunning quilt, which is entirely hand-pieced

 

the next two wallhangings were made by a man (!), Ray

 

at first glance, the second one looks like the first one, but if you look at the flying geese border, you will see that the colours are reversed

 

this detail shows Kay's wonderful quilting

 

Doreen's quilt is fresh and bright

 

Jan had brought a stunning blue and white quilt top in to have a chat with Kay about having it quilted, and to ask if the wadding she has would be suitable

 

Sandra had brought in this gorgeous quilt which she is making for her daughter.  She still has the outer borders to add - we are looking forward to seeing it when she finishes it

 

then, of course, we had the highlight of the day ...... cake!  This week we had a new one, a very, very delicious banana cake (although poor Maureen doesn't like banana cake and had to make do with a shortbread biscuit!)

 

over the weekend, I will be finishing my preparatons for my big night at Tuesday's meeting of Abbey Quilters, and making a start to the new version of my Country Cottages wallhanging.  I hope you have a good weekend, love Anne

 

 

 

Fingers crossed!

Acting on advice from Rattling on, I am using a different browser today .... so here goes!

 

I had a good trip down to Anne's yesterday, it was dry, bright and clear and the hills looked spectacular with their covering of snow.  But as always there were no laybys that I could stop in to take photos!  So I came up with a briliant idea - a camera that is linked to my eyes.  All I would have to do is look at something and blink and the camera would take a photo.  Now I just have to find someone to make it for me!!

There was a lot of sewing going on yesterday.  If you think Annie's hexagons are small .....

 

..... she had some that were even smaller

 

I think I might make some for an applique project

 

Frances was working on her wonderful seahorses.  She has had to restitch some of the pieces as they didn't fit together properly - I think I would have thrown it in the corner!

 

Susan was working on miniature log cabins blocks, which several of the Friday patch'n'chatters are also doing.  I think I would soon get bored of producing block after block - you need an awful lot of them to even make a cushion!

 

Ros was working on an applique block which is part of a quilt that she is doing at classes at the shop

 

Karen was working on the same block

 

Margaret was hand quilting a beautiful double wedding ring quilt

that's Margaret on the left and Annie on the right

 

I showed off my Country Cottages, and was delighted when Anne said she would sell the pattern (and perhaps kits) in the shop.  So I immediately chose these ten fabrics to make a revised version (and then afterwards I remembered to choose a background fabric for the cottage blocks, but I haven't taken a photo of it yet)

 

as you saw in an earlier photo, I had my applique wallhanging with me, to continue the hand quilting.  Before I started the quilting, I had to decide how to do it.  Perhaps with traditional cross hatching

 

or with echo quilting

 

I decided to echo quilt - I am seriously out of practice with my handquilting, so the stitches are larger than I would normally do

 

Well, I have uploaded the photos today without any problems, so I may just continue to use this browser in future for writing my posts!

 

Go slow!

Oh dear ...... I don't know if it's my broadband connection or Typepad, but I can't get the photos to upload, so I'm sorry, but you will have to wait until tomorrow to find out about my fun day at Anne's.

Country Cottages

Inspired by all the quilts that I have been making for Anne, I decided to have a go at designing one!  The first step was to work out what I wanted the blocks to look like, and having drawn out the diagram which you have already seen, I chose these fabrics from my stash of small prints

 

using a plain cream fabric for the centre square, I made up this sample block

 

but what to put in the middle?  I decided to have little cottages, but as I have mentioned before, I can't draw!  So I handed Malcolm some sheets of paper with six inch squares drawn on them, and asked him to draw some cottages for me.  You saw the first stage of the first cottage, with the pieces bondawebbed in place.  I then stitched round the pieces with black thread, and stitched in the windows and doors

 

then I added the borders

 

next, I made another three blocks

 

the next stage was to add sashing between the blocks, with a nine-patch in the centre

 

I then added an outer border and more nine-patches

 

this is just a first version, and I can see some things I will do differently, including a lighter-coloured fabric for the sashing - the green is too dominant.  I have enjoyed doing it, and I'm looking forward to making an improved version!

I have also finished Leanne's House, and will be going down to Longframlington tomorrow to give it to Anne - I just hope that she likes it after all that work!

 

Lucie has started a challenge, to make a quilt called "A is for Applique".  The theme for the first block is "home is where the heart is", and following Lucie's suggestion, I had a look through some magazines for inspiration

 

knowing how easy it is to while away time looking through magazines, I gave myself a time limit of thirty minutes!  I saw a red, white and bue quilt, which reminded me that I had this fabric in my stash, which I bought at Quilt Expo in The Hague in 2004

 

another quilt reminded me of these little stitchery blocks, which I designed some time ago

 

I was momentarily distracted by thhese fabrics, which were in the same project box as the stitcheries (I don't know why!).  I immediately thought of the calico applique - this would look good!

 

but back to the challenge!   I now have to think of a way to combine a stitchery with some applique (I hope that's allowed in the rules!).  Of  course I'm thinking of hearts and houses - this may turn out to be a big block ...... but then using all that fabric will be another big contribution to "the year of using it up"!!

I have also started handquilting the textured applique wallhanging .   I can't remember giving it a name ....... can you suggest one?  But you know what I'm going to say now ... here is a sneak peek, I'll show you more tomorrow!