Well, after spending a great deal of time on the phone to both our broadband provider (me) and our landline provider (Malcolm) ........ and getting nowhere .......... Malcolm did some research online, and we hope we have now solved the problem (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday's posts were composed when we were over at the flat, where the broadband speed is much better, and scheduled to appear). I will be delighted if all is well, as I want to get back to my Monday-to-Friday posts, now that all the busy-ness of the festive season is over.
So, what better thing to start with, than this morning's breakfast. I know I have shown you my tractor egg cup before, but I love it so much I thought it deserved another appearance!
over the past few weeks, I have layered several quilts, using safety pins
I use the edge of my nail on my first finger of my left hand, which isn't very good for it ...... and last week my poor abused nail broke (I can't recall when I last had a broken nail)
so I decided to invest in a gadget which closes the pins
which will save my poor nail from further damage
across blogland, people have been choosing their word for the year, but I have chosen a phrase ....... small bites. Let me explain. I have mentioned before that I work most efficiently when I spend a set amount of time working on each of several projects in the course of the day. If I plough doggedly on, trying to finish something, I get bogged down and my work gets slower, and I get fed up and put that project away. So I have decided to give my method the title of small bites. The idea came from the answer to "how do you eat an elephant?" ....... "one bite at a time". So this afternoon, I layered two small quilts for Linus, as we are having an Abbey Quilters sewing day on Saturday. The photos above with the pins give you a glimpse of one of the fabrics, but you will have to wait until next week to see the quilts. I also looked out these leftover strips from a jelly roll to make the two lots of binding
next I got out my panda block. I had asked Alison if she would like it, as she loves pandas. She had said yes please, and we decided that I would make it into a cushion
I ran a line of stitching round the edge to keep it stable. I just used the blue thread which was in the machine, as it won't show when the cushion is finished
having trimmed the edges, I looked out this lovely dark green fabric from my stash, for the back of the cushion and the binding
then I looked out my somewhat neglected Mrs Billings
and pinned the first row of diamonds in place, ready to applique them
and finally ........ I just couldn't resist it any longer! I looked out these wonderful fabrics which I bought when I spent the wonderful five days with my crazy mad adorable Australian quilty friends in October 2014, and one of them, Mrs Mac, gave me some extra fat quarters to go with them
so, what was I going to do with them? Well, I chose this fabric and this stitchery
I drew round a template to give me a bigger hexie than the stitchery to cut out
on the ironing board, I centred the stitchery on the wrong side of the fabric, pinned it in place, folded the first side of the larger hexie in half, and pressed it
I then folded it over on to the stitchery, and again pressed it
I continued folding and pressing until all the sides were done, and pinned in place
as always at this time of year, I am determined to only use fabric and thread from my various stashes, so I looked out this beautiful blue thread. I will stitch the border in place with big quilting stitches, then work a line of smaller quilting stitches about a quarter of an inch in from the border
so, it was altogether a very productive afternoon! Do pop in again tomorrow, as I have some knitting to share with you!!