frayed at the edge

Another fun day!

We headed off down the A1 this morning, Malcolm to visit his sister Jennifer, and I to have fun day with the Wednesday Ladies at The Quilt Shop.  Ros has finished the bag that she was been working on when I was there two weeks ago.  She prefers this side ......

 

but I like this one!

 

Ros's next project is quilting this beautiful fabric, to make a quilt for a friend.  As she has her right arm in a stookie at the moment, having fallen while walking her dogs, I gave her a hand to pin it, ready for quilting

 

as always I had a browse round the new fabrics ...... lovely muted tones

 

....... vibrant colours

 

I was soon planning what I could do with this group of fabrics

 

I think these fabrics would make a lovely baby quilt

 

several of the Wednesday Ladies have bought this book ....... I am very tempted!

 

Avril was working on these blocks, which are a combination of applique and embroidery

 

I love Jill's delicate stitchery

 

Annie doesn't do subtle colours!!

 

Karen was working on an EPP project, with lots of Liberty fabrics (I WILL use mine one day!)

 

I liked the clever fussy cutting of the centre

 

drat - Malcolm came back for me just as I was paying for my purchases, so I didn't get the chance to hide them at the bottom of my sewing basket!!

 

and there may have been a little packet of buttons as well

 

do you remember when I was there two weeks ago, I suffered severe tin envy for Jill's tin?  So I was absolutely delighted when Ros gave me this diary today, as she didn't need it!!

 

I opened it at random for this photo - how cute is the duck!!

 

as I write this, I am watching the weather forecast, with the bad news that Storm Doris is on its way - I don't think we will be going far tomorrow!

Star turn!

I survived my evening of demonstrating the way I hand quilt to the lovely ladies at Abbey Quilters ........ and I even remembered to take some photos!  This is my sample - I assured the ladies they would finish theirs by the end of the evening, which was, perhaps, a slight exaggeration!

 

I started with everything in order on the table, and explained how to mark the design on the calico, make up the sandwich with the wadding and backing fabric ........

 

....... and soon everyone was busy sewing.  Margaret H soon had her first two loops stitched

 

while Sandra H was just getting started

 

Lorraine preferred to work with her favourite small hoop

 

but her Mum, Ivy, preferred a bigger hoop

 

so now, a quick demonstration of how I hand quilt (with some help from Malcolm this afternoon with the photos).  This was the piece I used last night to show how I work.  First, I don't pull the quilt sandwich tight in the hoop

 

can you see the little bump just where the last stitch is?  That's my left fore finger underneath ........

 

....... waiting for me to put the needle through vertically until it just touches my finger

 

I then catch the end of the needle on the top of my thimble

 

I rock the needle over and put my thumbnail in front of the it so that a small hill is formed, and push the needle through

 

and I just keep doing that, one stitch at a time.  I have been to various classes over the years, and tried different ways of hand quilting, including working several stitches on to the needle before pulling it through, but I always come back to this method, as it gives me neat, even stitches

 

on the requirements list for last night, I had specified quilting needles, but some of the ladies turned up with needles the size of fence posts!  Although at first it seems impossible to stitch with tiny quilting needles, the smaller the needle, the better the stitching

 

this is my preferred size, with a 5p to show just how small they are

 

I came home last night with two cards.  The card on the right is from the group to say thank you for last night's demonstration and the one on the left is from my friend Anne S, whom I met not long after we moved to Hawick

 

she couldn't find a suitable card with an owl on it, so she popped these little cuties in the envelope!

 

as the weather was so much better today, we had a run up the coast to Dunbar.  As always, our first stop was our favourite coffee shop ......... but I'll tell you all about our day out on Friday!

In the past ......

...... when I headed to Sue's shop, it meant crossing the Border, but now we are living in England, it was a straight run down the A1 from Berwick to Morpeth.  As always, the shop was filled with luscious fabrics

 

indeed there was so much new stock, that Sue has had to add a new display unit!

 

did you notice the tins?  Here they are on another display unit.  I really, really wanted to buy a set, but there is just nowhere to put them in the flat (well, perhaps I could put them under my pillow?!)

 

and just look at these fabrics, but the "divorce" word may have been mentioned, if I bought any more fabric after boxes and boxes of my stash went into storage!

 

some of the ladies were getting set up to make a bag

 

one of the stages involved creating pieces using the decorative stitches that most sewing machines have these days .......

 

........ Barbara was a step ahead, as she had made these two pieces when playing with her machine

 

these two strips were stitched by Ros ......... she had asked me last year if I could take her a "proper" Scottish haggis, so every time I go to the Quilt Shop I take her one, and as I had to go back to Hawick yesterday to see the nurse (for the last time - hooray), I remembered to get one for her .... it's not just any old haggis, but a multiple award winning one!

 

I had a severe attack of "tin envy" when I saw Gill's tin

 

not only does it have an extra picture on the bottom ......

 

........ but this is the inside of the lid!!

 

if you are wondering why I haven't been showing you any updates of my sewing, it's because I am limited to working on my BFF hexies, and I am saving the photos for my "17UFOs in2017" report at the end of the month!

An excellent day!

On Saturday I headed over to Kelso, to spend the day with some of the ladies from Abbey Quilters.  As always, it was good to see what everyone was working on.  Elaine was layering up this very pretty scrappy quilt (I might have to add one to my to-do list)

 

Sheila was working on some applique blocks - I love her choice of batik fabrics

 

Ivy's quilt is made with a selection of beautiful Japanese fabrics, and the plain stars really pop

 

Lorraine's little quilt is made with Liberty fabrics (one day I WILL cut up my Liberty fabrics!)  You might not see from the photo, but the white background is also made of lots of little hexies

 

Rineke was very patient as I took photos of the progress on her stack-and-whack (if you google stack and whack you will find lots of info on it).  First, the centre of the quilt

 

then with two plain borders added

 

and a final border of a lovely soft floral fabric, which she said she had bought years ago to make a dress with!

 

this is Liz's scrappy quilt.  It looks very complicated, but using templates to cut the blocks means that only the seams of the squares have to be matched, none of the other seams meet

 

Margaret was working on her latest whimsical block - Little Boy Blue

 

hopefully Margaret will be holding an exhibition of her work in April - planning is in the very early stages.  As soon as I have the details I will let you know ....... I hope lots of you will come along, as it is to raise money for her disabled grandson Harry, to fund his very successful playing of boccia (this is an old newspaper report about Harry)

 

when Stuart mentioned he was going to a formal dinner on Friday night, I of course demanded a photo of him in his kilt, as I know lots of you like to see a handsome young man in a kilt.  Now, you may think this is a photo of him with his girlfriend Alison, but it isn't ..........

 

......... it is a photo of him with his brand-new fiancée Alison (cue much jumping up and down and squealing from his thrilled Mum ....... Malcolm was slightly more sedate in his congratulations!!) 

 

A little bit of sewing

I'm the star turn at the February meeting of Abbey Quilters, showing the members how I hand quilt, so I thought I ought to make a start to making my sample.  I drew this design and popped it on my light pad

 

covered it with another sheet of paper, got out  a Sharpie marker

 

and traced it with much heavier lines which will show up better for the members when they trace it on to their fabric.  I don't draw over my original drawing, in case the pen slips and spoils it.  The dashed lines are to help position the pattern in the centre of the fabric

 

there are all sorts of methods for marking the design on the fabric, but I like these Frixion pens.  I know a lot of purist quilters don't like them, but I'm not using them to mark heirloom quilts, just small everyday pieces

 

I started by marking a cross in the centre of my fabric

 

then popped the fabric over the pattern on the light pad, lining up the cross with the dashed lines

 

after I have quilted the piece, I will simply waft the steam iron over the lines and they will vanish

 

a choice off threads and a choice of needles - but now you will have to wait until February to see what I did next!

 

in common with lots of people, we are trying to eat less, after over-indulging at Christmas (and we are still eating our Christmas chocolates) ......... but that was ignored today!  We had a voucher for two meals for the price of one at the Garden Centre in Kelso, so we popped in for lunch on our way over to Berwick today.  Malcolm had ham, egg and chips, which had at least a nod to healthy eating with a (very) small amount of salad

 

while I had my favourite macaroni cheese and chips!  We did only have a bowl of homemade soup for dinner, having eaten such a large lunch

 

and because of my dedication to my blog and to you, my lovely peeps, I of course had to have a "Friday cake" to share with you!!  (don't worry, I only ate half of it, Malcolm ate the rest!!)  A delicious chocolatey fruit and nut slice - it was so sweet and rich, I don't think I could have eaten the whole piece!

 

over the weekend, I will be working on one of my 17 UFOs - progress is being made! I hope you have a wonderful weekend, love Anne

 

Party time!

Last night was Abbey Quilters' Christmas party, and a very good time was had by all!  Unfortunately Trisha, who was going to show us how to make these felt candle mats, was unable to come along, as her husband is poorly - we wish Trevor a speedy recovery.  So our Chairman, Sandra, stepped in, ably assisted by Maureen and me (well, we sort of muddled through!)

 

Marcia had brought along these little stag heads to decorate her mat.  She let me take the photo in return for my having threaded her needle for her - not with my fancy all-singing, all-dancing needle threader, but with a basic, cheap-and-cheerful loop of wire one!

 

there was severe sewing basket envy when Sheena produced this thing of beauty (she made me give it back after I took the photo!)

 

our Vice-Chairman Gill was definitely in party mode!

 

and you know that no quilters' occasion is complete without a delicious spread of food  (I made sure to take a photo before the ravening horde members got near the table!)

 

and there was a good selection of (non-alcoholic) drinks to wash it all down

 

looking forward to next year, I had taken in these hand-quilted cushions and quilts, as I will be doing a little project with the group at the February meeting.  I have it designed in my head, so I had better get it drawn out and the samples made

 

I will be back on Friday with my last post of this year, as I am taking a short break over the festive season

Blingtastic!!

Before I show you Nelly and all her bling, I realised that I hadn't shown you the finished Advent calendar.  Here it is hanging on the kitchen door - and there may be one or two little chocolate treats hiding in the pockets

 

so here is the fabulous Nelly, auditioning some beads, and a button for her eye

 

the gold ric rac looks good on her saddle cloths

 

aaaaah - that's better, with her eye and ear stitched in place

 

her ear is only anchored on the left

 

next, I added her ankle chains

 

all this bling is looking good!

 

I decided to add a bit of colour to the sun, using foil

 

a light sprinkling of glue granules over the sun

 

the foil laid over the sun

 

then covered with baking parchment, to protect it while I used the heat of the iron to melt the glue

 

after letting the foil cool, I peeled it off, leaving behind the patches which had stuck to the glue

 

she's looking good!

 

but what's that hanging from the corner?  It is a little handmade silk tassel

 

when I was working on her on Monday, one of the Abbey Quilters, the lovely Lorraine, gave me this bling to add to her

 

there followed some discussion about where to position the dangles - just below her feet

 

over the binding

 

or under the binding

 

under the binding got the thumbs up ....... so here is Nelly all finished, looking fabulous!!

 

a little bit of fun to finish!  They say you should have a varied diet, so that's what we did on Sunday to vary ours ........ instead of sharing two scones, we shared a scone and a mince pie!!

The Sewing Machine Guy

I left home at 9.30 this morning, after having scraped the frost off the car (it was minus 6 degrees) and headed for Kelso.  We were having a special session at Abbey Quilters, as Ian, The Sewing Machine Guy was joining us for the day, to service our sewing machines

 

by lunchtime these ones had been done

 

with these ones waiting patiently in the queue

 

gulp ....... this is my machine in bits!

 

but it wasn't just Ian who spent the day with us.  His wife, Ellen, had brought a selection of goodies from their shop

 

all sorts of loveliness

 

to tempt us into spending our pocket money!

 

we had a very special afternoon cuppa, as the lovely Sadie celebrates a very special birthday tomorrow

 

so instead of a biscuit with our cuppa, we had a choice of two delicious treats (some of us may have had one of each ........)

 

Nelly is now looking totally blingtastic, as you will see on Wednesday

Piling on the bling

On Tuesday morning, I settled down in the studio, with the latest episode of The Quilt Show on the laptop, and got to work on Nelly

 

first, I finished hand stitching the binding on the wrong side, so that she is nicely framed in black

 

then I started stitching beads and sequins in the loops of the fmq, and having got bored with that, did some beading ......

 

to make a fringe on the edge of her cap

 

after that I had a little play with some fabric pens

 

colouring the stamping round the edge of her saddle cloth

 

by the end of the session, I had almost finished adding the beads and sequins in the loops - she's looking good!

 

we had to stay at home yesterday and today,  when normally we would be at the flat, as we had unexpected visitors coming this morning.  Before they arrived, I sneaked out to the studio and disassembled the charity shop necklace

 

there is a good variety of bling to add to Nelly

 

when the post arrived this morning, there was a very interesting package for me

 

all the way from India!

 

whoever had wrapped the package was a bit heavy-handed with the parcel tape, so it took a bit of effort to get it open

 

finally I freed the contents

 

a set of carved Indian stamping blocks

 

which I bought online here

 

I had already got some ink

 

from here, and I am looking forward to having lots of fun stamping!

 

I bought this set last week - which you might find odd, as you know that apart from the Christmas cake, I don't bake

 

but I am hoping to use them as stamps ...... doing the outline in one colour, then doing the bones in another one

 

I love this month's calendar page - you know that I love sheepies!!

 

after the departure of our unexpected visitors, we went out for a walk, then went for a cuppa.  Malcolm had a slice of apple tart - I took the photo before he poured the cream over it

 

my strange looking confection is a meringue Christmas tree!  It consisted of two meringues which were vaguely tree shaped, with chocolate on the inside face, sandwiched together with strawberry cream.  Sounds a bit strange, but it was delicious!!

 

if you didn't see yesterday's post, do scroll on down to it, to read about the big challenge for next year ........ 17 UFOs in 2017.  We'll be heading over to the flat tomorrow morning, then there is great excitement for Monday, when I will be getting my sewing machines serviced!!  I hope you have a great weekend, love Anne

A new challenge

As we neared the end of our 16 in 16 challenge, Meredithe and I had a discussion about a challenge for next year, and as we didn't really want to knit another 17 pairs of socks, we decided to have a sewing challenge.  So we decided on 17 UFOs in 2017.  This is a pile of most some of my UFOs

and this is Meredithe's pile.  As you can see, knitting can be included too ....... and crochet and craft projects, anything you want to work on 

 

we realised that we couldn't say we would actually finish 17 UFOs, especially as several of Meredithe's are major hand quilting projects, so we decided that we would make the effort to achieve significant progress, posting our efforts once a month.  Now, here's the good bit - we would love you to join us!!  So Meredithe wrote the "rules", which you can read below.  Read her post here for her suggestions about how much time to allocate to each project.  I do hope you will join in the fun ....... and if you don't have as many as 17 UFOs, you can still join in

 

::  You have between now and the beginning of January 2017 to decide on which 17 projects you’d like to nominate for your year’s work, and we will have (hopefully, if I get it right!) a linky party to kick off the year during the first week of January in which you will list your nominated 17.

::  At the end of each month there will be a linky party so we can see what progress has been made.

::  If you don’t have a blog but would like to join in, you can send your progress pics to Anne or myself and we will post them for you.

::  There is a button you can use on your blog which you can get from Meredithe.

::  Projects can be anything you’ve already started (UFO = unfinished object), quilts, knitting, crochet, it’s up to you.

::  It doesn’t mean you can’t start something new or work on a project outside your nominated 17, they just won’t be included in this challenge.

::  This is not a sponsored event, so there are no prizes, just the satisfaction of your achievements!

 

We do hope you will join in the fun, and perhaps by the end of 2017 we will have some lovely finished objects to enjoy, instead of piles of UFOs!!